Unraveling the Mother Knot
Laura Davis—my brilliant writing mentor and best-selling author of six non-fiction books that have been providing resources for wisdom, healing, and self-discovery for more than three decades—is about to release her very first memoir, The Burning Light of Two Stars: A Mother-Daughter Story. This special occasion inspired the two us to offer a free writing workshop on November 6, where Laura will expertly guide participants in an exploration of their own relationships with their mothers with the goal of gaining more perspective and clarity on this most primal of family bonds.
The Burning Light of Two Stars spans the 57-year period from Laura’s birth until her mother’s death and takes many surprising and dramatic twists and turns. As someone who has a complex relationship with my own mother who I am helping to care for, I found the myriad issues explored in Laura’s memoir to be deeply relevant and thought-provoking.
“My mother, Temme, and I were two very intense personalities,” Laura told me. “By the time I entered adolescence and began to become my own person, we were almost always at odds. My mother viewed my all my personal choices as decisions I was making to deliberately hurt her, so there was a lot of friction between us.”
Laura confesses that she was not an easy daughter to raise. “As a teenager, I moved into an ashram and told Temme that she wasn’t my ‘real’ mother, that my real mother was the mother of my guru. Then I quit college three times.” At 23, Laura came out as a lesbian. “That was in 1979, and my mother found it embarrassing and shameful.”
When Laura was 27, her life changed dramatically as long-buried memories of sexual abuse by her maternal grandfather began to surface. Temme was horrified by this revelation and insisted that Laura was lying. Their rift was exacerbated when, at 31, Laura published her first book, The Courage to Heal, a guide for women survivors of sexual abuse, coauthored with Ellen Bass. Their groundbreaking book sold more than 1.5 million copies and was translated into eleven languages, catapulting Laura into the limelight.
Laura’s evolution from 6th grade to present
Laura quickly became a high-profile spokesperson for sexual abuse survivors, appearing on numerous national TV shows, including Oprah. Looking to her for inspiration that healing was possible, women drove hundreds of miles to hear her speak. “I’d become famous overnight for the worst thing that had ever happened to me.”
Temme was devastated that Laura was “spreading lies about our family on national TV.” As Laura explains in her memoir, “All the relatives on my mother’s side of the family lined up against me. I’d been erased—no longer invited to weddings, holidays, bar mitzvahs. I’d gained the world and lost my family.”
Neither Laura nor Temme were willing to back down. They had minimal contact for years, and when they did see each other, the visits were painful and explosive. “I remember one visit when I cried my heart out while holed up in her walk-in closet, cursing those damn nonrefundable airline tickets. I felt trapped in her house, desperate to escape.”
Mother and daughter remained at an impasse for years, but things started to shift when Laura was 35 and pregnant with her first child. “The baby growing inside me, more than anything else, motivated both my mother and I to commit to working on our relationship. We both wanted her to be a grandmother to my child. So instead of trying to convince each other that we were right, we ‘agreed to disagree.’”
During this time, Temme was living in New Jersey, 3,000 miles from Laura’s home in California. “It’s no coincidence that I lived so far away. I needed to establish a life separate from my mother.” But when Laura’s son Eli was a few years old, Temme began coming to California for a few months every winter, renting a place nearby. “At first I was not at all happy about her winter visits. I didn’t welcome her or lift a finger to help. But gradually we began to do things together that we both particularly enjoyed. In addition to spending time with the baby, we’d go to the movies and the theater together.”
Temme’s evolution from campus queen (circa 1946), as an actress, and at her granddaughter Lizzy’s Bat Mitzvah (2010)
One of the keys to this phase of their reconciliation was consciously choosing to focus on each other’s best qualities. “It had always been much easier for me to fixate on Mom’s negative traits and feel as if those were set in stone. But as I got older, I recognized what an amazing and courageous woman she was, especially for her generation. Born in 1927, she was one of the first women in her circle to face divorce when my father walked out on us. My mother had to figure out how to earn a living, as well as how to deal with me—her angry, shutdown teenage daughter. She didn’t merely cope with all of that, she also earned her master’s degree, traveled the world, and became an actor who of performed in plays for 50 years.”
Temme and Laura in the hospital, May 2014
When Temme was nearing 80, she called Laura to announce that she was permanently moving to Laura’s town to live out the rest of her life. Laura was shocked and scared. “I didn’t really want to be Mom’s caregiver as she aged and died. But I ended up saying ‘yes’ because there was part of me that longed for deeper healing than we had been able to achieve so far.”
The Burning Light of Two Stars explores the period from Temme’s move to California at age 80 until the end of her life. “I wanted to share the rewards and challenges of becoming a caregiver to a mother who had deeply betrayed me in the past, especially as roles changed and the balance of power shifted. Because many people are facing similar challenges, I believe that our story has something important to offer them.”
Laura began writing The Burning Light of Two Stars while her mother was still alive, and finished it after she passed away. The memoir took ten years to complete, and writing it was part of Laura’s healing and grieving process, helping her come to terms with their relationship in a much more insightful and compassionate way.
For an entire decade, Laura was never sure whether she’d publish the book. When I asked what finally motivated her to share it with the world, she told me, “I think all writers have certain core stories that are ours to tell. This is definitely one of mine. I tried to walk away from it multiple times, but it always came back. It was a story that insisted on being told.”
Unraveling the Mother Knot with Words and Stories
Saturday, November 6
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM PDT Writing Workshop
12:00 - 1:00 PM Discussion with Laura and Myra
You are free to attend either or both sessions.
Laura and I are excited to offer this special writing workshop and discussion, “Unraveling the Mother Knot with Words and Stories.” We’ll use words and story to explore the joys, complexities, and challenges of our relationship with our mothers, children, or our experiences related to aging, including:
How writing can help us access memories we might not be able to access any other way
How our relationships with our mothers (and our children) change across the life cycle
Moments when we were able to suddenly see our mother (or children) in a new way
The ways storytelling can evoke emotion, clarity and insight
The power of writing in community
The writing workshop will be followed by a special hour in which Laura will discuss how to use writing as a pathway through grief, uncertainty and change, and share some of the most important lessons she’s learned over the course of her 30-plus year career as an author, pathfinder, and community builder. There will be plenty of time for questions from participants.
Everyone is welcome to attend. You do not need to consider yourself a writer. A notebook, a pen and your willingness are all that is required!
We hope you will join us for this extra-special free event!
Please note: To get the most of this workshop, we highly recommend that you read the first five chapters of Laura’s new memoir, The Burning Light of Two Stars: A Mother-Daughter Story to “prime the pump” and start you thinking about your own parent/child relationships. Access the free chapters and preorder Laura’s book here.
