Writing Lessons I Learned At My Grandmother's Knee

When I was a child I was always at my maternal grandmother's knee, who was affectionately called Mama. Every weekend for as long as I could remember until Mama passed away, my mother, sister, and I would pack a weekend bag, kiss my father goodbye, and go stay with Mama in her apartment which was over a laundromat in Bedford Stuyvesant Brooklyn. It was the apartment she moved into after leaving New Jersey, and where she would later raise five children as a young widow. 

We'd arrive at Mama's in a yellow taxi cab most times and other times we'd take the bus that dropped us off a block away. Delicious aroma's from something she was cooking always greeted us in the stairwell before she unlocked the front door. And when she opened it, her salt and pepper hair in pin curls, her arms would open wide to give us the tightest hugs, as if she hadn't seen us in a while even though she'd just seen us the weekend before.

"What you writing about now?" Mama would ask me when I unpacked my writing notebook along with my clothes to put in an empty drawer she had cleared out.

I'd show her whatever had filled the pages of my writing notebook. She'd smile proudly. At that age I wrote mainly stories about cats, but when she nodded her head in approval it made me feel like I was a writing prodigy.

It was at Mama's knee that I learned an abundance of lessons that inspired me as a writer and infused my writing. Lessons about life, love, family, food, faith, and determination.

At Mama's knee I learned about my history; the painful part and the joyous, proud hopeful part. She was a living history book. Her lessons inspired me to write and speak about our history not just with my own ethnicity, but others so that they too would know those parts about us. The history she spoke into me fortified my storytelling.

At Mama's knee I learned about faith, never giving up on my dreams no matter the challenges. That has helped me press on as a writer when facing rejections or writer's block. 

At Mama's knee I gained wisdom. She had a sage saying for anything and everything, that lifted me up, humored me, and taught me. My female characters often repeat her sayings in their narratives, a favorite one being, "This too shall pass." 

At Mama's knee I learned the importance of traditions; the loving act and art of preparing meals that were food for your soul, the sacredness of family and friends gathering around the table, and other cultural traditions. Her traditions bonded us as a family, and I frequently recreate them with detailed imagery in the fiction stories I write. 

Mama indeed was a gem. Just as it was with my late mother and paternal grandmother, I cannot write stories without a huge part of Mama's molasses sweet spirit and nuances being in it.

What fond lessons did you learn from your elders whose knees you sat at as a child, and how has that inspired you as a writer? I hope you share a few of those lessons in this post.

...Jeanine

Jeanine DeHoney's writing has been published in several magazines, anthologies, and online blogs. her fiction stories are always "full" of the voices of the women who loved and nurtured her.