Windrose Stanback

Reasons why I used to hate my mom.

She would put statues of naked goddesses all over our house.
She would blast Barbara Streisand and sing along at the top of her lungs.
She would talk to strangers.
She would walk around the house naked… all the time.
She would volunteer at my school.
She would smoke pot in the bathroom.
She would wear obnoxiously colorful spandex pants and
flowing scarves to parent-teacher conferences.
She would wear obnoxiously colorful spandex pants and
flowing scarves everywhere.
She would take us to the beach without having shaved her legs
in months… or years.
She would pack my lunch for school with bread that looked like tree bark.
She would practice “audible breathing” aka
making loud orgasmic sounds as she exhaled.
She would make me watch old musicals and black & white movies with her.
She would listen to spiritual self-help tapes in the car.
She would go to an animal psychic if our cats seemed sad.
She would always tell people about how my placenta fertilized
a pomegranate tree in Hawai’i after I was born.
She would find discarded furniture on the side of the road and
take it home with her.
She would call the vagina a “yoni.”
She would constantly remind me about how I came from her “yoni.”
She would bust into yoga posses, anywhere, anytime.
She would have loud sex.
She would stay up all night painting, and then she would sleep till noon.
She would not wear a bra. Ever.
She would place motivational post-it notes all over the house.
She would be an hour late picking me up from elementary school
because her “spiritual healing” session ran over.

She named me Inana Windrose Stanback-Kaua’i.
God I love that woman.