I must have been in my late 20s when my mom and I started playing Scrabble together. Even though I fancied myself a wordsmith and trafficked in language for a living, I was a listless and half-hearted player, intimidated by my mom’s skill. To distance myself from the possibility I might not do well, I mocked the game. Goofy little tiles and point scoring: I called it stodgy, old person-ish and nerdy.
My mom was in another camp. She relished the game, was an ace player and clearly enjoyed the mental iron pumping it gave her brain. She practiced by playing alone, her tattered “Official Scrabble Dictionary” beside her like a vigilant pet, her game board scuffed and stained with watery brown circles from the bottoms of her coffee cups. Her scores averaged in the high hundreds, and she memorized the list of two-letter words that none but Scrabble players deploy (xu, fa, qi, ka). When we played back then, Mom chided me for choosing to make words that pleased me rather than antiseptic words that racked up higher points from their strategic placement on the board. I adored her and welcomed her company and attention.
Even though I was a terrible and directionless player, I relished the time it afforded me alone with my mother. We huddled over the game board with its contained and low-stakes competition, the tinkly sound of the wooden letters in the bag, the space for small talk and large talk, the clear roles of master and apprentice. The more I played with my mom, the more I watched her ways, practiced her moves, made them my own. As the years went on, my prowess grew, our matches intensified, and I occasionally beat her, which surprised us both.
Now it’s 25 years later. My friend Julie says my fondness for Scrabble borders on an obsession; I prefer to think of it as one of my food groups. I play online in the mornings as I savor my cup of coffee, dropping in on about 10 games at a time, rattling through word options, trying them out for full point potency and relishing the evolution of Scrabble into a full-contact sport. Plus, sometimes I am pretty damn good.
A few years ago I began not just occasionally beating my mother, but besting her frequently and puzzling over a discomfort that some of us come to feel as children who have grown up and surpassed the skill of a parent. As I began beating her, I became self-conscious and flooded with questions: Do I continue to play at my highest level? Do I hold back so that my mother can win? Was it wrong to beat my mom in something she taught me to do? I was in a swamp, unsure how to get unstuck, unsure what I was stuck in.
The more I thought it through, the more I saw my discomfort not as wondering whether I should hold back from beating her, but struggling with how I see her. Wanting to let my mother win felt as if I were taking care of my own feelings of discomfort, not taking care of hers, so I could not pretend I was being all evolved and loving in the name of doing something for my mom.
So what was I so uncomfortable about? I figured out it was my child inside and my grown up inside both wanting different things at the same time. My grown up inside felt as if I had stopped seeing my mother as a person who wins and loses as all people do from time to time. My child inside was clinging to seeing my mother as an idol, as a mythic figure that I had created, impenetrable with a perfection that I had assigned to her. So they arm wrestled for a while. And then my grown up and my child worked out a deal.
My child chooses to remember the time when my mom was my idol and to see her that way in that time. My grown up has helped my child lovingly tuck that memory into a warm box, choosing instead to see my mother as a person. A gorgeously gifted and flawed person. A person of depth and passion who has taught me about Scrabble, about myself, about the world.
My mom and I still play Scrabble. Sometimes she plays better than I do. Sometimes my score is higher than hers. But we always win, both of us, every time we play.
