<![CDATA[STRONG WOMAN, SMALL POTATO

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK

In the summer of 2005, my mother and I headed to Gerson's market. It was (shocker) a sunny morning in South Central Los Angeles. It was also one of my last seminal, vivid outings with her before she died. My family owned grocery stores in the area -- we were grocery people -- so treks to the market were not especially extraordinary. What was extraordinary was my mother's unwavering message that day -- the embedded, pervasive message she broadcast from my cradle to her grave: she was nothing if not consistent.

We were in the produce corner when I reached for a large potato. She was terrified and mortified by my choice. How could I possibly choose a large potato? (And here you should read the actual message that had been lodged into my amygdala and cemented into my bones for the prior half a century: How could I possibly have the gall to reach for a large potato -- much less a large life?)

God forbid I would want butter, sour cream and chives on that potato -- that would be just cause to put me up for adoption. But I was 60, you see, and not a prime candidate for adoption.

This mother-daughter exchange was emblematic of my life narrative: my mother systematically squeezed the life force out of me, one microagression at a time.

Consequently, I became an addict, a depressive, an obsessive and a host of other things. She didn't act alone. My cold-hearted father helped her.

And, yet, I'm here to write about it.

From the time I was in utero till that morning in the market, my mother left me wanting more. Always more. More potatoes, more condiments, more love.

She was a dyed-in-the-wool restrictive, however, so "more" was not in her vocabulary.

Not even when she was pregnant with me -- when she only gained seven pounds in 40 weeks. This was LA, after all.

And so I became ... me.