In the article, “Notes on My Mother, author Hilton Als delves deep into his admiration of his mother and discusses the struggles that came with trying to connect with her. He found that trying to bond through similar experiences was much easier compared to intimate face-to-face interaction since she was a difficult person to connect with. When Als said, “My brother and I didn’t like Barbados. In the summers, we were sent there, with packages of clothes and food as gifts, but we preferred to imagine the island through my mother’s memories of it,” he’s describing how the images and ideas his mother had created in their heads served as better representations compared to the actual reality of Barbados. For instance, when he read the description of the Caribbean Sea he found in the story, “Wingless,” by Jamaica Kincaid, it changed his perception of Barbados and it was further reaffirmed when his mother agreed to that description with no objection. It can be assumed that the reason why Als would keep going to Barbados even though he disliked it is because he used it as a way to connect with his mother. Throughout the article, he explains how difficult it was for him to bond with his mother and due to that, he would do whatever he felt was best and comfortable for him, which can be exemplified at the beginning of the article when he described wearing his mother’s hosiery under his clothes in order to, “try to emulate her forbearance.”

This  leads me to explain the other quotation I chose to analyze. The other quote I wanted to analyze was when Als stated, “I avoided explaining that when I sat in parked cars with one man and then another, I felt closer to her experience of the world than I ever did in her actual presence.” Here, he’s discussing how growing up as an “auntie man” had enabled him to resemble his mother’s experiences which in turn allowed him to become more connected to her. In this particular instance, he even states that during the time he spent with those men he seduced, he, “felt closer to her experience of the world than [he] ever did in her actual presence.” Throughout this article, Als is essentially describing how the only times he felt connected to his mother was when he was experiencing his own life. As an auntie man, he would try to emulate his mother’s experiences to try and forge a stronger bond with her since trying to do so in person was much more difficult, as Als describes.