BY SAM JENKINS
Actress Marcia Gay Harden pays homage to the power and beauty of motherhood in a new, intimate memoir about her mom
MARCIA GAY HARDEN is famous for playing strong, resourceful women — including Dr. Leanne Rorish on the hit CBS medical drama Code Black. For this television role, and her many others in lm and theater, the actress has looked to her mother, Beverly Harden, for inspiration. “I can’t help but bring my mom into everything I do,” says Harden. “In The Spit Fire Grill, my character, Shelby, at first didn’t have a voice. But during the course of the movie she develops one. I thought of my mom, standing up for her own ideas.”
Harden’s latest project pays homage to Beverly on the page. In The Seasons of My Mother: A Memoir of Love, Family, and Flowers (Simon & Schuster), the first-time author details her expat childhood and rise in Hollywood. She weaves in memories of Beverly, a beloved wife for 46 years and renowned practitioner of ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging. In doing so, the Oscar and Tony winner honors Beverly’s legacy and sheds light on her battle with Alzheimer’s. “I wanted this to be about Mom’s joy and light and beauty,” says Harden, who splits time between California and New York with her three children. Here, she reflects on their powerful bond.
You are a beautiful writer. Is writing a lifelong passion?
This is my first attempt. It took me about three years to finish the book, but in terms of actual writing, about a year. There was downtime in between where I would either get very busy, or very discouraged, because this was a depressing topic. This began as a how-to calendar book with my mother, where we would present one beautiful flower arrangement and a memory of something from our past. And then it shifted because of her Alzheimer’s. It’s the reason she’s not a co-author.
Your father’s job as a naval captain took you to Japan, Greece, and all over the United States. How did travel shape you and your mother?
It’s difficult to articulate how immersion in another culture shapes you, but it’s the difference between walking around with your eyes fully open or half open. It excites every sense. Travel was something my mother always loved. For her, the Japanese experience gave her a creative voice.
What is your fondest memory of her there?
Visiting with my mom at the Japanese school where she taught English, and seeing her in a professional light. I remember being amazed by the respect that others gave her. In Japan, she reminded me of a brunette Catherine Deneuve. The fact that she was on her own most of the time, bringing up kids, working, and traveling, was incredible. She would never have seen herself as a pioneer woman. But in truth, her actions and accomplishments were all about forg- ing new paths and showing her four daughters and one son this “can do” spirit, which we all inherited. Teach- ing her children ethics and morals— things that she had a fairly clear code of, growing up as a Dallas girl—these things were always important.
Loneliness and loss are also key themes in the book.
The loss of an early friendship, my father’s early death, the loss of my brother’s children, my divorce, the loss of my mother to Alzheimer’s: It all feels like life’s betrayal. You normally think, This happens to other people, not to me. You suddenly go, We’re a statistic. But we’re a part of the universal human experience. Every day we have a choice: We are either a victim or a warrior. Mom for me was a warrior, how she moved forward, how she always found joy.
Alzheimer’s disease affects more than 5 million Americans of all ages. What advice would you give to a family who has just received this diffcult diagnosis?
Research, research, research. Begin the conversation. With my own kids, they don’t want to have to sort through the beautiful memories and the detritus and the tokens of my life and make a decision about what is important. The maintenance of life is one of the most boring, tedious things in the world to do. On some level, we always say wait until tomorrow, but there’s no time like now to make sure that things are in order.
“She would never have seen herself as a pioneer woman. But in truth, her actions and accomplishments were all about forging new paths and showing her four daughters and one son this ‘can do’ spirit.”
What else are you currently working on?
I’m trying to move into producing, and that’s exciting. Writing a book is something I never thought I’d do. But sitting down and doing it, it made me realize we really can do anything we want to.
