My Name Is Fiona

My name is Fiona, and I have a mother.

Most people do.

But my mother is famous.  
She’s an artist. 
Modern art.  
The stuff people either really love or really hate.

More hate than love--most of the time.

But my mother is cool.  
She’s chic.  
She’s a celebrity--of sorts.

My mother has been married to movie stars.  
Stars you would know. 
Stars who would--impress you.

My mother has also had affairs with numerous 
politicians, musicians, poets, billionaires, chefs,
 men and women, the old and the young, 
the notorious and the notable.  Legends. 
Icons. Iconoclasts. She’s bedded the best 
of them.

Those are the people she spends time with--
the people she’s dating, the people she’s married
 to, the people she wants to be married to, the
 people she works with--although there aren’t
 many of those.

And in terms of how much time I, her daughter, 
spend with her, uh, well--

In my entire adult life, or, or, or, from the
 age of let’s say--let’s say twelve to--to now, 
I’ve spent maybe, uh, a sum total of, three weeks?  
With my mother?

About twenty-one days, scattered 
over all these years?

Yes, that sounds about right.

So when I overhear people whisper at a party
‘Do you know who her mother is?’ 
my gut reaction is that I should walk
 over to them and say ‘Yes, do you 
know who my mother is?’

My mother is a series of nannies 
I had growing up.  My mother is my 
father’s third wife, who I grew very close to.  
My mother is my mother-in-law, a loud Greek
 woman who cooks for me and once sat next
 to my bed for three straight days when I was 
sick with the flu, refusing to let her daughter, 
my partner, anywhere near me, because she 
didn’t want her to get sick as well.

My mother is not my mother.

And I’m not judging her. 
 I’m not judging her for being a better artist
 than she was a mother.  She tried. 
 I know how hard she tried. 
This isn’t a condemnation of her.

For the record, I do not have my mother’s last name.

I have my father’s last name.  
My father being a political activist
 who disappeared in Sri Lanka a few 
months after I was born, never to be 
seen again.

I have never used my mother’s last name.

I have never offered that information up to anyone
There are maybe four photos of us together
 from when I was younger--one nose job
 and three hair colors ago.

But people find out.

Somehow people always find out.

And I won’t deny it.
I won’t deny that she’s my mother.

And then it becomes--

She’s using it.
She’s using her mother to get ahead.

It’s…

People use sex to get ahead.
They use how they look.
They use who they golf with.
They use who their parents golf with.
They use who their spouses are.
Who they’re dating.
Who their second cousin is married to.

They use who they went to school with.
They use who their neighbor is.
Who owes them a favor.

They use proximity to others--flimsy proximity.
And they use secrets
And threats

People do a lot to get ahead.
But somehow
If you use who your parents are--

It’s a different situation.

It’s--wrong.

At that point
No matter what you produce
It is ineffectual
Because of why
You were allowed
To produce it.

Liza Minnelli once complained
 about being given opportunities
 because her mother was 
Judy Garland.

Allegedly, Garland, her mother,
 told her--

It doesn’t matter how you get 
through the door, it matters
what you do once you’re in the room.

And that’s a lovely sentiment.

But the truth is, no matter what 
you do once you’re in the room,
 the people outside in the hall are
 never going to let you forget how
 you got through the door.

But, while we’re on the subject--

What did I do once I was in the room?

Uh.

I guess--

So I guess we could go into--

Am I good artist?

I’m all right.
I’m not bad.

At least I don’t think so.

But it’s art.
It’s a matter of opinion.

Right?

But I think I can confidently
 say that there are worse artists 
than me who have better careers 
than I do, and there are better artists
 than me who never made it past 
the door.

Now, did I take the spot of one of those
 better artists or did one of those lesser
 artists I spoke of who are even more 
successful than I am?

And is that even a thing?

Taking somebody’s spot?

Is that real?
Is that fair?
Is that a way to judge...something?

And if you can judge me for who my mother is, 
does that mean you also judge Michael Douglas
 and Angelina Jolie and Ben Stiller and Melanie
 Griffith and Meryl Streep’s two daughters and 
Kate Hudson and Keifer Sutherland and every
 single fucking Kennedy?

I am not the person who determines what’s true
 and what isn’t.  I always felt that it was my job
 as an artist to try and fail to capture the truth,
 and that the art lies in the failure.

But it seems to me the truth is that if any of us
 could look at any person who’s accomplished
 something in their life and say something to 
them without them knowing we said it--

If every one of us walked around with a box that
 people could anonymous drop messages into,
 I truly believe that most-if-not-all of the messages
 would say the same thing:

You don’t deserve it.

Lately when I look at the hate being spewed all 
over the place--online or on television or in the 
political arena--okay, let’s not get too lofty here,
 but you know what I mean.

It’s all this feeling of--

You--you who don’t deserve the thing
 you have--you don’t deserve it.

And people will say or indicate or insinuate that
 you don’t deserve it in all kinds of ways, but 
what they really mean is--

You don’t deserve it because I do.

And those--those should be two different things, right?

You don’t deserve it.
I deserve it.

But people--

People think they’re connected.

They think they’re in communication
with each other, and that--

That I can’t--

Sorry, this became a bit of a rant, didn’t it?

It’s a statement, and that’s not okay.

This is theater.

This is me speaking--doing a monologue
--and a monologue should be a story, and I haven’t--

I haven’t told you a story, have I?

So--

So do I have a story?

Do I have a story that illustrates my point?
Or that endears me to you?

That shows that in addition to benefiting from
 my mother being who she is, I’ve also suffered
 because of it.

A story...

Okay.

When I first got to college, my professor found
 out who my mother was, and, because he 
wasn’t a fan of my mother, he proceeded to
 humiliate and degrade me and my work for
 weeks until I transferred to another school.

He would invoke my mother’s name while
 he was mocking me.  He would tell me all about
 the flaws in her work and how my work was
 showing the same signs of weakness. 
 The same flaws.

The first day of class, when he asked me
 if I was my mother’s daughter, I said ‘Yes’ 
and I made the mistake of feeling proud.

Of feeling proud to be her daughter.

This woman who had accomplished so 
much and overcome so many obstacles
--obstacles I’m not going to tell you about, 
because you can look them up for yourselves, 
but--yes, I felt pride.  And I still feel pride. 
 In where I came from. In who I am. Because
 that’s all wrapped up in your parents, isn’t it? 
 In who your mother is?

Especially when you’re eighteen-year-old
 college freshman who’s working two jobs
 to put herself through school so that nobody 
can ever accuse her of being a spoiled little
 rich girl.

You take pride wherever you can get it.

And then somebody sees that pride, they notice it, and they--

They destroy it.

They destroy you in the hope that it will somehow destroy else.

My mother is cool.  She is chic. 
She is, like most famous people, 
untouchable.

You can’t destroy my mother.

But many people would like to.

And so the best they can do is destroy me.

When I called my mother to tell her what 
was going on with my professor, 
she didn’t get angry.

She didn’t call the school.

She didn’t demand that he be fired.

She just let out a sigh and said, ‘Well, kid, that’s how it goes.’

And I thought--

That’s how it goes for you.

But you’re you.

I’m not you.

I’m not you.

I’m not you.

But I didn’t say that.

To be honest, I don’t remember what I said.