Status Updates From Leaving Mother Lake: A Girl...

In Grandmother’s village, every family had at least one yak, and yaks were very expensive. We say that if someone loses a chicken, she will cry for half a day, but if she loses a yak, she will cry until she gets a new yak.

…short of committing a crime such as stealing, nothing is more dishonorable than a loud argument or a lack of generosity.

I untied and retied my little bundle, where my mother had put a cape and a blanket woven from coarse yak wool, a cotton towel to wash my face, some of my sister’s old clothes, and the stalk of an opium poppy in case I got a stomachache or a headache. “Remember that you have to boil it first,” Ama had said. “You can’t just chew on it.”

In the mood for a memoir and really enjoying the descriptions of this matrilineal society and cultural tidbits.

“My mother doesn’t remember when I was born. She does not remember the year or the month or the day. All she knows, she tells me, is that I cried too much. ‘From the moment you were born, you were trouble.’