Driving home. I sleep, curled up on the pillow I made my parents bring. Sometimes my eyes open and I listen to the post-trip chitter chatter and sometimes I doze. My dreams are scattered and hazy in the best way possible.
The view from the window is lovely. Rolling hills and sheep.
Reeling slightly from the unexpected (expected) loss of something that was never yours
Writing in my mother’s room in a completely empty house at 3 am. When I’m alone, I curl up on her bed to write and listen to Past Lives. They can never hold us down, I believe in it firmly.
Her blankets are yellow, her sheets have little lemons on them. I talk to her in my head on those nights. Mama, you’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.
Fuchsia colored roses sit on the counter. She confessed to stealing them from the neighbors and I took a picture of her with the vibrant petals in the background, and I didn’t even make her pose because it was just so her. So my mother.
Something the old man told me in Spain was that nothing is ever really yours. It's only entrusted to your care for a short time. And nothing is ever lost. It's re arranged in a different getup and it's up to you to find it. It was the epitome of teenage girlhood. Singing my heart out to songs on the radio and writing thoughts down haphazardly in a chaotic word document. Dog scratching at the door. The poppies had finally sprouted in the short week that I was gone. It was like a mischievous, good-natured artist had dabbed bits of a fiery red onto the billowing fields with his brush. I looked out the window and they twinkled at me under the sun.
My eyelids drooped and I cried out will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?
A fresh bruise was blooming on my knuckles from where I slammed it against the window grills that morning. One hand typed and the other rubbed my itching face. Was it hay fever season? I’d never had allergies before. In any case, it was worth the incessant sneezing to see the blooming flowers and my mother as she skipped through the greenery to collect them.
This is me at my best, old man. I'm hungry and I've got bags under my eyes, but I'm ecstatic. The breeze is blowing, my fingers are scribbling words in old notebooks. I cry at nights and I break hearts, but I apologize and we make up. Nobody is left alone.
For the first time ever, I realized I missed the house. I missed the stupid, pretty window grills and the sea green kitchen cupboards and the thorny roses. I missed the oddly sized rooms and the views of the mountains. I missed even the way the bathroom door key was sticky and I had to bang it shut to shower in peace. How am I supposed to leave this place?
Dear God, let me love everywhere and let me be in love with everything. Let me prance through this world happy with it all.
And God, please God, make everyone I know happy too. Make them see the things in ways that leave them peaceful and satisfied. My finger is swollen and I can barely type, but you know. You know…
Mothers are a secret we’ll never really understand. Maybe when I become a mother myself, maybe when I’m old and gray and she is long gone, I’ll look back and say, ahh, that’s why. But until then, she’s an enigma and all I can do is watch from afar and fume, and admire.
My mother is home. I walk away in anger and come crawling back every time. I beg her, unashamed, to take care of me again, to forgive me, and I tell her over and over, I love you, I love you, I love you. Don’t leave me, I love you.
She doesn’t leave me. When she finally does, I think a part of me will die with her. A part of this thing we call home will leave alongside her and I’ll have to sit and re-define what that means.
I think that I’m going to dry rose petals between my books tomorrow. Maybe I’ll get to preserve these days inside the pages of her favorite novel and years later I’ll discover it in a box in an attic and try to breathe in the scent of good memories past.
For now, I put the freshly cut stalks into mugs of water and listen to my mom pitter patter around the garden. Even the birds love her.
Oh, how can I ever leave this place?
Note: for mother’s day, I stopped at my favorite flower shop. I stared at the tulips, the cut stems. They were beautiful, but they were dead (dying). I walked on and saw a man on the street. For mother, I said. He sold me a peach colored little rose bush for seven dollars. She carried it home.
Incredibly vivid piece, Greek Salad, it felt like a pure sensory haven. Beautiful!🌹✨