You said,
“Don’t take it personally,” when you made the remark about me being crazy
and just a dreamer. I’m amazed that you give yourself so much credit - as
if I might care anymore. How could I have possibly taken anything you said
or did personally? You don’t live in my skin; you don’t see the world
through my eyes. You never did. I shouldn’t be so hard on you. I suppose.
I could never see your point of view either, although I tried. I even wanted
to. It would have been so much easier. But, you are not I, and I am not you.
We certainly are not personal - just two people thrown together by fate,
two out of billions. Yes, we have our common interests that stave off the
loneliness and conjure up conversation, but I would hardly call us personal
. I see the world as an astonishing, confusing place, full of revelation
... but there is no point in trying to explain my world to you. You could
no more understand it dm I can grasp yours.
You are my mother, but also, a thing,
an object among other objects, something which possesses a brain allowing
you to move about and speak - at best, share a familiar thought. You say:
“Don’t take it personally." I wouldn’t dare.
Mother, do you remember that summer
when I was twelve? Me standing on the orange carpet that felt like
damp moss because of the humidity but looked perfect in our white trailer,
asking you why I couldn’t cut my hair even though it was down to my ass and
always dirty. After all, the heat in Alabama is almost intolerable
in the summer. You looked at me with your long red hair, pulled in a bun
with loose strands sticking to the sweat on your neck and forehead, with
that look that you get, your lowered brow with that perfectly straight line
in the middle, as if someone had performed some ancient ritual on you at
birth, carving an arrow in your forehead. You said, “Lizzy, you know damn
well it’s a sin for a woman to cut her hair; it just ain’t natural, you don’t
want to look like a man do ya? God didn’t intend a woman to look like
no man, now stop askin’ such stupid questions and go on outside and play.”
So, I wrapped my long dirty blond hair
around in a knot as I went outside to climb the hill of red clay with its
hidden rocks that left scars on my knees and made my bare feet bleed when
my foot would slip. That was the fist time I ever questioned what you had
to say, all your antidotes and ridiculous reasonings that I had listened
to throughout my childhood. That was the first time I questioned you. The
first time I really took notice of the world at all.
Yellow Line, Alabama, people almost
always laugh when I tell them where I am from. They ask, “What the hell kind
of place is that?” I usually just say I can’t really remember, after all
it has been fifteen years since I have set foot in Alabama. But of course,
that’s not true. I remember every single detail about Yellow Line - how the
sign that reads: “Welcome to Yellow Line” boasts about its Indian origins
and how it got its name from the first paved road in town. I can recall so
vividly the smell of pine trees that stood everywhere along with the pollen
and dust that would settle like a blanket on the cars and buildings.
I remember walking past peoples’ houses
and trailers with their open doors and windows listening to their ordinary
conversations .... “ Sonny, don’t ferget to call your mamma to see
if she needs any Avon, and she still has my good gravy bowl I lent her for
your sister’s weddin’.” I remember how proud the whole town was when Jill
Thompson got accepted to Auburn University, and how shocked everyone was
when she came home pregnant six months later.
I especially remember your opinion
on the situation mother. “That’s what she gets for movin’ away from home
and leaving her poor daddy to take care of himself. There he sits all alone
in that big house, can’t see more than four feet in front of him, and she
runs off to Auburn. Now she’s shamed the whole town.”
At least she lived in a house with
a father, not a two bedroom trailer set on stilts and cinder blocks for steps
with spider webs on the inside and a used cable spool for a backyard table.
But that didn’t stop you from passing judgment, the fact that you got knocked
up at sixteen and never made any attempt to educate yourself or better your
children’s lives didn’t stop you from having the last word. It never stopped
you from putting your foot in your mouth either. “Now don’t take this personally
Miss Jill, but I believe we all get what we deserve and if we’re doing right,
right will come by us. Looks to me like you wasn’t doing right.”
My whole world came crashing down that
summer. You had always been my light, my place to go for all the answers,
and then I realized like one of your church revelations that you had never
been right a day in your life. You smothered people; you were smothering
me, trying so hard to put out my fire before it even got a chance to burn.
I told you I wanted more, I wanted
answers. Why are we here? What else is out there? Please don’t
let this be all there is... Slap! “Children of the Lord don’t ask such
questions, children of the Lord accept blessings, they don’t throw them away.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, meaning you are where you are because
that is where you are meant to be. Now don’t take this personally Lizzy,
but you got crazy thoughts running through your head. You’re a dreamer, looking
for something that’s right in front of you. God’s children are given everything
they need, and there you are asking these dumb-ass questions.”
I wasn’t talking about God’s children
mother. I was speaking about yours. You know, I used to go to the library
at school and look at a photograph in an art book of a normal looking girl,
very similar to me, deep green eyes, dark blond hair, lips that are too thin
and sunken-in cheek bones on slightly tanned skinned. The girl in the picture
is sitting at a cafe that is clean, not littered with red clay stains and
cigarette butts. She is wearing a long skirt with a sleek black turtleneck
sweater. I thought that could be me. She wasn’t some beautiful supernatural
being that I could never hope to become; she was just a plain girl, like
me. But yet, you tell me I am crazy for wanting to leave Alabama. I
have everything I need here in your words and the words of your preacher.
You could have been beautiful mother, as a child I thought you were.
I used to look at you with such envy, you were so tall, a good 5’8 with dark
red hair and long thin legs -- you had the complexion of a child, flawless
and young. Every time you smiled I wanted to freeze the moment.
It was like seeing an angel, something filled with only happiness.
But as I got older, I started to see you for who you really were. Maybe you
were right, perhaps I was a dreamer.
I suppose I sound hateful and bitter,
but I tried so hard to see things through your eyes. I wanted so badly
not to be different. I wanted to be content, but I lived in a different
world than you. I don’t know why my soul chose you to be my mother.
I still don’t know the lesson I was supposed to learn, but I can’t linger
any longer.
So, I am letting you go. I am letting
your memory go. I can’t pretend to live in your world any more.
It is a world in which I am completely ignorant and play no role.
You’re an object, a thing, something
that gave me life and spent years robbing it of joy. Hey mom, don’t
take it personally.
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