2002-03-29 - 11:43 p.m.
From birth I was destined to be my mother's daughter. The little nose, my fiery temper, the wild hair. I was a difficult birth, a breech baby. I could've killed her, quite literally.
I have no memory of my first years with her. She was almost a stranger to me, like how most fathers are to their children. She worked hard, and went out when she wasn't working. I spent christmas eves and saturday nights alone at home with the dog. I still hate christmas carols. They always make me feel like crying.
I have been trying to gather my childhood memories. I remember dad peeling the skin off thompson grapes and slicing them into halves. He would put them into my red plastic bowl. We used to sneak the puppies into my bag when we went shopping. Dad told me on my 21st that I'd always be 9. He hated all my boyfriends. I teased him, sang with him, missed him, walked hand in hand with him.
I remember mum screaming at me and throwing me out of the house. She had a migraine and I felt like I hated her then. She still has those migraines. Except these days I leave the house before she screams.
I often feel that my memories of her are unjust. I wish there were fonder, fuzzier snapshots. Because over the years I became too big to hold dad's hand and lie on his belly. And in this time I've understood much more about my parents' relationship(s).
Mum has downturned lips, and dad has kind eyes. She has a strong heart, and he, a weak will. She was fiesty, a fighter, drank only whisky on the rocks, a legendary cook, a workplace bully, wore Issey Miyake, the disciplinarian. He was a musician, the family's toughest critic, a dreamer, a charmer, the traveller.
This is not a high school paper about the most important person in my life. Back then, I felt compelled by peer pressure to write about my mother. I wasn't convinced about the authencity of my words, but hell, if that's what gave me an A. They should have just titled the paper 'My Mother'.
It's amazing what you learn in 10 years. What three years of gender studies and feminism pry open your eyes to. I promised mum diamond earstuds with my first paycheck. There are a lot more things I want to do for her now.
wind back - release