and suddenly, your memory...

.

when he shaved your head in the kitchen, i could only watch the first pass of the clippers, mama.



afterward, you stood and walked to the bathroom...

i've told this story before...

you came out wearing dramatic, dark eye shadow and smiling.

you sat down next to me on the couch and i knew i should mimic you.

i was smiling too.

i said, "mama, you look like annie lennox!"

i wanted to cry so bad.

in my head, she sang, "some things are better left unsaid, but they still turn me inside-out..."

like us smiling, mama, instead of crying

instead of yelling

because we both knew, right then, that you were dying

and i was putting on a brave face

just like you, mama.



just like you.




i get so mad at you sometimes for taking off and dying the way you did.

your little girl and i still need you.  us, and your boy too.

the men you chose have added up to nothing. neither one has been a father.  neither has been an umbrella.  neither has even been a friend.


i put on annie lennox and think of your big lips, mama.  i think of you smiling.

i wish you were here tonight to push my hair back from my forehead and tell me it's okay to feel afraid.

i'm getting ready to make some really big changes, some really big decisions.  i wish i could talk to you about them.  i wish i could hold your hand.

i wish you were here...

because maybe i wouldn't feel 14 years old at 34.  maybe i'd feel a bit more solid in this world and in this body.  maybe i wouldn't feel so thrown by glances and sighs...

i don't want to be as insecure as i am.

i don't want to be as insecure as you were.

i don't want to give up as easily as you did.

i want to love me more than you ever did, mama.

and that's the plain truth.



i want to love me more than you ever could and i want to love you as a woman, not as my mother.


i want to love you like i love me.



if you were here, i'd hug you so hard and we'd laugh so hard and i wouldn't be awake at midnight listening to annie lennox and writing things like this.

i pretended to hold your hand

.

at the edge of the world with my jeans rolled to the knee, i thought of you as i walked along that cold, beautiful line of surf and sand.  i looked out across the expanse of the pacific to where the water meets the sky and thought of Germany, thought of you; your young, bright self bouncing across cobblestone and drinking beer.  i played the morrissey song "everyday is like sunday" over and over again as i walked from the pier to the cliffs.  i smiled against the wind and thought, "where'd you get off to, woman?  you should be here."

and then a week later, a box arrives at my front door.  i look at the return address and see its from my ex-stepfather.  i push the box against the wall in the kitchen and walk away.  i knew what the box contained...  something i've been waiting for for well over a year, something i cried over the last time i held it in my hands the day after you died:  the photo album of your high school graduation, mama, your days as a young GI in Hannover, and the early days of your marriage to my father.

i went to my room with a cup of coffee and wrote for awhile but the gravity of your arrival pulled me back to the kitchen.  i grabbed a knife out of the drawer and cut the packing tape in a clean, careful slice.  i needed to know if this treasure had truly arrived, if i'd finally received something i've been waiting for for so long.  i folded back the edge of the cardboard box and brushed away foam peanuts to find your painting and another small box.  i lifted the small box out, set it on the kitchen table, and looked inside.

i couldn't look for long before i felt the sting of tears in my eyes and throat.  i bore the pain dryly, just long enough to photograph my treasure and to pay honor to the arrival of such a beloved and long-awaited piece of my disheveled family history.

young and fresh and beautiful at 19 years old, that's my mama on the lower right.

such a beauty.

where'd you get off to, woman?  you should be here.



.

...a soldier to my own emptiness...

.

 

okay, so i didn't buy a red dress, i bought a blue dress. :)

red is so specific.  i was looking for a fire engine red dress but the closest thing i found was some crazy shade of coral which, though i like the color, was made of such cheap knit that it unmistakably showcased my unmentionables.  and hey, i admit to being okay with looking a little slutty but this wasn't in that good way.  and the only other "red" dress around was maroon.  maroon is categorically NOT RED.  but i was there and eager to shop; excited for my trip and feeling spunky.  this is, in fact, the grand side-effect of The Kelly Bundy Dress.  as well as having two plane tickets, a train ticket, and a concert ticket in my hot little hand.  5 more days!!!!!  AHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!  and so amidst the Beyonce that blared from the store's stereo system and the excitement in my own heart and mind, i decided turquoise was the next best thing to red so here we are-  packed and ready for adventure, a devil with a blue dress on. 

i'm gonna see this wide world, mama.  

sure the fuck am.  :)

leave nothing on these streets to explore.

i have never felt so happy in my entire life.


.

happy mother's day

.

Meine Mutter and ich. 

hard season

.

yep.

i need to go back out to tennessee soon. i miss my mama. i don't think a person ever really grows out of that if you have a good one. i sure do love that woman somethin' sparkling and heavy. with all my heart.