18 September 2013

Some mornings start like this. I look into the bathroom mirror and I see my mother. I grin, I smile, I move my fringe from left to right and back again. I bare my teeth, turn my head this way and that and still she stares at me. How dare she. 
Of the three of us, I am the one resembling her the most. I know I could play her in the movie version of her miserable life. 
And then of course, I look in the mirror and I see my age. Things are getting worse. Oh theoretically, I am all for aging, for women showing their true beautiful age and all that crap. But still. I fake it mostly. I race up stairs, hurtle through the rainy forest on my bicycle, dance in my kitchen (on good days), dress up in faded jeans, suede boots, ethnic scarves, chunky silver rings, whatever it takes (and whatever I can manage) but no matter what, my mother looks on, she sits there inside my bones somewhere. I can hear her condescending little tsk tsk noises ringing through me.


4 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

Perfectly true and a lovely bit of writing.

Fire Bird said...

I know, I have a mother ghost in me too. Inescapable.

'All women become like their mothers, that is their tragedy. No man does, that is his' Oscar Wilde

Ellena said...

....and then my brother and wife come to visit. Makes me happy - we go and sit under trees in the woods and I see them whispering to each other as they look at me. I know what my brother said and wish I had the guts to hit back at him by saying that he looks like his
father.
She did so much for us so what is this all about?

beth coyote said...

This made me cry. You nailed it.