⚡ February 20, 2018
Holly Day! 🎋
I haven’t seen my daughter in a while and she is coming for a visit today! She lives on the opposite coast, and even though we’re in almost constant electronic touch, it’s not the same. When she was the age in the photo, she liked to give everyone a kiss, so we turned her toward her Mom-Mom’s mirror and she gave herself a kiss and her Pop Pop snapped a photo.
I’ve dusted and vacuumed a bit and now I will tidy up the laundry pile. It’s silly, I know, but I am nervous. Soon I will put some curls in my hair because that’s what I do when under stress. People with curly hair have it made.
I am a walking blueprint for her, and it’s a heavy thought. Weirdly, I never thought I saw my future in my mother, but somehow, I’ve become her, down to her most excellent dauber and magnifying glass on a stand. Her fine paint strokes are all over the metal base and glass frame.
Funny story: my son grabbed the dauber when he saw it in her workbench drawer after she died. My siblings and I were going through the house in shock and denial … we were brought up to share and take a back seat and be polite, but David knew what was going to come since he’d done many clean-outs at that point in his life. He kept it in his own drawer for a long time and gave it to me a few years ago when it was time. My mother’s tools feel natural in my hand.
Now, both of my children are artists, through and through. It’s what I always wanted to be, but my factory-worker, hardware-store saleslady, postal-clerk, and Pathmark cashier Mom didn’t approve. Unless you were punching a time-card into an official clock both coming and going, starting and stopping, you weren’t working.
And now both kids are going to be together with me and Bill, and it’s just too too exciting to contemplate. Kissing a real person is so much nicer than kissing a photo or a mirror. 🐔