By sarah dragonfleyes@excite.com
Date: 7 November 2000
part II philosophy of a mother
I lived with a mother who took me to church every Sunday. But then on every other day of the week decided to sleep with every man imaginable. My first memory of my mother is waking one night when I was four years old, and trying to get into her bedroom. I found that the door was locked, she was in the other room with one of her men. I pounded on the door, and cried, but she didn’t let me in. The door had a brass knob on it that reflected my crying image upside down. I remember that door, I remember my screaming red face, and I remember that it never turned. The majority of my childhood was spent alone, or with my brother. My mother was either out with her men, or else working. We were left to our own devices. Then on weekends, we were left to the will of God.
I would try to stay awake in church on Sundays. I would let my eyes wander around the huge ceiling of the church, where the edges were drawn in gold, and the cherubic faces lacked bodies. There was always a big man up front with white hair, who would talk in loud tones that were not reserved for conversation. I was told that he was a pastor, and that he knew what he was talking about. I never felt happy. It made me feel tired and withdrawn, but then we had to shake his hand when we walked out, and smile. Then we went and had donuts downstairs, to learn more about the will of God. I fell asleep.
I lived in a house that had a half door leading into the kitchen, very gate like. The houses in the neighborhood were no more then two feet apart, you could reach your arms out and touch your neighbor if you wanted too. I never did. We had an old piano sitting in the front room, with its ivory keys worn off in spots; the others were yellowed with age. Out of tune, but my mother would play it, and teach other kids how to play it. One time a man gave her roses for teaching his child. She later slept with him and said she would marry him. He killed himself seven years later. It wasn’t her fault, but she thinks it was. My mother wasn’t happy. I don’t think any of us were. So we went to church, I didn’t know any better.
I learned to retreat from things. I began to read and write, and make up games with my brother. We didn’t hang out with the other neighborhood kids much. We didn’t have money, and neither did they, but for some reason we weren’t like them, we weren’t like anybody. I had a sad mother who cried and screamed out questions of “why, why did this happen”. I never had answers for her; I never knew the whys. The big why shaped hole in the universe that I couldn’t fill. I thought it was my fault that she wasn’t happy. That those tears she was crying were for me, because I was there. That if I was there I could catch them, touch them, find answers in them. Then I would cry, and ask my own whys. No one was there to catch my tears though.
I grew up quickly. I grew up quietly. No loud noise, any screaming children. I grew up in the solitude of books, and of my pens and my paper. I grew up in words. I was raised on my words, and they brought me to where I am. If there is one passion in my life it’s writing. I could never do without it. I would lose everything if I couldn’t write. I gave up religion. I gave up the hope that there was a greater being who would help make things better, because he never did. My mother is still alive, and she stills fools herself thinking her life is happy now that she is remarried. She is a wonderful woman and I understand her more now than I ever did when I was younger, and she no longer cries. She has grown silent. I’m happy now though. I found a voice outside of the written word; I found somewhere that I want to go. I’m determined to follow it through.
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