(no subject)
This is what parents with mid-life existentialist angst do, I thought. That was the only tangible reason I let myself buy into. I drove my mom each Wednesday to see a woman with a second rate law degree hand her papers to sign, ate lunches where the topic of discussion was always the exhilarating liberation she felt about how America no longer legally acknowledged her marriage. I did it all, packed her boxes, build her furniture, help with the down payment on the apartment, too self-absorbed and eager as she was to never look back because it would tear us both apart. What happened, happened. A passive-ass cliché I grasped on to because it was the way a young man shy of 20 was supposed to react when his parents split.
It wasn't until my last days at home, already half-moved into my L.A. apartment. My father, wifeless, lifeless, brushing lacquer on all the wooden surfaces in the house to derail his mind from grabbing blank sheets and scribbling on them as he had done when she'd left him before. Page after page pleading her to come back, stuffed in a fat envelope he hid in a bag of things my sister was supposed to bring back to her during the weekend. Only she would never read it. She would never come back.
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It's funny then that it should hit me last Saturday morning, two weeks settled in L.A., perhaps the previous night's Gin flinging all the nostalgic hormones in whack.
All my mind smelled was mother's Gucci fragrance blending the incense from the living room's evening prayers. The front door opening, heels echoing on the kitchen tiles. I was ten years old, running from my room to wrap my arms around mom's waist because I had not seen her all day. And she was home. I kissed her on the cheek, a whiff of nicotine from her second-hand smoke convention of a Casino job.
Another one was of Dad. I was five, terrified of huge Hawaiian waves, but he still propped me on his shoulders as I was pounding him to let me go. He ran straight into the water, my fingers tugging at his coarse black curls as he threw me into the sea. I was crying, salt water rising my nostrils as he grabbed me back onto dry sand, twisting my ear in painful play as I chased his laughing ass down miles of beach. He apologized, trying to rinse the last of white sand from between my teeth, both of us falling asleep at noontime to waves rushing children laughing, forgetting our poor working class realities back in the mainland.
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Which are only a few of the inescapable sentiments I couldn't purge from my mind when I stepped out of that morning’s shower. The door locked, I wept, the whole concept incomprehensible to me because here I was, trying to lead my independent adult life when I'm hit with a sudden need to recoil to childhood roles. A need to smell the nicotine in mother's hair again, have dad cut my tiny toenails before I knew how. Something to establish that childhood is over and I no longer have to worry about any missed moments or random bouts of torturous nostalgia when all the people I loved were contained in one place: home. The whole episode had me feeling unstable, mentally unsound.
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Tonight I am having dinner with mom, odd how spending time with her is now a scheduled event. Dinner is something we have not done in over six months. I'm asking her how she is, how much happier. I don't plan on spoiling our dinner by talking about the stench of loneliness that is haunting my dad's room, or the emaciated state of his appearance. When it ends I will hug her as I do every time I visit her Westminster home, reminding myself how much of her company I really do miss, no matter how awkward it will be that I'm no longer that ten year old boy greeting my mother home from work. I went through summer perplexed at why I was not phased out by such huge changes, dealing in the only banal way I knew how, cynicism. Which is why that episode, no matter how emasculated or sentimental, is sitting well, how I am able to look so fondly back at family.
Grateful that they're alive.
It wasn't until my last days at home, already half-moved into my L.A. apartment. My father, wifeless, lifeless, brushing lacquer on all the wooden surfaces in the house to derail his mind from grabbing blank sheets and scribbling on them as he had done when she'd left him before. Page after page pleading her to come back, stuffed in a fat envelope he hid in a bag of things my sister was supposed to bring back to her during the weekend. Only she would never read it. She would never come back.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's funny then that it should hit me last Saturday morning, two weeks settled in L.A., perhaps the previous night's Gin flinging all the nostalgic hormones in whack.
All my mind smelled was mother's Gucci fragrance blending the incense from the living room's evening prayers. The front door opening, heels echoing on the kitchen tiles. I was ten years old, running from my room to wrap my arms around mom's waist because I had not seen her all day. And she was home. I kissed her on the cheek, a whiff of nicotine from her second-hand smoke convention of a Casino job.
Another one was of Dad. I was five, terrified of huge Hawaiian waves, but he still propped me on his shoulders as I was pounding him to let me go. He ran straight into the water, my fingers tugging at his coarse black curls as he threw me into the sea. I was crying, salt water rising my nostrils as he grabbed me back onto dry sand, twisting my ear in painful play as I chased his laughing ass down miles of beach. He apologized, trying to rinse the last of white sand from between my teeth, both of us falling asleep at noontime to waves rushing children laughing, forgetting our poor working class realities back in the mainland.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Which are only a few of the inescapable sentiments I couldn't purge from my mind when I stepped out of that morning’s shower. The door locked, I wept, the whole concept incomprehensible to me because here I was, trying to lead my independent adult life when I'm hit with a sudden need to recoil to childhood roles. A need to smell the nicotine in mother's hair again, have dad cut my tiny toenails before I knew how. Something to establish that childhood is over and I no longer have to worry about any missed moments or random bouts of torturous nostalgia when all the people I loved were contained in one place: home. The whole episode had me feeling unstable, mentally unsound.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tonight I am having dinner with mom, odd how spending time with her is now a scheduled event. Dinner is something we have not done in over six months. I'm asking her how she is, how much happier. I don't plan on spoiling our dinner by talking about the stench of loneliness that is haunting my dad's room, or the emaciated state of his appearance. When it ends I will hug her as I do every time I visit her Westminster home, reminding myself how much of her company I really do miss, no matter how awkward it will be that I'm no longer that ten year old boy greeting my mother home from work. I went through summer perplexed at why I was not phased out by such huge changes, dealing in the only banal way I knew how, cynicism. Which is why that episode, no matter how emasculated or sentimental, is sitting well, how I am able to look so fondly back at family.
Grateful that they're alive.