happy father's day (except where not applicable):
Where she cannot remember the facts, she has started to make up her own. So when she sits now on buses and trains, she sits traveling with a notepad, a bottle of water and some fashion magazines to skim through: it appears that they make forgetting even an easier task, these magazines - as if that were even possible these days. "I still remember the many times he took us to the sea side - all four of us in his old Buick on Sundays, my mother's favorite day," she writes, in some instances making sure to also include stick figure drawings: see this one of a car in which four inflated heads are bobbing along a rocky road with paper thin smiles as the sun confidently shines above, and here another in which she is again a little girl, without a chest and in a triangular skirt, holding the hand of her father who is not only strong arms but now comes with a gentle smile, with stylish hair (the fathers she used to admire when she was little - so many girls who had it lucky and never knew.)
What is, after all, the purpose of a memory? What is the point of remembering, especially if you've lived a life like hers? All of you with your flowery journals, jotting down the ice cream/sundae de jour, writing of your mother's birthday celebration that time you were nine and they still let you blow the candles, the photo albums that display you in various outfits your grandmother made for you. What's left to appreciate, to recollect, to share with the men who now want to kiss her? She was not one of those girls in ponytails, running after her dog. She did not sit in front of a mirror every night, combing her hair, singing songs from the radio. Her sister may have been the kind of older sibling who, when time came, would teach her a thing or two about make-up, but too much time needed to be spent elsewhere, as in running away from a father soaked in alcohol, or worrying about bills unpaid. Now she lives her life like an amnesiac (which is really to say like an alcoholic, minus the stories.) She forgets regularly; forgets because it is cheaper that way; forgets so she can stay alive. “To erase press one, to re-write press two,” she jokes. She forgets over cheap hostel waffles - which is sometimes not nearly early enough, so if she is in a good mood, she will manage a little forgetting before she has even opened her eyes. She feels as though she has become a champion of some sort, waiting for her medals. She has become a shopper - that's it! - wandering through the sale bins, essentially shopping (memories of a happy childhood - isle number four, the clerk will say robotically into his little microphone and there she’ll be running, leaving behind a cart filled with things like baking powder and party cups). Some may think it the easy way out, but forgetting is not an easy task; she is forgetful, yes, but forgetting takes skill. She has to be careful in the ways she forgets, careful with the things she forgets, so what she will instead choose to remember may fit one another seamlessly, so there are no awkward pauses between the tracks on the mix tape of her life. A career she has made of forgetting - what's the shame in that? Out there people who dislike their noses run out for surgery; people with too much fat lie spread out on operating tables; and yet, who will cure you of a past you want gone, a past that you don't feel should belong to you in any way, a past you are too beautiful for? A past like a killer, watching through the blinds, waiting to attack in your sleep.
For a surgery like hers, there is no doctor good enough.
And yet: here she is, in her white tutu skirt, in her army jacket, risen to the occasion. She is a bride, walking into the water with old, scratched, dusty photographs. A surgeon's knife couldn't appease this well: look how she sits now on buses and trains, traveling sometimes with as little as a pen and often chewing on a croissant, with some new phone numbers and older ticket stubs folded in the pocket of her new suit, taking breaks to listen on her walkman to tapes of "Teach yourself easy French!" Then, once her ticket’s been stapled, she will open her journal and start: "We were a happy family." And just like this, doing exactly this on a regular basis, it’s only a matter of time - perhaps a month or two, perhaps a little more, a little less - before the bruises are completely gone; before the blood climbs up the sink and back into her mouth, to withdraw under the perfectly white tooth of her; before she edits things out so cleverly that colors like purple and crimson (so abundant in lives like hers) don't even exist anymore. "Remember that time my teacher made me read my story in front of the class?" she notes. After all, not everyone can write a perfect story - of a perfect family. Of her perfect family. "You know I feel that kindness - the one that used to make up part of my father's smile - you know I still feel it to be with me, even to this day, even now?" she asks herself. "My father, what a beautiful man - may he rest in peace."
Then there is a phone call, and some screaming, and hanging up, and looking out the window, and finally the grabbing back of the pen. (All of these - the phone calls the screaming the hanging up the looking out windows - these happen to everybody - these are normal, really, compared to what used to happen. Don't feel sorry at all: her life is much nicer now.) That she travels now with her brand new shiny car of a lifeline essentially means one thing - the annual Father's Day visit is off this year; she will instead be standing under the Eiffel Tower, re-learning how to smile.
What is, after all, the purpose of a memory? What is the point of remembering, especially if you've lived a life like hers? All of you with your flowery journals, jotting down the ice cream/sundae de jour, writing of your mother's birthday celebration that time you were nine and they still let you blow the candles, the photo albums that display you in various outfits your grandmother made for you. What's left to appreciate, to recollect, to share with the men who now want to kiss her? She was not one of those girls in ponytails, running after her dog. She did not sit in front of a mirror every night, combing her hair, singing songs from the radio. Her sister may have been the kind of older sibling who, when time came, would teach her a thing or two about make-up, but too much time needed to be spent elsewhere, as in running away from a father soaked in alcohol, or worrying about bills unpaid. Now she lives her life like an amnesiac (which is really to say like an alcoholic, minus the stories.) She forgets regularly; forgets because it is cheaper that way; forgets so she can stay alive. “To erase press one, to re-write press two,” she jokes. She forgets over cheap hostel waffles - which is sometimes not nearly early enough, so if she is in a good mood, she will manage a little forgetting before she has even opened her eyes. She feels as though she has become a champion of some sort, waiting for her medals. She has become a shopper - that's it! - wandering through the sale bins, essentially shopping (memories of a happy childhood - isle number four, the clerk will say robotically into his little microphone and there she’ll be running, leaving behind a cart filled with things like baking powder and party cups). Some may think it the easy way out, but forgetting is not an easy task; she is forgetful, yes, but forgetting takes skill. She has to be careful in the ways she forgets, careful with the things she forgets, so what she will instead choose to remember may fit one another seamlessly, so there are no awkward pauses between the tracks on the mix tape of her life. A career she has made of forgetting - what's the shame in that? Out there people who dislike their noses run out for surgery; people with too much fat lie spread out on operating tables; and yet, who will cure you of a past you want gone, a past that you don't feel should belong to you in any way, a past you are too beautiful for? A past like a killer, watching through the blinds, waiting to attack in your sleep.
For a surgery like hers, there is no doctor good enough.
And yet: here she is, in her white tutu skirt, in her army jacket, risen to the occasion. She is a bride, walking into the water with old, scratched, dusty photographs. A surgeon's knife couldn't appease this well: look how she sits now on buses and trains, traveling sometimes with as little as a pen and often chewing on a croissant, with some new phone numbers and older ticket stubs folded in the pocket of her new suit, taking breaks to listen on her walkman to tapes of "Teach yourself easy French!" Then, once her ticket’s been stapled, she will open her journal and start: "We were a happy family." And just like this, doing exactly this on a regular basis, it’s only a matter of time - perhaps a month or two, perhaps a little more, a little less - before the bruises are completely gone; before the blood climbs up the sink and back into her mouth, to withdraw under the perfectly white tooth of her; before she edits things out so cleverly that colors like purple and crimson (so abundant in lives like hers) don't even exist anymore. "Remember that time my teacher made me read my story in front of the class?" she notes. After all, not everyone can write a perfect story - of a perfect family. Of her perfect family. "You know I feel that kindness - the one that used to make up part of my father's smile - you know I still feel it to be with me, even to this day, even now?" she asks herself. "My father, what a beautiful man - may he rest in peace."
Then there is a phone call, and some screaming, and hanging up, and looking out the window, and finally the grabbing back of the pen. (All of these - the phone calls the screaming the hanging up the looking out windows - these happen to everybody - these are normal, really, compared to what used to happen. Don't feel sorry at all: her life is much nicer now.) That she travels now with her brand new shiny car of a lifeline essentially means one thing - the annual Father's Day visit is off this year; she will instead be standing under the Eiffel Tower, re-learning how to smile.