searching, wilting
I am scrolling your Mother's Day posts
I am sweaty and red-faced, half on my phone, half thinking about my run and if it was enough and if my brain is fixed now and if this coffee I just bought was irresponsible, or if it’s the epitome of pleasure itself. And, if I’m honest, I am also weighing comebacks/murder plots for the man who honk0ed at me and leered back in my direction as I ran up the hill to retrieve said coffee. I’ll never understand what on earth any man hopes to accomplish with that gesture, aside from filling a woman with rage. Perhaps that’s the answer.
But also on my run today, a child on a scooter yelled at me: “WHY ARE YOU RUNNING?” and that was a hilarious, but good question. The implication being that scooters are also an option (he had a point).
The longer I run, the more expansive that “why?” becomes. It’s an ever-changing thing, and some days it’s nonexistent – you do it because it needs to be done; you do it to get back to the why. Other days there are a thousand reasons, or one big reason. Whatever the reason, it calls for measured breathing, repetition, self-sufficiency.
Today it is Mother’s Day and I am thinking about family. I’d say that I’m overthinking, but I actually think this is the exact right amount of thinking. It’s the kind of reflection and rumination that only a Sunday can bring. To call it overthinking would imply that I should search for some sort of distraction to make it stop, and I think that would do me a disservice.
On holidays like these I always find myself analyzing family dynamics. It’s hard not to when feeds are full of photos with mom (or dad or aunts and uncles or grandparents or whatever the holiday requires). Family traditions are on full display, and close relationships abundantly, sometimes painfully, clear. As someone who has always aspired to have both, I tend to fixate – an acrid mixture of curiosity and guilt bubbling to the surface.
Curiosity: I wonder what that’s like? How do you become close with your cousins? What if my parents dressed like that? What if we all gathered in a well-landscaped backyard – would we look this happy? Would I belong there?
Guilt: You have more than enough, shut the hell up. If you tried a little harder, it would be just like that. It’s your problem, and you’re not doing enough to solve it. You’re just looking for reasons to poke holes in what you do have; get over it.
As I steep in this shame cocktail, I wilt. And as I wilt, I return to the ground, to what seems to be my stasis: I could’ve done more, I should’ve done more. I should be there right now, I should send that text, I should get the hell over myself. Back on this familiar ground, I know that I am not wrong, that I did what I needed to do today, that I am exhausted. The thing about the questions I ask myself is that they’re unanswerable; they are rhetorical “what-ifs”. I cannot be everywhere all at once, and I cannot be everything. I am not a mother, but I’d imagine that this feeling is one that’s quite familiar to many mothers, so perhaps it’s fitting that I feel it on this day of all days, too.
At the core of all of this questioning, rumination, etc., is a constant, thumping desire for belonging, and for the effortlessness that comes with it. Like all desires, this one has me in me a state of continual seeking. Seeking, and wondering, about all of the ways my life could have turned out differently, starting with my mother. Her circumstances, her choices, her back then, her today – when I feel out of place, I wonder about my place with her. I fantasize about ease, about being understood, about not feeling full of gaps.
Logically – and experientially – I know that understanding, and belonging, is a long shot. But what else is there to long for, when it comes to a mother? What else is to be expected, when there is no closeness or cognizance in a family unit? What would you expect me to long for, when there is only avoidance at the core of this thing, and I am the only one interrupting it? I am exhausted.
Today, that’s why I was running.
poems for the moment
#1
it is both a comfort and
a dagger
to know that all the feelings I feel
have been felt before
both sides of the precipice
have seen people like me
they are unimpressed by what I bring
to toss over the cliff's edge
they have already seen dances
and heard screams like mine
down in
green valleys
nevertheless I throw
and I thrash
alongside the others
because this is where we all go
so we may as well
be here
#2
I desire a pleasure akin to a cardinal
with a fresh mulberry in its mouth
(even a sidewalk-berry would do)
I can only imagine the pop
of beak on berry
and the cling of juice on feathers:
a long-awaited mess
will she eat it herself or is it for her child?
what would be sweeter?
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