A Mother's Ways.

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This is a few paragraphs worth of some freewriting, arguably not enough to use the cut tool but I thought I'd be fair and courteous and all of that rot. If you have any thoughts, let me know what you think.



Nothing ever changes. Today I met mom for lunch at some bistro in town. She'd not seen me for a little over a month since I've been away at school and all. We'd just ordered. She'd have a turkey sandwich. I'd have a salad. Lite everything since I was trying to stay on the lean side. We had our drinks and some free time. This would be the moment where the tempo would wind down and she would say, "You look wonderful sweetheart," or "God you're growing up." Nope, not my mother. It ran more along the lines of, "You need to have your eyebrows done, don't you?"

People were ordering fresh wheat subs filled with greasy meat, backwashing into crystal glasses of water, and secretly worrying about whether or not they had anything in their teeth, while my mother was critiquing my appearance. Typical. Amid the calls from the kitchen and the bussing of tables, my childhood was coming back to me in thundering echoes only I could hear. "Aren't you going to do your hair?" "That's not the dress we bought for you last spring, is it?" "My, my, I'm going to have to buy you some benzole peroxide."


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If only.

[shoelace009.livejournal.com]

If only is one of those wonderful terrible phrases, isn't it? It's one of those things that opens up the possibilities of what you could do if only. That's a wonderful thought. It allows boys to touch the moon if only they could become astronauts. It allows girls to be models if only they would grow into six foot tall, beautiful amazons. If only.

But the secret to if only, after you're done dreaming, is that it really is if only. It's a wonderfully expansive yet limiting phrase. Expansive in thoughts and dreams and clouds and all those things that you can't ever really grasp, just look at and marvel. You can look at an elephant shaped cloud and it doesn't make it any more of an elephant than it makes me the leader of a ringed circus.

If only. But if only gets you nowhere because you're saying it while sitting on a hill, fingers intertwined with blades of grass, neck craned painfully upward at the places you could only be if only you were a bird. Well, I'm no bird. I'm a girl and I'll only look eyelevel at a nest or the top of a tree from my bedroom window.

If only. Yes it's a terrible wonderful phrase. It will get me nowhere and leave me here, watching the clouds until cold but gentle drops of rain draw goosebumps on my bony arms and nudge me inside. I think I'll never say it again, such a vile thing for sending me inside. Maybe after I go in I won't say it. Yes just after. Because as much as it leaves me here in body, sometimes it lets me stretch for that blue and white elephant in spirit.

If only things could go on like that forever. If only the rain would never come and that cloud would stay with me, sharing an otherwise dull and calm afternoon. It gives me a false hope but a hope nonetheless. If only.