Being A Mum
Happy Mother’s Day!
On May 9, 2015 by Speranza
I can’t remember my mother’s voice or even her face sometimes. On some sensory level I can still feel the softness of her skin as it encased the bone when I would trace my hand back and forth across the planes of her cheek and brow but it’s been nearly forty years now. I dream of her sometimes and all of the normal things I would have liked to have done with her and never did, like treating her to some highlights at the hair salon, imagining her squealing delight at my sons – especially as babies – or having an English tea out somewhere a bit fancy.
My mother was truly beautiful inside and out and possessed great vats of personal charm. In the hospital she received flowers from every tradesperson we had ever hired – and the milkman too, all of whom had received “a bit of cake” and a cup of tea when they were working at our house.
In now vintage photos with her hair falling in a shining rope (“I don’t know, I s’pose you just wound it round your finger, really” she answered unsatisfactorily when I pressed her as to how this was achieved) she looked exactly like Lauren Bacall, a childish pronouncement that pleased her immensely. I once asked her sister (my aunt obviously) if she thought I bore any resemblance to my mother and she looked at me and said “Weeeell, not to be rotten but your mother was a very good looking woman you know.”
Nice.
Gay Husbands . Grey Divorce . Love
Brief History of Toxic Nostalgia
On March 22, 2015 by Speranza
I often recall a line from a truly great poem called ‘Liar’ by Lynne Crosbie in which she notes that ‘expectation is synonymous with the worst arrogance.’
This is something I often think of when I recall my innocent, totally secure, married self.
I assumed that my long term, contented happiness was static – I expected it. I’m still ashamed, embarrassed; but don’t all people who are in love feel that way and especially when that love has expanded and grown even stronger over the years? I do see now that it really was a kind of arrogance and unfortunately I can never think this way again or feel so safe.
And safe is the perfect word.
Gardening
Woolly, Woolly
On November 12, 2014 by Speranza
Over the weekend, I determined to start readying the back yard for winter much earlier than usual. Unlike my super-organized (and retired) neighbours with their obsessive rows of squat, compact bags of leaves I seem always to be caught by surprise and have to deal with cracked plant pots, lone garden trowels and pale, withered hoses in the spring. One of the larger planters was extraordinarily heavy so I shunted it toward the garage ancient Egyptian-style a few paces at a time.