We Borrow It From Our Children

I always thought we looked a lot a like. When I stared at your soft wrinkled face and touched mine, taut and young, I thought maybe one day I’d look as womanly as you.

Old age looks beautiful on you.

Your wrinkles seem to shine with happiness, valleys sculpted out of years spent in the company of side-aching laughter and warm smiles. When I was little, I used to believe that we were molded from the stuff of earth. Clay and dust. We must have been taken from the same land because we turned out to be so remarkably alike. It’s kind of crazy how two people who had such minimal contact in life could end up to be so endlessly the same.

Her house grew out of her body. She spent days with her hands submerged in river’s rushing waters to collect the clay buried feet under rocks and mud. Her body ached and sweat as she bent over in knee deep water searching for the materials of her shelter, guided by the touch of clay. Smooth like silk between her fingertips yet heavy, saturated with water. In buckets she moved her home so that it could be nested amongst trees where she hoped it would be most comfortable and started to gather dried pine needling that scattered the ground. She considered the proper recipe for her home. Perhaps one part clay to two parts pine needles. Or maybe the other way around.

The days were long and lazy. She spend them wrapped in each moment, holding it in her hand and examining its surfaces and edges. Treasures, she thought, knowing that she had few moments like these left. Minutes alone and unburdened. When the world was hers and not ours.

I watch my mother turn fragile and it feels as though I’m witnessing her shape into you right before my eyes. Astonishing really, knowing that y’all only just met. I guess this makes me wonder what is next. For you, then her, then me. But always you first. Where do we go from here? It makes me think, if I will one day be you, were you one day me? Which parts? What did you give me and what is mine? Would I still become you had we never met?

I look deeply into my body searching for the pieces that are mine so that I can separate them from the pieces that are ours. Our eyes, hands, and hearts. This is our burden, to care for the parts of ourselves that are not our own. That are meant for someone else perhaps, at another time. Maybe there are pieces in me that are yours, that have never belonged to me. Sometimes I feel like I have no right to my own body.

Our likeness is visceral. Carried within us, through shared stories shouted and whispered. Versions of the world that only we will be able to understand from inside of ourselves. Stuffed within body cavities where organs churn and cry. Along the spine where vertebrae clang against vertebrae. Charged with the spirit and wisdom that pushes us along time and keeps us safe. I carry the pain, hidden in hibernation, that has so encapsulated your life. You carry the joy that will so encapsulate mine.

“Momma. Tell me again about the time you got to swim.”

“More than just one time, we used to swim every day. That’s all we did really. I like to say that we are river people-- just never left. And we liked it that way. Me and the whole family would load up the truck with dirty towels and a snack box and spend entire days sitting at the river.”

“Didn’t y’all have somethin’ to do?”

“It’s just too hot to move in the summer. The whole city turns to the water for relief. Sometimes you just need to dip your body in water that shakes you awake on a hot afternoon that put you to sleep.”

“Tell me about that time you saw a snapping turtle!”

“I’ve seen plenty. When I was your age my brother used to dive to the bottom and scoop them up with his bare hands. God knows how he made it out with ten attached fingers, must be some kind of turtle whisperer. Can you imagine?”

“Turtle whisperer…”

“Mhmm. Maybe he was secretly talking to them way down there, feeding them fishes in the depths in exchange for a good show at the surface.”

“Do you think I could be a turtle whisperer one day?”

“That’s a surprise for you to find out and for me to wait on.”

Sometimes I think about how hard it must be to raise a girl. To take a child and teach her to be strong in a world that will perpetually bind her. I think mom raised me well, don’t you? Watching her has taught me to not cower in front of others’ might but to match theirs with the intention and integrity of my own.

When I was little I used to watch her when we met someone new. New people scared me like they were unpredictable giants waiting to gobble me alive but mom was never scared. She watered people as if she already knew the land they were plucked out of and what she needed to do to nurture them. Squeezing moisture from her body to quench their thirst, she taught me that some grow from sandy soil. Water runs through them, she showed me. They are people who can only hold sprinkles and are in frequent need.

Learning to be a woman in front of her was easy, really. But what I can’t imagine is how and where and when she herself learned. Where did you learn to water flowers?

“Tell me about your first kiss.”

“My first kiss was with a boy who smelled like peanut butter and nervously tapped on hard surfaces. I always liked it a lot when he got close to me so I finally got close too.”

“How did it feel to be close?”

“Dehydrating.”

“Did he tap a lot?”

“Yes. You’ll find that we often make boys nervous.”

“Did you like the tapping?”

“When done well.”

When I first met you I was scared. It had been so long since mom was around you and I had learned to assume that all new people came from sand, ready to leech. Until I saw you, mom was the only beautiful woman in the world. Do you remember the way I hid behind my mother’s legs, like trunks? That moment was like coming to a crossroads of pavement laid too long before anyone could remember where the roads led. Who was meeting who that day? I felt like the spotlight was on me, but then again, maybe we all did. That day was for showing off my new face, our section of land, but now I think the day was for remembering what was lost.

“Who’s in charge around here?”

“That’s a good question.”