if i hadn't come down to the coast to disappear, i'd have died in a landslide of rocks and hopes and fears...

so anyone who knows me will tell you that i react to things viscerally. sounds, sights, events, tend to resonate within my chest cavity, clanging loudly off of each adam-borrowed rib until practically detonating my torso.

watch me.

sometimes, these sensations get to be too much, the echoes are too loud, and you see me clasp both hands over my chest to prevent my lungs and heart from escaping. ever see the movie "alien"? the scene in which john hurt flails and thrashes and births an alien out of his chest feels fairly well on the money right now. egad.

as it stands, i need to get this information out so that my heart doesn't erupt out of my chest and go skittering across the table, leaving splattery footprints of blood, terrifying the audience with its contents.

...my father passed away in 1994. since then, my mother joan-of-arc-ed herself some faux chainmail and put on a "brave face", which means her children never had to be afraid each time both handwritings weren't on the birthday cards, and, well, persisted. she took care of a man who was not her father, even though her own father would have enjoyed her company. in doing so, she became seemingly invisible to the vitriol flung at her constantly by my uncle.
ugh.
she maintained a home that still serves as the landing lights for every plane that brings one of her kids home, and doubles as the light that still draws in the moths from our youth, circling, seeking the comfort of her face and voice. she has a way of making, "can i get you something cold to drink?" sound like, "everythingeverythingeverything is going to be okay. you are safe here."
and now? now that she has outlasted all the obligations that clung to the hem of her skirt (including her kids)? she has only one obstacle between her and getting back to her home, and that is the very house she has worked to hard to maintain. it's weird to see pictures of my childhood home in clinical, calculated photos, compartmentalized from chapters in my childhood into "features". everyday, mom gets up, she cleans, tidies, straightens, finesses for a different end this time.
it is not very often that we get to see our parents as autonomous individuals. rather, they are like characters on a movie screen...surely they have no life other than that which they provide for us!
today is mom's birthday, and i am seeing her as a beautiful, brave woman who made her life about giving to other people and taking care of her husband and family, and continued to do so, even after the husband faded to ashes in a box and the family melted into new families.

...today, i am going to make her breakfast. i figure i owe her a couple. for my students, today's word of the day is vestigial. go on...look it up.