Saturday, July 25, 2009
wedding bells
At first I heard soft knocks, followed by two more louder ones, and then the sound of my wooden door creaking on the ground as it opens, just slightly and ajar to where i was, which was sitting on my neatly made pink bed, a glass of water in hand.
"are you about ready honey?"
I turned around and saw father, his head stucked in the doorway, smiling.
"almost. just give me some time, okay?" i said.
he nodded and then closed the door behind him and made his way down the stairs, the wooden stairways creaking softly, like everything else in our old wooden house, as he slowly made his way downstairs.
i sighed, and ran my fingers against the soft pink blanket right beside me. This was the last time that i'll be sleeping in my room, and I knew that for sure, because that day I was getting married.
I met him a long, long time ago, a time which i could scarcely remember as being something that ever existed. To me, that time was older than time itself, if that was at all possible, but I remembered every moment of it, even if it was so long ago that it seemed like a fleeting dream, that dream was true, right now.
I remembered my mother dressing me in a short pink satin dress on the first day of first grade at Le Blanc Public. We went shopping the day before and I remembered how she refused to buy me the beutiful tiny pink polkadotted dress I wanted so badly.
"If you dare want to be a proper lady when you grow up, you should start dressing like one right now."
That was my mother, always wanting myself, her only daughter if not child, to be a proper lady just like herself even if I had no intention, whatsoever in being anybody that does not consider running around in the swampy mud of our Louisiana backyard fun. In fact, when Le blanc first opened it doors, a few weeks back and father brought home the enrollment forms and all the registration details, mother refused to let me enroll.
"I would rather die than have my daughter socialize with those hooligans. Proper ladies do not go to school with people who smoke cigars against their school walls and spend their afternoons biting onion leaves while starring empty mindedly at the bayou mud."
It took her awhile to finally let me go and that was only because Agnes Parkington of the Louisiana Parkington was letting her daughter, Isabela go.
"At least you'll have someone suitable to talk to." she said, even though suitable to her clearly meant socializing with someone who is a hundred times richer than us and lives in a huge mansion in New Orleans with a all year heated swimming pool as opposed to our tiny hut and the bayou mud as a backyard.
Isabela Parkington was just like I expected. In mother's novellas there was always the mean snotty girl, who is rich, beautiful and everything else. Isabela Parkington was this and more, and like in all the novellas there was always one girl that the perfect girl would hate. In this case, that girl was me. She started laughing at me, and looking at me snidely while whispering to her friends when I pass her in the hallways. and then one day she found me sitting alone in the playground and said
"Tell your mother to stop acting like rich people. Poor people like you and your family can never ever be like us."
then she pushed me and I fell down on the ground.
My knees started bleeding and I began to cry.
It hurted too much, not the pain on my knee but the inevitable pain in my heart and that was when I first got my heart broken and at the same time discovered that it extremely hurts.
I did not want to cry. Not at school, not at the play ground where every body is starring, so I stood up. My knees wobbled, and my vision impaired by the thick tears filling in my eyes. It was all too much at once and I started falling over backwards. I was bracing myself for another scar. Perhaps this time something else would bleed like my neck if not my head. Whatever it was, I was definitely expecting it so I was surprised when instead of falling, I felt hands on my back, catching me, and steadying me and these hands has stayed there, with me, ever since.
"Knock. Knock."
I knew that mother would come. Mother always knew when something is wrong with me, and she always had good intentions of trying to help me fix whatever is broken, but that's as far as she usually gets.
"They're expecting us at church in twenty minutes darling. Are you about ready?"
"I- I don't know."
"Oh darling."
Mother sat down beside me and put her arms around me.
I could smell the familiar scent of her, lilac mixed with a bit of vanilla. It was in these instances, when I'm in mother's arms, even if they're fleeting that I feel at most comfort. Mother never had the words to say what she feels, but her hugs always says it all.
"Come. I want to show you something."
She took me out into our back yard. The bayou mud was thicker and wetter than ever before because it rained heavily last night.
"You love to sit with him out here in the evenings with your head in the mud, talking and just talking endlessly."
"Yes Mother."
I did not know where this conversation was going, but clearly i was surprised to know that she had been watching, all those afternoons I spent talking with him.
"You love to run around the forests with kites and hunt down birds like there is no tomorrow."
"You love rowing father's broken pirogue to the middle of the swamp even after I told you that it is extremely dangerous. You would sit down all afternoon out in the lake together with him."
"You love running around in the mud with him and getting your beautiful petticoats which I spend most of my money on dirty."
"You love swinging in the trees, in vines that could easily break, just like that, in any given instance."
"You call him Tarzan and yourself Jane."
"You get scabs from climbing trees, nearly died because of malaria, and refused all of my attempts to turn you into a proper lady."
I felt tears filling up my eyes, "Mother are you mad?"
"No dear. I am proud of you, because you have become a proper lady, an amazing one I must add, the most amazing daughter I could ever have."
and then she took off her shoes, and stepped down the wooden steps into the mud.
"Oh mother." I said.
She looked back, smiled at me, and then pulled me down with her.
"My wedding gown will get dirty mother." I said.
But she didn't reply and we just stood there, our feet sinking the bayou mud,in our eyes soaked up with tears and I finally realized, that the hardest thing I had to leave behind from this life, was actually the one thing that I thought I would never miss, my mother. I was ready to get married, I just was not ready to leave my mother.
I have been married for years and years now. Long enough that last year mother passed away and although grieving came like a thunderstorm and never left, I managed to get through, and I am still here right now. However, one memory still lives on, and if I ever felt like remembering I would take out my wedding dress from the attic and lay it down on my bed. Right beneath it, hidden under all the silk are mud stains. My wedding was beautiful and my husband was too, but if there was one thing that I would remember always about my wedding, is the memory of mother and I, our feet sinking in the bayou mud as we both finally understood what we have been missing all along and finally understood one of life's most beautiful lesson.
At first I heard soft knocks, followed by two more louder ones, and then the sound of my wooden door creaking on the ground as it opens, just slightly and ajar to where i was, which was sitting on my neatly made pink bed, a glass of water in hand.
"are you about ready honey?"
I turned around and saw father, his head stucked in the doorway, smiling.
"almost. just give me some time, okay?" i said.
he nodded and then closed the door behind him and made his way down the stairs, the wooden stairways creaking softly, like everything else in our old wooden house, as he slowly made his way downstairs.
i sighed, and ran my fingers against the soft pink blanket right beside me. This was the last time that i'll be sleeping in my room, and I knew that for sure, because that day I was getting married.
I met him a long, long time ago, a time which i could scarcely remember as being something that ever existed. To me, that time was older than time itself, if that was at all possible, but I remembered every moment of it, even if it was so long ago that it seemed like a fleeting dream, that dream was true, right now.
I remembered my mother dressing me in a short pink satin dress on the first day of first grade at Le Blanc Public. We went shopping the day before and I remembered how she refused to buy me the beutiful tiny pink polkadotted dress I wanted so badly.
"If you dare want to be a proper lady when you grow up, you should start dressing like one right now."
That was my mother, always wanting myself, her only daughter if not child, to be a proper lady just like herself even if I had no intention, whatsoever in being anybody that does not consider running around in the swampy mud of our Louisiana backyard fun. In fact, when Le blanc first opened it doors, a few weeks back and father brought home the enrollment forms and all the registration details, mother refused to let me enroll.
"I would rather die than have my daughter socialize with those hooligans. Proper ladies do not go to school with people who smoke cigars against their school walls and spend their afternoons biting onion leaves while starring empty mindedly at the bayou mud."
It took her awhile to finally let me go and that was only because Agnes Parkington of the Louisiana Parkington was letting her daughter, Isabela go.
"At least you'll have someone suitable to talk to." she said, even though suitable to her clearly meant socializing with someone who is a hundred times richer than us and lives in a huge mansion in New Orleans with a all year heated swimming pool as opposed to our tiny hut and the bayou mud as a backyard.
Isabela Parkington was just like I expected. In mother's novellas there was always the mean snotty girl, who is rich, beautiful and everything else. Isabela Parkington was this and more, and like in all the novellas there was always one girl that the perfect girl would hate. In this case, that girl was me. She started laughing at me, and looking at me snidely while whispering to her friends when I pass her in the hallways. and then one day she found me sitting alone in the playground and said
"Tell your mother to stop acting like rich people. Poor people like you and your family can never ever be like us."
then she pushed me and I fell down on the ground.
My knees started bleeding and I began to cry.
It hurted too much, not the pain on my knee but the inevitable pain in my heart and that was when I first got my heart broken and at the same time discovered that it extremely hurts.
I did not want to cry. Not at school, not at the play ground where every body is starring, so I stood up. My knees wobbled, and my vision impaired by the thick tears filling in my eyes. It was all too much at once and I started falling over backwards. I was bracing myself for another scar. Perhaps this time something else would bleed like my neck if not my head. Whatever it was, I was definitely expecting it so I was surprised when instead of falling, I felt hands on my back, catching me, and steadying me and these hands has stayed there, with me, ever since.
"Knock. Knock."
I knew that mother would come. Mother always knew when something is wrong with me, and she always had good intentions of trying to help me fix whatever is broken, but that's as far as she usually gets.
"They're expecting us at church in twenty minutes darling. Are you about ready?"
"I- I don't know."
"Oh darling."
Mother sat down beside me and put her arms around me.
I could smell the familiar scent of her, lilac mixed with a bit of vanilla. It was in these instances, when I'm in mother's arms, even if they're fleeting that I feel at most comfort. Mother never had the words to say what she feels, but her hugs always says it all.
"Come. I want to show you something."
She took me out into our back yard. The bayou mud was thicker and wetter than ever before because it rained heavily last night.
"You love to sit with him out here in the evenings with your head in the mud, talking and just talking endlessly."
"Yes Mother."
I did not know where this conversation was going, but clearly i was surprised to know that she had been watching, all those afternoons I spent talking with him.
"You love to run around the forests with kites and hunt down birds like there is no tomorrow."
"You love rowing father's broken pirogue to the middle of the swamp even after I told you that it is extremely dangerous. You would sit down all afternoon out in the lake together with him."
"You love running around in the mud with him and getting your beautiful petticoats which I spend most of my money on dirty."
"You love swinging in the trees, in vines that could easily break, just like that, in any given instance."
"You call him Tarzan and yourself Jane."
"You get scabs from climbing trees, nearly died because of malaria, and refused all of my attempts to turn you into a proper lady."
I felt tears filling up my eyes, "Mother are you mad?"
"No dear. I am proud of you, because you have become a proper lady, an amazing one I must add, the most amazing daughter I could ever have."
and then she took off her shoes, and stepped down the wooden steps into the mud.
"Oh mother." I said.
She looked back, smiled at me, and then pulled me down with her.
"My wedding gown will get dirty mother." I said.
But she didn't reply and we just stood there, our feet sinking the bayou mud,in our eyes soaked up with tears and I finally realized, that the hardest thing I had to leave behind from this life, was actually the one thing that I thought I would never miss, my mother. I was ready to get married, I just was not ready to leave my mother.
I have been married for years and years now. Long enough that last year mother passed away and although grieving came like a thunderstorm and never left, I managed to get through, and I am still here right now. However, one memory still lives on, and if I ever felt like remembering I would take out my wedding dress from the attic and lay it down on my bed. Right beneath it, hidden under all the silk are mud stains. My wedding was beautiful and my husband was too, but if there was one thing that I would remember always about my wedding, is the memory of mother and I, our feet sinking in the bayou mud as we both finally understood what we have been missing all along and finally understood one of life's most beautiful lesson.
i love you most ardently, 9:18 PM.
