“It won’t last.”
“What won’t last? Do you think the colour will run? Man they over charge for cottons!”
“No, not that overpriced rag in your hand that passes off for
a tunic. This. This phase you’re in, with your head in the clouds. It won’t
last. It’s a lot of work, and you need to be practical about these things”
“Pessimist much?! Come on, get over it! I found the guy. You
thought I never would. You even asked me if I was gay, remember? Offering your
support. Saying it will be okay. I don’t see what the trouble is now. I’m there
– a committed relationship. I’m happy. I’m buying a girly tunic in red for God’s sake. It’s not black and
it’s not a t-shirt. How do you NOT attribute this to love?
I was there once. With my head in the clouds. With that feeling
that convinces you that love makes you invincible, and you can take on the big,
bad world and all its monstrosities. Everything feels like a UG 15 Hollywood
movie set – the colours are brighter and life looks like it is the most
beautiful thing. You truly believe la
vie en rose.
But it sets in though, and slowly. So slowly you hardly see
it coming.
Along the way, when you are driving to one of those mundane
weekend chores, you suddenly realise that there isn’t a hand that’s reaching
out for yours, there isn’t a caress at every red light, no fingers brushing the
hair away from your face. What is there of course, is a tattered t shirt and
old shorts that walk into a store and look for tooth brushes.
You look in the mirror and wonder why there isn't that need
to spend another extra minute – it will only take a minute – to line your eyes
with kohl. And then that dreaded thought pops in - what for. The pair of
mismatched socks and faded shirt across the room do not care whether your eyes
are rimmed with kohl or tears.
It slowly seeps into you, and takes over who you are, and
becomes a part of you. You don’t realise it until you catch a stranger giving
you a look with such disdain that you truly start to take a look at yourself.
The way you catch a passer-by looking at your house, and you look around, truly
see, and wonder why the cracks and faded paint have gone unnoticed and for so
long, time to give the whole place a lick of paint. Maybe next year. And it
turns into the next, and the next. When you walk around without realising that
you have batter caked on your shirt at a checkout counter that earns you the
look, you know you have become the living and breathing version of the
ancestral home you've inherited after ammamma passed on. Cracked,
malfunctioning, with a shaky foundation that means a complete overhaul of the
whole place.
But that was my inheritance, not hers. I look at her as she
wrinkles her nose at everything she sees. I patiently wait for her to lose
patience and give up so we could walk into a store with tees and jerseys. I
know those will be the only ones she will wear. The lovey-dovey clothes will
rot in the corner of her cupboard until she discovers them one day when she is
frantically searching for something to wear to a wedding she doesn't want to go
to in the first place.
We were opposites in every way. From the clothes we wore, the
work we did, our choice of public transport (she will smart at the idea of not
being in control, auto drivers are my saviours). She will use the “da’s” , the “podas”,
the “dei’s” and the “dude” at the drop of a hat, I wish I was in Austenland and
live there indefinitely so I could hear people talk the way they did.
Not for her the disappointment and the settling. Not for her
the killing of a sunny disposition.
As far as I remember, the fact that we were different only
made me protect her more. Not for her the killing of the idea of love. Not when
it took her so long to take the plunge, trust someone outside of her little
circle. When she broke out of her shell of ferociousness to finally let
somebody in, how do I bring myself to break her happy bubble?
We finish up, walk in to the place and plonk our bags on an
empty chair, look at each and burst into a fit of giggles. We had done some
strange things together, but this was by far the strangest. She didn’t feel
young enough to be asking for approval, and I didn't feel old enough to be
approving any man she was with.
The minute he walked in, the look of joy on her face just
took my breath away. I even saw this look of pride that for a minute unsettled
me. She was proud, of herself, of me, our little circle, but this was new. He
sat next to her and I could see this was a different person. She was not the
girl I knew anymore, she looked like she was a young woman who knew her way
around the world. He put an arm around her and I could almost swear that she
glowed!
We talked, she glowed some more, and I jokingly asked him if
his intentions were honourable. He swore they were, that he meant the best,
that they were in love, did they have my approval. And that made me laugh. Not
because I was nowhere qualified to be handing over approvals, but because I had
a vision of a similar intent and vociferous submissions of love. The flashes of
memory were so distinct and clear in my memory they almost threw me off. I
remembered the feeling of being held and being moved across the floor. I
remembered feeling as graceful as a Duchess in a ball. They were immediately
followed by memories of feeling broken and misshapen. Of that distinct feeling
of being alone and alienated. In my mind, they would always be connected – the
girl who was envied for being carried across a dance floor and the girl who
wept out of such heartache that it changed her world.
I wanted to protect this happy being so fiercely from all
that pain, that I did a double take when two expectant faces looked at me. Of
course I was not okay with this, far from okay, definitely not okay. I excused
myself.
As I looked at the mirror in the harsh bright lights that all
these new-fangled places seem to have, I could clearly see how much I had
changed, aged, but not by the years. No. I did not relish the prospect of
seeing her turn into a shell of what she had once been. She cannot turn out to
be me, as much as she was mine. She was a strange being, a heady mix of me and
her father, the one that came into the world when I was nowhere close to ready.
But here she was heading into the same pit that I had taken no heed and fallen
into. I headed back with the clear intention of finally being a mother, of
telling her she was forbidden. My God, for never having said that her entire
life, it was going to take some kind of courage to tell her that I was deciding
to be a stereotypical mother when she least expected it. But no, I was determined
to never let her feel the things I felt.
I walked back, and I had to stop in my tracks. She was right
there in the middle of the floor, with her head on his shoulder and they moved
like they were in a world of their own. She held his hand and looked up at him,
and he laid a gentle kiss on her head. She looked more at peace than I had ever
known her to have been.
And that was the end of my determination. Oh, my sweet summer
child.
