I had to take my Mother’s wine glass away from her last night at the party, and my brother,...:
I had to take my Mother’s wine glass away from her last night at the party, and my brother, leaned back in his chair lackadaisically, watched me do so with a smirk on his face. As I recoil my torso back over the table and into my seat, she tells two college aged boys (with great enthusiasm) that I can outdrink full grown men; not wine, she says - pointing to the glass that is now by my elbow - but gin!
She also brings up my ex-boyfriend once or twice. It is a laughable evening! (I force smiles on more than one occasion.)
But as I step away from the table and people trickle towards her to listen in, I realize that for as hell-bent on solitude my Mother is (as my brother is, as I am), the magnanimous spirit and spit-fire personality she had always been known for, had not died with her self-imposed homebody confinement, but simply been quelled. She had not socialized like this in a long time, I thought to myself, looking back at her. She was pouring herself another glass of wine. I let her be.
-
A woman asks me where my Father is. I am saved by someone asking to take a picture. I see Mother, from the corner of my eye, step in and hear her say, “You were asking about Sarah’s Dad?”
I do not stick around to hear the rest of the conversation.
-
I used to be so proud of this empty Absolut Vodka bottle I had in my room in the ninth grade. Like it was some sort of trophy. I stuffed it with confetti, and had the colorful streaming strips of paper spilling out the top; placed the bottle in an enclave in my bedroom wall with a pin-light shining down on it (where I am assuming my parents had intended an altar be situated when they constructed our house). Which is pretty fucking ridiculous, because nobody ever talked about God in our family until my Dad had a brief interconnectedness with Born Again Christians sometime half-way between my parents’ divorce and him being diagnosed with cancer.
He brought me to Bible Study. I met a few cool girls there and we walked to San Mig in Alabang Town Center and ordered salpicao while our parents prayed.
We went that one time.
He pretty much shelved Christianity next to the books on Taoism, Buddhism, and Kama Sutra in our home library afterwards. Oh, and there was Somerset Maugham there too! I always wondered if that was done on purpose - religion, sex, and English poetry, all filed together like that.
I ended up running away from home towards the end of high school. After some bouncing around, one of the girls I met at Bible Study spoke to her family, and they graciously took me in.
-
Perhaps there is a metaphorical lesson in that story that I am too stubborn to realize at this moment in time.
I had to take my Mother’s wine glass away from her last night at the party, and my brother, leaned back in his chair lackadaisically, watched me do so with a smirk on his face. As I recoil my torso back over the table and into my seat, she tells two college aged boys (with great enthusiasm) that I can outdrink full grown men; not wine, she says - pointing to the glass that is now by my elbow - but gin!
She also brings up my ex-boyfriend once or twice. It is a laughable evening! (I force smiles on more than one occasion.)
But as I step away from the table and people trickle towards her to listen in, I realize that for as hell-bent on solitude my Mother is (as my brother is, as I am), the magnanimous spirit and spit-fire personality she had always been known for, had not died with her self-imposed homebody confinement, but simply been quelled. She had not socialized like this in a long time, I thought to myself, looking back at her. She was pouring herself another glass of wine. I let her be.
-
A woman asks me where my Father is. I am saved by someone asking to take a picture. I see Mother, from the corner of my eye, step in and hear her say, “You were asking about Sarah’s Dad?”
I do not stick around to hear the rest of the conversation.
-
I used to be so proud of this empty Absolut Vodka bottle I had in my room in the ninth grade. Like it was some sort of trophy. I stuffed it with confetti, and had the colorful streaming strips of paper spilling out the top; placed the bottle in an enclave in my bedroom wall with a pin-light shining down on it (where I am assuming my parents had intended an altar be situated when they constructed our house). Which is pretty fucking ridiculous, because nobody ever talked about God in our family until my Dad had a brief interconnectedness with Born Again Christians sometime half-way between my parents’ divorce and him being diagnosed with cancer.
He brought me to Bible Study. I met a few cool girls there and we walked to San Mig in Alabang Town Center and ordered salpicao while our parents prayed.
We went that one time.
He pretty much shelved Christianity next to the books on Taoism, Buddhism, and Kama Sutra in our home library afterwards. Oh, and there was Somerset Maugham there too! I always wondered if that was done on purpose - religion, sex, and English poetry, all filed together like that.
I ended up running away from home towards the end of high school. After some bouncing around, one of the girls I met at Bible Study spoke to her family, and they graciously took me in.
-
Perhaps there is a metaphorical lesson in that story that I am too stubborn to realize at this moment in time.
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