just like i did when i was in second grade, when we used to live in that apartment overlooking a busy street, i sit by my window and watch the cars go by. then i look at pictures from years ago. in one, i look like a boy but i am winking a flirty wink. in another, my mom sits in the background, she seems calm but i know how young she is and how she wants to break free. yet she is smiling her smile for me and seeing it makes me want to make her smile like that again. i still wear the tomboy clothes i used to wear - the cargo pants, the long-sleeved retro shirt and a man's cap. i just bough the cap a couple of weeks ago, only to fund out that i had borrowed the same one from some guest some twenty years ago.
i read the notes my mom has jotted behind the photos. and i wish i could use language like she does. she gives people a voice they never had, she makes them come alive. her narrative is just too strong, it is too funny. and sometimes, when she becomes the voice of my half-blind now dead cat, it is sad.
and then i wish i was a more exciting kid. so the years of her youth that she gave me would be worth it. i start watching the cars again, hoping that she will call me to the dinner table. anytime now.