I started packing today. In my list of “things to pack” was my lip-balm! Glossy red and strawberry flavored!
I remembered a moment as I clutched the tiny round container in my hand before I could throw it in with the rest of the toiletries! I remembered a sepia toned snapshot.
…of tall trees, a winding road, a breathtaking sunset and snow-capped peaks looking candy flossed in the setting sun’s light or lack of it. The pinkness asserting itself amidst the sepia of the rest of the snapshot!
The sepia tone comes from the twilight of that evening…when a sumo with a family of four lumbered along a long winding road climbing higher and higher. My parents, well into 15 years of marriage, resolutely patient enough to take two young children, one grumpy (me) the other quiet (he), on a vacation!
It got colder and colder and mom helped us into our sweaters and scarves! Warm and toasty we were, but, feeling sicker with each curve and more and more tired!
Until mom did the coolest thing ever! She turned my head to face her, held my face by the chin with one hand and with the other she applied lipstick to my lips. HER lipstick! Glossy and sweet tasting! That thing I was not supposed to wear because I was not old enough. That thing I never dared to touch. She saw the utterly confused look on my face!
“Chapped lips are not good! The cream got left in the big bag. This is all I have at the moment to keep your lips soft”.
I willingly complied.
Having realized the novelty in it for me, she smiled and said, “Sometimes, small girls wear lipstick!”
The lipstick softened the rough journey ahead for a grumpy child!
The lip balm is safely in my bag!
Ladakh Looms.
Right now… this snapshot does!
Showing posts with label mommy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mommy. Show all posts
Monday, July 6, 2009
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
An ABSolvEr
Another one about mom and me! This blog should be aptly called Anchored To the Sun, a little about me, my mother and my sin city! Except that the three cannot co-exist.
I do not remember how old I was. I definitely wasn't ten. Maybe 8 ish. It was Diwali time. Mom handed me a vati (= bowl) of geroo, the tangerine colored clay spread on the floor so that Rangoli patterns stand out. It was my opportunity! I was asked to spread the clay evenly outside our door. I was going to be preparing the base on which mom would make Rangoli patterns passersby stopped and complimented her on! As I walked towards the door, the vati slipped out of my hands its contents splattering on the floor. Dark, tangerine colored blobs! I do not know why I panicked. Why I thought what had happened was irreversible! Why I felt a strong urge to wipe all traces of the clumsy accident before mom could find out! Those were the days when my lower lip stuck out, chin quivered and I wanted to disappear for something as small as dropping a glass of water!! It was not mom. I catastrophized it. Like I was at that moment. What happened after that was unforgivable. I wiped the self-created mess with a "thing" I thought no one cared for, no one would miss and no one needed! I had always seen it in the cupboard, old, untouched and apparently useless. It was a Batwa. It cleaned the mess alright! It didn't stay hidden. Mom found out. In a quiet and calm voice, she explained to an 8-ish year old her loss! That Batwa was handmade. By her. When she was a little girl. Way before I arrived. When she was but just a girl and not "mother". Before dad, before marriage, when she was unknown to all of us! Not a part of this family. Not someone we know now. She held it for me to see. Little Miss Muffet and her spider embroidered in red, green and I forget the third color. Didn't matter. It was all tangerine now. She kept it for 22 years and an 8-ish year old ruined it within seconds. My mom must have lost some more of herself that day! Another precious bit from days that belonged only to her ruined by someone from her "now" who didnt know her for nuts. Maybe still doesn't. That improper, less boring,more interesting, idiosyncratic, un mom like person! Very unfair that I got to know her only after she became a mother. And to boot, I snatched a very precious part of her.
I still wonder what irked her, what ticked her, what overjoyed her, what saddened her, what she thought, how she lived long before anyone of us happened to her!
Each time I chance upon a prized possession from my school days which I have kept with utmost care I anticipate a future presence in my life ruining it...innocently but surely! I know I will not mind it. Maybe my mom didn't too. Maybe that's what being a mother means! To find oneself always! Doggedly.
I would want my kids to know who their "proper", "by default a tad boring because she is making the rules" mother really was!
I do not remember how old I was. I definitely wasn't ten. Maybe 8 ish. It was Diwali time. Mom handed me a vati (= bowl) of geroo, the tangerine colored clay spread on the floor so that Rangoli patterns stand out. It was my opportunity! I was asked to spread the clay evenly outside our door. I was going to be preparing the base on which mom would make Rangoli patterns passersby stopped and complimented her on! As I walked towards the door, the vati slipped out of my hands its contents splattering on the floor. Dark, tangerine colored blobs! I do not know why I panicked. Why I thought what had happened was irreversible! Why I felt a strong urge to wipe all traces of the clumsy accident before mom could find out! Those were the days when my lower lip stuck out, chin quivered and I wanted to disappear for something as small as dropping a glass of water!! It was not mom. I catastrophized it. Like I was at that moment. What happened after that was unforgivable. I wiped the self-created mess with a "thing" I thought no one cared for, no one would miss and no one needed! I had always seen it in the cupboard, old, untouched and apparently useless. It was a Batwa. It cleaned the mess alright! It didn't stay hidden. Mom found out. In a quiet and calm voice, she explained to an 8-ish year old her loss! That Batwa was handmade. By her. When she was a little girl. Way before I arrived. When she was but just a girl and not "mother". Before dad, before marriage, when she was unknown to all of us! Not a part of this family. Not someone we know now. She held it for me to see. Little Miss Muffet and her spider embroidered in red, green and I forget the third color. Didn't matter. It was all tangerine now. She kept it for 22 years and an 8-ish year old ruined it within seconds. My mom must have lost some more of herself that day! Another precious bit from days that belonged only to her ruined by someone from her "now" who didnt know her for nuts. Maybe still doesn't. That improper, less boring,more interesting, idiosyncratic, un mom like person! Very unfair that I got to know her only after she became a mother. And to boot, I snatched a very precious part of her.
I still wonder what irked her, what ticked her, what overjoyed her, what saddened her, what she thought, how she lived long before anyone of us happened to her!
Each time I chance upon a prized possession from my school days which I have kept with utmost care I anticipate a future presence in my life ruining it...innocently but surely! I know I will not mind it. Maybe my mom didn't too. Maybe that's what being a mother means! To find oneself always! Doggedly.
I would want my kids to know who their "proper", "by default a tad boring because she is making the rules" mother really was!
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