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May. 2nd, 2008 12:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thejunipertreeThe other day, I was heading outside for a cigarette with one of my co-workers and I paused at the copy machine to look at something that had come off the printer. I had turned around to walk away when my co-worker, Gloria, teased me impatiently for holding her up and, out of nowhere, said:
Come on, Matilda.
And it froze me in my tracks.
My mother used to call me Matilda; it was a pet name. When I was wee, I had this little, hand-me-down plastic giraffe toy that I called Matilda from some Playskool zoo or jungle set. And I took her everywhere I went for years. I don't know if the giraffe came first or the pet name, but no matter where the name came from- that's what my mother called me.
She would stand and brush my hair at the kitchen table in the morning, and sing to me.
One of my earliest memories is of that. The autumn sun spilling through the curtains, the hard bristles of the brush running rhythmic against my scalp, the dark and spicy scent of my mother's favorite perfume, and her voice.
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong,
"Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me?"
I stood stock still there and stared at Gloria for a minute, until she gave me a funny look and said, "What?!"
I told her the story I just related to you and it made her brain blink. She didn't even know why she called me that, she said. She'd never called me anything like that ever before, never called me anything by my given name. It had just popped in her head and came out of her mouth before she even realized she was saying anything.
Mother's day is coming up.
Strangeness is afoot.
I miss my mother so fucking much.
Her absence has become so commonplace, so business-as-usual to me that it almost bowls me over when I suddenly remember and that wave of loss comes roaring back again. It washes over my face and I taste the sting of the ocean on my lips, the wave that knocked me down after I threw my arm in a wide arc and scattered her ashes into the sea.
I wish I could find that giraffe.
I miss her, too.
Come on, Matilda.
And it froze me in my tracks.
My mother used to call me Matilda; it was a pet name. When I was wee, I had this little, hand-me-down plastic giraffe toy that I called Matilda from some Playskool zoo or jungle set. And I took her everywhere I went for years. I don't know if the giraffe came first or the pet name, but no matter where the name came from- that's what my mother called me.
She would stand and brush my hair at the kitchen table in the morning, and sing to me.
One of my earliest memories is of that. The autumn sun spilling through the curtains, the hard bristles of the brush running rhythmic against my scalp, the dark and spicy scent of my mother's favorite perfume, and her voice.
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong,
"Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me?"
I stood stock still there and stared at Gloria for a minute, until she gave me a funny look and said, "What?!"
I told her the story I just related to you and it made her brain blink. She didn't even know why she called me that, she said. She'd never called me anything like that ever before, never called me anything by my given name. It had just popped in her head and came out of her mouth before she even realized she was saying anything.
Mother's day is coming up.
Strangeness is afoot.
I miss my mother so fucking much.
Her absence has become so commonplace, so business-as-usual to me that it almost bowls me over when I suddenly remember and that wave of loss comes roaring back again. It washes over my face and I taste the sting of the ocean on my lips, the wave that knocked me down after I threw my arm in a wide arc and scattered her ashes into the sea.
I wish I could find that giraffe.
I miss her, too.