March 15, 2006

• I’ve been thinking about a lot of things lately, mainly on my lovely 15-minute walk to the red line in the morning, when the air is still frosty and the world is pink. This is one item that the mandibles of my mind have been gnawing on as of late.

  On Feeling Special

  When I was sad or when I was sick my mom used to sit next to me as I lay in bed and brush my light brown hair with her fingers. Her home smelled like warm and ginger. I knew I was special from the smell of the place I called home, from the care she showed me when she pet my hair; I understood how special I was to her from these things more than any other acts that she did (which I, like any other child so privileged as to have a good mother, took for granted): raving about all my nightmarish school plays (even when I was granted puny chorus roles, mom would assure me that my “charisma drew the crowd’s eye” to me), putting up with my drama at vocal music competitions (I was an emotional wreck), driving me everywhere and anywhere (parties, rehearsals, the library). Not that these other things were done in vein, but my mom made me feel special just by brushing my hair in the warmth of our home.

  Eventhough he oftentimes was unable to put down his work to make good on the promise, my dad called the weekends I spent with him, “Truly Days.” I used to like it when, smiling, he declared those days ours for kite flying, movies, Twizzlers and Dr. Pepper, eventhough on more occasions than I care to remember those days were spent hungry, in wait—but that is not what I am thinking of here. But it is, in a way. Once my dad took me out to my elementary school playground on a Saturday in the dead of winter. We were on the swings at the far end of the lot and the metal chains of the swings squawked as he told me that my step mom had grown to resent Truly Days. I didn’t know how to process that information. I just felt tricked—I thought we were going to swing. And I liked how Truly Days were. Or the promise of them, anyways.

  My step dad called me Ms. T. Even when he scolded me, it was, “let me show you this, Ms. T,” and he would take me to the place where I had failed to clean up after an art project or to the full dishwasher that I was scheduled to unload. He never yelled. It was Ms. T, bad or good. And it made me feel happy to be Ms. T to him.

  When my family visited my grandparents in Colorado during the summers of my childhood, my aunt and uncle would let me stay with them in their apartment overnight, without the rest of my family. We would eat good sandwiches with sprouts and I would admire their excellent and expansive cd collection. We would walk the Peal Street mall and I would waste my chore money on tie dyed shirts, desperate to pass as a Boulder hippie. They always treated me as a grown up and it always made me feel so special to stay the night with them.

  My grandparents have a hallway full of photos. Big frames with separate insets for various pictures literally cover every inch of this hall. There is a photo of my grandparents on their wedding day in Canada, freshly emigrated from England. My grandpa has black hair and black glasses. Grandma has a beautiful bob and a brilliant smile. There are older pictures; sepia and curling at the edges, of family in England I can’t ever remember the names of. There are pictures of my mom and her brother as kids, teenagers, at prom. There are pictures of me as a pudgy, big-bellied baby with a bowl cut. There are pictures of my cupie-doll cousins (my girl cousin on that side bears a sttriking resemblance to Claira Bow), and of my brothers when they were gooey, curly haired angel babies. There are pictures of old family friends, parties, and travels. Every time I am lucky enough to spend time in Colorado with my grandparents I like to spend hours in this hallway, looking. It makes me feel so special, so happy, so a part of something good. It is such a beautiful thing to preserve the places and people we come from like that. It honors all involved.

  The smell of dinner warming the apartment after a long day at work, the way he sees me out the door in the morning with a kiss, the walks in the evening, the need to read the same books as me after I’ve finished, the consideration to wait for me to watch a Netflick: my husband makes me feel special in so many ways. But I’ve got to say that it is when he pets my hair after a bad day that I feel it the most.

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  What makes you feel special?

  ::Random Tangent::
  Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I can’t even remember what got into me to make me such a freak about the whole thing. The office got me a lovely b-day cake, Shaun got me a subscription to an awesome thing called Wolfin, which is comes in quarterly issues and is a DVD of unseen, independent short films and videos. A trial came with the latest McSweey’s and it was love at first viewing—I couldn’t be happier to expect more Wolfin’s coming my way. Shaun also got me an electric toothbrush, which I had been wanting for some time now. What can I say? I love oral hygiene. My mom got me a gorgeous pair of tear-drop earrings that I gently suggested would look smashing on me. My beloved cousin came to visit me on my birthday and we went to a neighborhood Moroccan cafe for dinner and played pictionary late into the night. It was a really nice introduction to my 24th year. I am grateful to everybody: I certainly felt loved and special that week. I like thinking about it. It makes me feel happy all over again.

  • 8:21 pm
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