mary

ORIGINALLY POSTED December 25, 2022

this morning i drank my coffee slumped over the back of the couch to watch the birds and i heard my mom croon, "look at how cute she is." i have never heard her say that about something other than her dog or a baby once in my life and especially not about me so it left an impression. all week she's been complimenting my hair, which is now a pretty bob that flits around my ears and frames my apple cheeks compared to my prior androgynous and undisclosed mullets of various lengths. and today i excited over new shoes and casserole dishes and tiny colorful tchotchkes. this year i actually asked for new eyeshadow and frilled socks and little paperback books, and wasn't just reluctantly accepting her offerings of knit sweaters and pearl earrings, this year i wanted it. i got up from sitting under the christmas tree to apply my new lip gloss, the one with the french name i specifically asked for that was too expensive but she eagerly bought, and she softly beamed and said, "you have really pretty lips." and when i turned to face her she shly added, "they aren't thin but they aren't too big. you are lucky." and she walked out of the room.

last year i cried on christmas because she didn't buy me anything but got our dog a red holiday dress.

on thanksgiving i hid in my bathtub and whispered on the phone to a boyfriend about how she was calling me names again, that she threw something, that i wanted to move out, that i wanted to take refuge in your home and i had to stay quiet because if she heard me my life would becoming living hell again. one day when it was warm out, i recall this memory with my hair blowing in the wind but i was most likely just in a living room, we talked about her and i said, "i am actively making the choice to love her even if i don't have to." and you said that was noble.

when i was thirteen or so i started asking my dad to drive me to a nightly sunday school for teens. we were not a religious family.

i wound up at a youth dioceses sleep away camp, and i sat at a round table with fourteen year old boys with acne who looked at me funny and fourteen year old girls with no acne who looked at me funny and i announced to the table, "i just try to act like how jesus would," and my youth group leader mr. t, who i ended up arguing with a year later and then subsequently ended my lineage at sunday school because i never went back after that night, told me that was noble. but i was thinking about mary of magdala and emily dickenson and how i wanted the tall boy from downtown who played hockey that i met at dinner to give me his phone number. 

i've been thinking about how i'm on my nineteenth christmas, and how i probably only have seventy or so left if i'm lucky. i think about this on every holiday. i cried on my high school graduation because i was so upset by the knowledge that i only got one. i don't really cry at weddings anymore after i realized how common divorce was. 

my mom called her dad when we finished opening gifts and she winced the whole phone call because he barked at me about communists and china and fox news and how its snowing so how can the planet be warming. we don't even try to call my mom's mom. she sends a check in the mail every once in a while. 

when i was still in sunday school, every christmas we watched charlie brown and ate ice cream and then turned all the lights off to light advent candles and sing. i don't remember many of the teachings, but i do remember one time mr. t said something about how everyone overlooks mother mary. if you can't tell, since then i try to think about her as much as i can.