That was her thing. How she made me feel guilty. But maybe I don’t put it all on her, my mother, maybe guilt was my response and she was off on some other trip, oblivious. But it’s a state of craving I reach for easily, guilt that in some way I haven’t come up to scratch in what’s expected of me in a relationship - not the romantic intimate kind, I never feel guilt with ManPerson - the female friendship kind, that’s where it gets deposed. From where it belongs to where it is easier to feel, somewhere not so close to the bone where I can gnaw on it. It was what the relationship with my mother was built on, little notes shoved under her bedroom door I’m sorry, feeling as if all the troubles in the world were hers and all the fault, mine. It’s how you build a narcissist. Funnily though, not haha funny, but strangely I feel no guilt for her now, no direct sense of her discomfort and unhappy ending and my still grasp and grip on life, that she is stuck and I am free; I don’t visit her much, I could visit much much more and I feel no guilt about that whatsoever. I am hardened. I feel good, I owe you nothing which is harsh and harsh to admit. I owe you nothing. I’ve written her obituary in my head a thousand times, at least begun it, at least thought, what will I say. Here in France in the house that she loved she was lilac Liberty shirts and thirty lengths of the pool, her handprint on the stones to count so she didn’t have to, swimming fast to finish before the sun disappeared her mark. She was tomatoes gathered in a basket from the garden, and white sandals, and her feet that were so rarely up, up sometimes on the terrace, a book, old copies of the Architectural Journal that she’d packed in the Citroen along with us. Her obituary would say that she was a feminist icon outside the home and a patriarchal mother within, our brothers favoured, us girls told to stand up for ourselves. She taught me no was not an answer by telling me I didn’t have it in me to succeed. With her I developed fuck you. Which is hard to say because now I know she is proud of my work, and won’t remember saying anything but I knew you had it in you. Lilac Liberty shirts and tomatoes from the garden; I see the ghost of her here even though she is still alive in England. Guilt; I feel it snake into female relationships and I lay it at her door.
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My god that guilt for not liking one's mother. I have heard from countless people "you'll miss her when she's gone", and I think "will I?" And I remember her saying "you'll understand when you have kids." Alas I failed in that department. I feel guilt and then nothing followed by sadness for her because she's missing out on life. Thanks for showing this very different view of motherhood. And is it different when you have kids?
Although I was lucky on this score and I use the musical term to express how you reach me, Eleanor, with you chords, like a song: "heart and soul".