By Macarena de Arrigunaga
When I was a child I had the habit of crying in the pillow before going to sleep. I don’t know if I did it because I felt sad, or maybe it was just my way of taking advantage of the dark. Sometimes my mom would walk into my bedroom and I would do my best to hide my tears from her. She used to say, “you know all your secrets are safe with me, don’t you?” or “you can tell me anything, nobody loves you like I do.” I’ve never doubted my mother’s love, but something always kept me from opening up. I feared honesty would break the image of me she had made up in her head. I do not recall her talking about any regrets, in my mind she is still this flawless and unreachable woman. Sometimes I want to ask her for details about when she was young, just to make her more relatable.
My mother and I rarely talk about anything intimate and when we do, we get so uncomfortable that we change the subject almost immediately. It’s easier to gossip about some close relative, or the last movie we saw. I can tell she feels anxious because of the scratches she leaves on her arm, or the way she suddenly breaks down with the most insignificant thing. She used to say that fighting with your circumstances doesn’t get you anywhere, that it’s better to agree with them. I grew up to admire her resignation, although I didn’t fully understand why she had to put everybody else’s desires on top of her own.
It has been about a month since I moved out and every time I think of home, she is the first thing that comes to mind. I imagine her in our garden, laying down in the sun, wishing the rainy season will come sooner this year so that her trees will grow faster. I think of her waking up late every day, as if she has not yet realized that time shouldn’t be wasted. I try to picture me beside her in bed, her arms around my chest protecting me from a world that can get too heavy compared with the lightness of sleep.
I wasn’t born a daughter and my mom was not born a mother either, with time we learned to behave as such, to correspond with each other in that way. There is an unusual brightness to this day. People are outside taking advantage of the sunlight and I have spent my whole morning looking out the window thinking about her, longing to do without the music I play too loud to drown my thoughts, longing to be familiar with this new city, to find a way to make it mine. Spare time fills me with doubt, I have nothing to do, no place to attend, no work, no nothing. I listen to the song Dream State of Son Lux with my eyes wide open, my hands on my belly, my mouth making a slight “o” shape, and when the song ends I wish I could have stayed inside, taking it all in just a little bit longer.
