Stories

One thing my husband likes to say to me about my family is that ‘they always like repeating stories! I’ve heard the same story fifty thousand times and yet they still repeat it! They LOVE repeating stories!’

He says it like it’s a negative thing, and I used to see his point of view and started to think it was negative too. But then I stopped short.

HOLD UP.

I remember I ENJOYED those repetitive stories.

‘Mum, tell us about that time Uncle Nigel flooded a hotel party!’, or ‘Mum, tell us again that story about you and Kitty riding your tricycles to the police station when you were three’, or ‘Let’s hear that tale of when Dad broke his back when I was born.’

My mum would tell us all the family stories instead of bedtime stories before we fell asleep. She would tell us of the scrapes she and her cousins got up to when they were younger and turn them into episodes and we would listen avidly, despite knowing what came next. It was her voice and inflections and the way she built the suspense. Her voice rose and fell and lulled us to a space of serene security. If I close my eyes I can still hear how she would tell her stories.

Now we are too old for bedtime stories, she tells us of things her mother used to do and say, and what she saw and did when she was younger. She tells us things she experiences now, turning them into little stories and ‘morals’ and ‘lessons’.  And yes, I may have heard those stories hundreds of times, but before somebody who doesn’t appreciate them pointed out that the repetition is annoying, I never noticed or cared that she was repeating herself.

And I love them! My husband’s family don’t like to tell and re-tell stories like that. They just allude to things but don’t elaborate on them and make them events in and of themselves like my family do. They are more reserved, you see, whereas my family is a little more ‘out there’, letting emotions out as and when they arrive.

Our families are different and that is ok. But I have realised a very important fact. And that is that stories are very important to me. I myself repeat stories often, I catch myself doing it, and my husband rolling his eyes at me, but I can’t help it. I like doing it. I think I am doing it more for myself than for those listening to me. Also there are those who like my stories too!

I elaborate on them and add flourishes and, like my parents, I do the voices and gestures and act it out.

Maybe my son will appreciate my stories and will be a storyteller too, but he may also find the stories annoying and resort to retelling experiences with a wry smile and not do the accents. Either way. It is ok. We are who we are and we are born of the stories that shaped us.

Also, whether you tell stories with a flourish or not, you will still tell stories. Stories are just the narratives of our lives, and we choose how to tell them, be it with flamboyancy or reserved calm.

Those Eyes

I was reading a news article this morning, about a woman who supposedly used a stun gun on her son to wake him up for the Easter service.

She said she didn’t actually use it, but the investigators found some telling bumps on the boy’s legs.

Now, I know that sometimes kids can be frustrating. I know this because I was a frustrating kid at times. I clashed horrendously with my mother, it was a mixture of difficult personalities and constant misunderstandings. I was also smacked sometimes. -shrug-

But the point of this post is not to berate this woman’s parenting skills. The fact that she was hauled up in front of a court room for her actions is telling.

I am writing this post because the news website posted a photograph of this woman.

A colour photograph, taken with a sharp-eyed camera. It was otherwise an insignificant story. Scant, lacking detail, except for that photograph.

Her hair was in neat dreadlocks, gleaming maroon strands intertwined with black. Voluminous, lustrous.

Her face, defiant.

At first glance she looked angry, distasteful, the face of a criminal woman seeking to abuse her child.

But I wanted to look more closely.

Her face seemed resigned, the more I stared at it.

There were hollow dark circles beneath her eyes and her colour ashen. Her mouth curved slightly to the left, in a way that signified determination, and a little anxiety.

But her eyes stood out to me the most.

Slightly yellowed, they gazed out at the camera. Tired, telling eyes. The more I stared, the more I felt drawn to them.

There was pain in her eyes. A pain I didn’t know, and couldn’t touch.

Something hard in those dark, dull orbs, born of time and consistent disappointment.

My eyes bored into hers; mine alive as each minute passed, and hers dead, frozen in time, encapsulated in a moment only she would ever understand.

What was she thinking?

 

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Eating Sadness

I woke up ravenous today.

I wanted to eat,

everything in sight.

A mango was not enough for me.

I had to follow it up with a bowl of grapes.

Then I wolfed down an entire punnet of strawberries,

Craving the sugar,

but barely tasting it.

I was hungry, still.

So I went to the kitchen in search of more food.

There was nothing in the cupboards, and the fridge was empty

save for a wilted celery stick.

I scarfed that in a moment.

Then I sat down,

to think about

why the cave inside my stomach

could not be filled.

And as I thought, my throat constricted,

my lungs felt tight,

and I wanted to gasp for breath.

The knot in my chest loosened a little,

when some tears

rolled down my face.

And I realised,

that all this time,

I was not hungry,

I was just sad.

A Holding of Breath

There is something so tantalising about anticipation.

Anticipation to drive my first car. Anticipation to eat the chocolate I have hidden in my bedside drawer. Anticipation to see my beloved when he finally comes home. Anticipation to visit a place I haven’t seen in forever, talk to an old best friend, confront somebody after a change has taken place between us..

Anticipation can be both exciting and miserable. It can carry the sickening nausea of extreme happiness, or horrific nervousness.

I have often thought about the oddity of our senses, and how the same physical sensation accommodates two very different emotions.

I get the same lurching, heaving nausea before an exam that I get in the throes of deep excitement in the minutes before I see my husband after being away from him for so long.

And even though it is almost painful to feel that way, I love it! It makes me feel so alive! I can taste every breath of air like minty freshness on my tongue, melting like a cold snowflake. I want to run and run and run through cobbled streets, the wind in my hair, my feet flying as though winged, but at the same time I want to curl up and groan, clutching my queasy stomach.

My toes curl as I hurry towards my destination. A sinkhole could swallow me up at any moment. A torrent of rain could fall and mar this sweet reunion. An earthquake could shatter the windows and crack the walls, and my exam would be cancelled. That would be both bad and good, I think. Better to have it over and done with, than wait through more hours of agony.

I am so excited to see him again.

Anything could happen between now and 12:00PM on Monday. Anything. I could die. He could be struck by lightning or get tossed into the sea or have a car slam into him and be snatched away from me, just like that, my hands closing around the empty space where he would have been, had fate not had her resolute way.

I can smell him on my pillow and in the hoodie that I wear that really belongs to him, I can see his wide smile and dimples and pearly, straight teeth when I close my eyes, I can feel the warmth of him in the empty space beside me in bed, I can see his fingers running over the tips of my books, the way his knuckles look when he straightens things out, his minute attention to every tiny detail.

I am holding my breath until he is with me again.