I look at a mountain and I ask, ‘Am I a people pleaser?’
Only the mountain is not in real life but in my memory. I would never look at a mountain in real life and have such a thought. Can you even control your thoughts? I saw some real life mountains this week and my heart was sucked out of my chest. I could breathe fine, but something strange clouded my mind.
Reading Jane Eyre reminds me of warm sweet tea and hot buttery toast. It reminds me of a square pattern pink carpet, faded by the blistering heat of the desert. It reminds me of hot days, curtains billowing in dusty wind, burning air on my cheeks as a rattly van full of sweaty children speeds along shiny wide roads. Breaking necks, lives hanging on edge.
I saw some mountains this week, and waterfalls cascading down them. Not as impressive as Niagara Falls – small trickles falling over rocks and mossy branches into lakes. Fresh air, cold noses, babies with red cheeks.
I took my babies to the Lake District – well actually my husband took us. He booked everything when I was away with the kids staying with my mother, and when I saw him again he said he’d missed us and he wanted to take us somewhere. My son loved his first ever holiday. He kept telling me he was having so much fun. He slept so well, as did his baby sister. Better than they do at home.
Am I a people pleaser? I ask the mountain in my memory.
What a beautiful mountain it was. Snow-capped, green and brown, sitting in the biting storms for centuries. People coming and going. Fashions changing – what does it care for fashion? – ages and wars and the slow, sweeping turn of the millennial tide.
And it sits there, holding the earth together.
I asked my aunt if I could come visit her and her ‘text tone’ scared me so I called her sister – my mother – and said I was nervous about her answer and my mother rolled her eyes at me.
Well, I didn’t see her do it but I know she did.
‘Why are you nervous?’
‘She sounds so cross, I don’t know what will please her, I asked her if she could do Friday as Saturday would be too hard for me and she strongly hinted that although she was free both days, she’d rather I come on Saturday.’
‘Ok then stay with her Friday night!’
‘I can’t ask her that!!!’
‘Why not!? She is your aunt!’
‘I know but…’
‘If L (my daughter) called you about staying with E (my sister), what would you say?’
‘I’d say you’re crazy, E loves you to pieces, of course she would want you to stay with her!’
‘Your aunt has such a soft spot for you’
‘But she sounded so angry!’
‘Yes CALL her then, nobody sounds how they mean to via text’
‘Ok ok ok’
‘Silly girl’
Sometimes you just need to call people.
Ocean Bream 