im not yawning, im screaming
"that picture is pretty evocative"
"you just dont know"
"are you the baby?"
"two of the four people are dead."
"oh...wait..."
i couldnt possibily have remembered it being taken, but i think i do. i was probably two weeks old, yawning, in my grandmother's lap, who we called oma because it was german and reminded her of her dead husband, above her crossed ankles and hose, her open toed shoes that showed her big and middle toe, permanently on top of each other. shes wearing a pale silk suit, buttoned to the sinews of her neck, and the pure white french bun, the bun that hid her waist length hair. it would be nine years until i realized how long it was; unsolved mysteries would be on and gypsy, her dog with the white arrowhead on his nose, would be sitting patiently by the gate. she would take out the wide mouthed bobby pins one by one, and slowly i would forget that my mom was in the hospital and that i hated this woman as gorgeous white strands of her hair would jump down and kiss the small of her back. she kept the bobby pins in a porcelain floral jar. how perfect- her keeping the cheapest things in something beautiful, to mask how replacable they were.
shes looking down at me, shes looking down at my yawning face with the same one i saw dying 21 years later. she hadnt changed a bit since the day i was born, except she finally learned to cry, except she finally revealed all the self-pity she had been using as a sheathed weapon my whole life. except she had gotten strangely fat in the years before she died- bound to a wheelchair but unwilling to give up her penchant for whitmans chocolates.
shes sitting in the blue chair, the one with the tiny white squares and the regal arms, the ones that only got sat in on christmas eve, when mom would videotape dad reading me "the night before christmas" as i sat in his lap, even when i was so tall it was awkward and hurried. her face is a heart, like mine. her mouth looks like its about to open but it never does, not in the picture or in real life. it stays pursed like that, it stays perfectly symetrical with her champagne bottle nose and almond eyes. and the swoop that the french bun made right above her widows peak.
one hand is on my arm and one hand on my leg. i am the only lopsided thing on her- my body crooked and probably slipping off her slick suit. she takes up less than half the chair.
my brother's arm is hooked around the wing of the chair. he is my half brother and the only one in the picture besides me who hasnt died. he is from my dads first marriage and there is not, nor has there ever been, any one in that photograph that i feel more related to. he is wearing white knee socks, pulled all the way up, and no shoes. one of his feet is turned sideways, resting on the other one like i do when im nervous or feeling fat. like i kept doing during play practice during "lilliom" in 6th grade, when the director mary jean parsons who died of an aenurism a year after i stole the show screamed at me to stop, demanded to know why the hell i kept standing there so awkward and weak looking.
hes wearing these tiny white shorts, buttoned and pulled up over his belly button. a green polo shirt is tucked into them and the arm thats hooked over the chair is holding on to the other arm's wrist. he is wearing the kind of glasses you think of when you think "raquetball." and hes the only one smiling. there are little spaces between each of his front teeth. hes eleven years old and if you look close enough, you can see him crying almost twenty years later- crying at his wedding and at "the royal tennenbaums."
my father is standing behind oma. he is perfectly lined up with her, his dark brown hair skims the top of the photo. one hand is on the back of the chair, the other one is hanging behind my brother. he is thin, this is before all of it happened. he is wearing a burgandy polo shirt and this is before he shaved off the mustache and mom was surprised by him, in what felt like to me the first time ever. its a thick, brown mustache that goes from the bottom of his nose to his upper lip. he isnt smiling because this is him looking proud. my dad was good at that, sticking his chest out and practically sweating his favorite phrase "if you done it, it aint braggin." his other favorite phrase was "the fair comes to town once a year."
right beside my father is the stained glass lamp that is in my room in san francisco now. its heavy and even though it hides behind the chair, its the most obvious thing in the room.
im so little. im taking up practically no space. my mom must have been taking the picture but it looks like shes missing, theres this space on the opposite side of the chair from my brother. and i try to imagine her there but i cant, because there was no blood between her and any of them there- any of them but me. i wonder if there were other shots from that sitting, if there are missing pictures from those same moments stuck somewhere in a drawer with christmas cards and crayon drawings. i wonder how this picture ever got framed- i cant remember how i ended up with it, if i found it in dad's things or oma's. its in this tacky gold frame that makes the whole thing look even more evocative, i suppose, since that is what it is to people who dont know what it really is.
what it really is is a thing ive made up. its a fragile fairy tale that i use as an equation- when some other variable is introduced i plug it back into this image and it works, and i understand about crying to "the royal tennenbaums." sometimes disasters are bricks, sometimes the whole house would crumble without them.
or maybe thats not what it really is- maybe thats still part of the fairy tale, my honest to goodness belief that it is. maybe the reality of it is how lopsided i am on my grandmother's lap, about how i inherited awkwardness and tears from sid, about how i look at the man who gave me half of the numbers to plug into the equation and all i see is his sad, weary face singing along to simon and garfunkel the last day i ever saw him. now all i see there is the coat hangers he ripped apart, his chair in the living room that he didnt move from for a whole year. i see corine the car and the rolex watch that sid wears. i see pieces that beg me for a puzzle to be placed in. and im lost because i never had a puzzle to begin with, just an amalgous shape with unconnected words, untethered memories.
"yeah...its ok. its fine."
"we can talk about it if you want."
"oh, i know."
"you just dont know"
"are you the baby?"
"two of the four people are dead."
"oh...wait..."
i couldnt possibily have remembered it being taken, but i think i do. i was probably two weeks old, yawning, in my grandmother's lap, who we called oma because it was german and reminded her of her dead husband, above her crossed ankles and hose, her open toed shoes that showed her big and middle toe, permanently on top of each other. shes wearing a pale silk suit, buttoned to the sinews of her neck, and the pure white french bun, the bun that hid her waist length hair. it would be nine years until i realized how long it was; unsolved mysteries would be on and gypsy, her dog with the white arrowhead on his nose, would be sitting patiently by the gate. she would take out the wide mouthed bobby pins one by one, and slowly i would forget that my mom was in the hospital and that i hated this woman as gorgeous white strands of her hair would jump down and kiss the small of her back. she kept the bobby pins in a porcelain floral jar. how perfect- her keeping the cheapest things in something beautiful, to mask how replacable they were.
shes looking down at me, shes looking down at my yawning face with the same one i saw dying 21 years later. she hadnt changed a bit since the day i was born, except she finally learned to cry, except she finally revealed all the self-pity she had been using as a sheathed weapon my whole life. except she had gotten strangely fat in the years before she died- bound to a wheelchair but unwilling to give up her penchant for whitmans chocolates.
shes sitting in the blue chair, the one with the tiny white squares and the regal arms, the ones that only got sat in on christmas eve, when mom would videotape dad reading me "the night before christmas" as i sat in his lap, even when i was so tall it was awkward and hurried. her face is a heart, like mine. her mouth looks like its about to open but it never does, not in the picture or in real life. it stays pursed like that, it stays perfectly symetrical with her champagne bottle nose and almond eyes. and the swoop that the french bun made right above her widows peak.
one hand is on my arm and one hand on my leg. i am the only lopsided thing on her- my body crooked and probably slipping off her slick suit. she takes up less than half the chair.
my brother's arm is hooked around the wing of the chair. he is my half brother and the only one in the picture besides me who hasnt died. he is from my dads first marriage and there is not, nor has there ever been, any one in that photograph that i feel more related to. he is wearing white knee socks, pulled all the way up, and no shoes. one of his feet is turned sideways, resting on the other one like i do when im nervous or feeling fat. like i kept doing during play practice during "lilliom" in 6th grade, when the director mary jean parsons who died of an aenurism a year after i stole the show screamed at me to stop, demanded to know why the hell i kept standing there so awkward and weak looking.
hes wearing these tiny white shorts, buttoned and pulled up over his belly button. a green polo shirt is tucked into them and the arm thats hooked over the chair is holding on to the other arm's wrist. he is wearing the kind of glasses you think of when you think "raquetball." and hes the only one smiling. there are little spaces between each of his front teeth. hes eleven years old and if you look close enough, you can see him crying almost twenty years later- crying at his wedding and at "the royal tennenbaums."
my father is standing behind oma. he is perfectly lined up with her, his dark brown hair skims the top of the photo. one hand is on the back of the chair, the other one is hanging behind my brother. he is thin, this is before all of it happened. he is wearing a burgandy polo shirt and this is before he shaved off the mustache and mom was surprised by him, in what felt like to me the first time ever. its a thick, brown mustache that goes from the bottom of his nose to his upper lip. he isnt smiling because this is him looking proud. my dad was good at that, sticking his chest out and practically sweating his favorite phrase "if you done it, it aint braggin." his other favorite phrase was "the fair comes to town once a year."
right beside my father is the stained glass lamp that is in my room in san francisco now. its heavy and even though it hides behind the chair, its the most obvious thing in the room.
im so little. im taking up practically no space. my mom must have been taking the picture but it looks like shes missing, theres this space on the opposite side of the chair from my brother. and i try to imagine her there but i cant, because there was no blood between her and any of them there- any of them but me. i wonder if there were other shots from that sitting, if there are missing pictures from those same moments stuck somewhere in a drawer with christmas cards and crayon drawings. i wonder how this picture ever got framed- i cant remember how i ended up with it, if i found it in dad's things or oma's. its in this tacky gold frame that makes the whole thing look even more evocative, i suppose, since that is what it is to people who dont know what it really is.
what it really is is a thing ive made up. its a fragile fairy tale that i use as an equation- when some other variable is introduced i plug it back into this image and it works, and i understand about crying to "the royal tennenbaums." sometimes disasters are bricks, sometimes the whole house would crumble without them.
or maybe thats not what it really is- maybe thats still part of the fairy tale, my honest to goodness belief that it is. maybe the reality of it is how lopsided i am on my grandmother's lap, about how i inherited awkwardness and tears from sid, about how i look at the man who gave me half of the numbers to plug into the equation and all i see is his sad, weary face singing along to simon and garfunkel the last day i ever saw him. now all i see there is the coat hangers he ripped apart, his chair in the living room that he didnt move from for a whole year. i see corine the car and the rolex watch that sid wears. i see pieces that beg me for a puzzle to be placed in. and im lost because i never had a puzzle to begin with, just an amalgous shape with unconnected words, untethered memories.
"yeah...its ok. its fine."
"we can talk about it if you want."
"oh, i know."
posted by Jessica Baxter | 9:09 PM
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