Everywhere I Go

Cancer is a cruel disease, my mother said, puffing on a cigarette. Give me a heart attack or a stroke. She inhales deeper then clears her throat. Behind her, on the stove, the chicken stews and sour soup simmers.

In the almost 48 hours I’ve been here, my mother and I have gone between avoiding the topics of death and disease to diving headfirst to the heart of the matter. This year has mostly been about loss. The air in this house is stifling – the Christmas decorations were never put away from last December, the terracotta pots in the patio are filled with dirt rather than plants.  My mother has let her hair go gray and needs a haircut.

If you look at her when she leaves for work, you would never know she's kind of a messy housekeeper. Her shoes are Ferragamo, her jackets are boucle so there's never any need for an iron, and the jewelry is always just right.

This put togetherness is something I got from her and my father.  No one needs to know your business.

My mother just came out of her bedroom holding a pair of Pucci shoes that she wants me to have. Haha. Even when she's depressed as all hell, she thinks of my wardrobe.

I looked forward to coming to Los Angeles, but now I can’t wait to leave again. On the plane ride back to New York, I will keep seeing my mother’s soft face.  She is a thin woman with jowls. She is still pretty, but now she squints at everything and she is prone to sighing. She walks in a shuffle, the way old Asian ladies do. She is clearly tired and unhappy with the choices she’s made in her life.

Neither of us is that interested in one another’s life.  It is shocking to realize that this woman doesn’t want to hear a thing about what I do on the other side of the country, who I talk to, where I live.  I’m not sure if it’s because it’s so far away. Or if it’s because it involves no one else in the family but me.  Or maybe it’s because she is still grieving for her sister.  I wish I could say (as I have in the past) that she isn’t interested because she is too self absorbed. But this time around, she isn’t interested because she simply doesn’t care.

Last night A called while I was sitting around doing nothing. It reminded me how when we were together, talking to him was the thing I looked forward to whenever I was in L.A.  I rushed us off the phone – what is the point of all this friendship again? Why does he feel he has to tell me that his girlfriend call him and he had to get rid of her so he could call me?  Sometimes I think he calls to reassure me he hasn’t forgotten me AND to tell me that he’s just great without me.  Perhaps his motivations are not clear to anyone, most of all to himself.  Pretty much the same way I’m a little muddled about things.

The night before I left New York, M and I had dinner. On our way to the subway, we joked about dating each other. I told him, half seriously, that I wasn’t sure if dating is a good enough reason to risk our strange friendship.  He said, also half seriously, that he would be willing to take the risk.  Then we moved on to another topic.

What the fuck was that about? 

M and I been dancing around this for years now. It doesn’t seem to me like it’s ever going to happen. Or even that it should.  Then again, why not?

Now is probably not the time for it. But it’s a nice thing to think about. We could go to the opera together -- that has always held a kind of allure for me because I'm always going to the opera alone.

I'm going to see Faust with my Norwegian granny on Monday.  The Monday after that, I am going to see Aida. I'm going back to the life I had before I met A.

One of the things that changed when I was his girlfriend was that I stopped going to the opera.  I didn't care so much about shoes. I didn't suggest going to the restaurants I used to frequent. Mostly it was because I'd feel strange about it with him.

I don't regret any of the time I spent with A, but I have to say I've missed all this.  And I don't understand why I let it go. No one asked me to. Maybe this just means I'm lonely again -- I think of pretty things when I'm lonely.  Or maybe I wanted us to look as if we belonged together. Pucci and Land's End don't go together very well.