Mother

I took Latin in high school instead of Spanish or French because I wanted to understand the history of my voice–how my words were mothered by time and civilizations far greater than my own.

But Latin was not the mother I thought she would be. She was a conduit for words still in gestation, for tongues much older than she were lurking behind the doors of veni vidi vici.

I wanted to understand my voice. I wanted to shake hands with the first sound to escape us with meaning.

Our songs are old. They are ancient. They are relics that may well be from another world, another kind, another singularity… thousands of years of human history, not lost but ungiven, as written language came much later while our voices followed closely behind us.

Imagine. Your voice coming from the mouth of a woman clad in mud and fur, teaching herself and her children how to shape the pyramid that would become Babel.

Her voice is yours. We will never know the vowels and the verbs she gave us, but we know her in the same way we need not think to understand that our words are us.

I may never shake hands with the tongue that gave me language. I may never know the face of the one who pulled meaning out of meaningless sounds. But let that not stop me from speaking. Each breath a quiet thanks to she who opened her mouth and gave me life.

Cycles

You’re older than I am. Older than my mother is. Older than my grandmother was.

You’re always changing, every day, every hour, every second, of every moment. You’re like me in that way, I suppose. They tell me my body renews itself every seven years–seven years ago the person here now wasn’t even a person. She hadn’t been made yet.

You have a cycle too. Did you know that? They say your currents take thousands of years to surface then sink. The piece of you here at my toes, we will not meet again. Not unless I bottle you up and take you home with me but then, well, you wouldn’t be you anymore, and I think you’d be sad.

If I come back in seven years, will you recognize me? When a different part of you touches a brand new me will you know, or will we touch again as strangers. The part of you I met before sinking to the bottom of your depths and the parts of me you touched before they were scattered in the sand, will they still be friends?

I wonder if some pieces of me are breaking away right now. If my skin, my hair, or my sweat rides away on your surf–If they become apart of you. I wonder if your salt or your spray soaks into me and follows me back home.

Do you ever wonder if we change together? In seven years maybe you will no longer recognize yourself, and in a thousand perhaps my journey will still be in its dawn.

Napkins

There was no tablecloth only an array of brightly colored napkins that covered the sun-bleached wood of the table.

You see, it was a custom for all women to have themselves a decent collection of festive napkinware, the kind one might find in a local shop or a boutique downtown. You pick your napkins with the same intent scrutiny you use to purchase a new pair of signature sunglasses or a font for the monogram you want to embroider on a fresh set of linen hand towels.

Whole drawers may be dedicated to a woman’s napkin collection and, as is part of the age-old custom, it then becomes important that she reserve her collection for the most specialist of occasions, and only under such most-specialist-of-occasions may she then take part in the ceremonial Breaking of Cellophane.

To get an idea of what a most-specialist-of-occasion might look like in this town, it is to say that it usually involves a group of no fewer than three women (two if they are the most closest of friends), a bottle of champagne, and business to discuss. Only then should a woman agree to unwrap a pack of ten paper treasures to christen the gathering.

This occasion really was one of the most specialist, and the hostess had sacrificed more than half of her napkins to it.

Water color and waterstained pictures of novelty beaches and hibiscus flowers (none which had any resemblance to anything actually found in Florida) decorated the roomscape, and some were even being put to good use. Besides the dozens and dozens of mismatched napkins decorating the table there were at least six or seven that had managed to find thin flutes of ticklish champagne to sit atop them.

There were drinks on every table and every countertop, and a few which were perched rather precariously on the white ivory staircase that led down the even whiter sand of the beach.

Each glass was marked by a lady’s unique branding of lipstick, and it was a local joke between the women of this beach town that by the time a girl was 16 she could tell her glass apart from all the others in the room. The most expert of socialites could even tell the difference between a dark salmon and a light coral and, with pinpoint accuracy, distinguish a Ruby Red from a Russian.

Lip stains and chapstick were unheard of in these parts for the very reason that one just simply could not mark a beverages properly—thick application was imperative even with the risk of staining teeth, painting cheeks, or smearing shirt collars, giving away what would otherwise be a perfectly clandestine affair.

All those things were collateral damage in the wake of the simple glamour of the southern peninsula. Here, image was essential and napkins were worth their weight in gold.

The Cafe

If the coffee was over-brewed she didn’t notice. If there were coffee grounds lazily floating at the bottom of the mug, she didn’t notice those either. She drank the too-dark drink lost in her own head, silent thoughts hovering on the brink of consciousness but taking care not to interrupt her meditations.

A silver spoon. Scratched and dull, the years of use by other patrons had scarred the metal which she dipped back and forth in and out of her drink, vacantly watching the spoon disappear as it sank behind the opaqueness.

Were there any thoughts passing through her I would record them here. She sat there so far lost in her head that her voice had forgotten how to think words and turn them into ideas. Into pictures. Into anything.

Was the coffee cold now? It had certainly stopped steaming a while ago. Had she been sitting there for long? It couldn’t be hours, but then again the hands on her watch were as unreadable as her own mind.

A few tables over, two more mugs sat on worn wood that one could assume had never seen a coaster. The coffee was warm and steaming. One had marbled cream in it. The other had a bright pink smear around the rim—a messy stain from lips that never met the glass at the same place twice.

The lips were talking. Two friends, perhaps? Friends enjoying the company of each other, talking about the weather and the way their table sat too close to the window right where the sun shone in their eyes.

Pink Lipstick took a pack of cream from the table and watched with childlike giddiness as white exploded into black. She had turned pencil sketches on a napkin into a Georgia O’Keefe painting. Pink was happy to watch the shadows turn into watery highlights and the darkness settle into a thousand new shades of brown.

The cream took its time diffusing. Enough time for Pink to make an attempt at a picture. Enough time for her to miss the moment the color exactly matched the color of her eyes (watching though any lens other than your own often led to such missed opportunities).

Marbled Cream laughed at her as only a true friend has license to do. Pink laughed in turn as Cream hesitated before taking a sip from her own drink. She had imagined a shape into her foam and thought it a shame to ruin.

Two tables. Three coffees. My own drink has been empty for an hour, though it was so caffeinated my hands are still feeling the shakes.

If I knew a way to end this story I would, but I’m just an observer in it. I can only see the pensiveness of the girl and hear the laughter of the two friend’s. I honestly have no desire to write an ending at all. So I won’t. I’ll just keep watching.

The boy next to me seems to be drinking tea…