My mother had many ideas, good and creative thoughts. She was also very frustrated.
Looking back I now realize that anger simmered beneath my mother’s skin. Its scent fills my nose and takes me back now as I write. Like the stench of burning flesh, my mother’s anger continually grew cold and dank as it fell upon me.
I suppose that is why even now, I love taking showers. The need to cleanse my aura of her presence exists even now, nearly two decades since her body and life abandoned this earth for worlds unknown.
Psychologists have postulated that the unconscious lives in our body, our corporeal memory serving as a repository of memories recording occurrences that took place long before we became conscious of ourselves and knew that we were alive.
“The body remembers,” psychologists advise.
I wonder what my mother’s body knew and remember while it was alive.
I wonder what incidents during the hours and months immediately following her birth did it hold memories of.
A lunar eclipse occurred sometime around my birth. I cannot remember if it was before or after. Emotions, I am told by astrologers, ran high in my home.
What is it I am trying to remember? And forget … about my mother, for her and in her stead?
What is it her body knew that mine refuses to acknowledge?
What did her body feel like when hitting mine?
I still remember the hits.
The ache remains, though the immediate sensation of pain has long died.
What must I, her daughter, do?
I write, as I must.
And release … what, I do not know.
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