My Version of Striking a Pose
My mother, Eva, is remarkably beautiful, but I am not. According to some people, that makes me a complete failure. I’m comforted by the fact that those people are idiots. They see nothing else of her, barring any possibility that I resemble her in some other way, perhaps even a better way. But my mother is much more than her surface. That’s why I am too.
When I was young enough to be a trailing (very ugly) duckling, she was the kind of woman who frequently walked into a roomful of “Who is that?” whispers. When the question turned to me, it was driven not by awe but incredulity that she had anything to do with me. Strictly speaking from visuals, it seemed unnatural that an award-winning thoroughbred could have birthed two hopelessly frizzy-headed brown mules, one plump and asthmatic (my younger sister, Mary) and the other scrawny and hirsute (me). Strangers and relatives alike would shake their head in disappointment that neither of us “got the red hair.” Even as a child, I understood this statement to be the thinly veiled insult it is.
Her fair and freckle-skinned petite self is, even now nearing sixty, topped with thick, bright copper hair that falls over peering and playful bright brown eyes. Her softness shows with a flash of her television-worthy teeth, which she sometimes covers shyly with lightly manicured nails that are pinky-peach and white in precisely the right places. Her metabolism still allows her to eat an unfair amount of carbs, and yet maintain unmistakable remnants of a figure made famous by the Kardashians (a name she sweetly mispronounces with a hint of an exotic accent as, “the Shardashies”). Her skin is smooth and dewy, and her cheeks blush deeply. Her only noticeable blemish is a small scar on her left upper arm, a symmetrical dent left long ago by a tuberculosis vaccine.
She also has effortless and unrelenting style. Photos taken during her first days in the United States show her strolling casually in front of the Statue of Liberty in slim black capris that gathered into a delicate bow a few inches over each thin ankle and a teal silk blouse with airy sleeves and a generous pussy bow. Her neck stretches gracefully from the bright fabric and her comfortable red-lipsticked smile is the center light. The shine in each rolling wave of her hair reflects back the insecurities of anyone seeing her this way. Regardless of where she appears in the pictures, the cloudless sky, the iconic American symbol, and anyone else in the photo are in her shadow.
This is how most of the world sees my mother. She stands out.
I, on the other hand, am short enough to be called “short,” rather than “petite.” I have greenishly tan skin and no distinctive features other than a pair of oversized, bulbous, brown eyes. (A doctor once diagnosed me as having eyes slightly too large for my head. My inability to blink completely or shut them when sleeping caused headaches and other trouble.) I had a palette expander that caused a wide gap between my two (also oversized) front teeth, so I talked and smiled behind bitten, peeling nails my entire freshman year in high school. Though the gap is now gone, I still sometimes hide my cartoony smile out of habit. I’m more round than curvaceous, and I have a New Jersey accent. My pores are small only relative to my eyes and front teeth, and I wear too much blush to discern any natural flush. I have two long, deep scars on my right forearm that sometimes scare children, and plenty more on my face, knees, and back.
My style is accidental and temperamental. Photos of me touring Seattle demonstrate my inexplicable fondness for vests and trivial (if not strange) landmarks. Instead of glamour shots with the Space Needle poking up behind me, I stand stiffly in front of a wall of gum. I wear a plain, white, sleeved t-shirt and a colorful scarf that blends into the masticated background. I am gripping my coffee with both hands, but not in the warm, inviting, Pinterest way. I’m not wearing any lipstick and two different-sized patches of hair stick out of my head in different directions.
This is how most of the world sees me—it barely sees me at all. I’m just another person with an average set of quirks.
True, despite our shortcomings, looks and style are points of development that my mother still nurtures and does her best to refine in Mary and me. A mother’s work is never done. Her unconventional and non-negotiable philosophies include: (1) “Never wear the same shoes two days in a row because that’s what causes corns, bunions, and other foot ailments,” (2) “Apply eye, face, body, hand and foot lotions generously every night in that order,” and (3) “Shopping is very healthy because you walk a lot and can’t afford food to eat too much.” These mandates have always been as strictly enforced as the more ordinary, “Don’t ride your bike too fast down the hill,” and, “If you smoke a hookah, I’ll kill you before it does.”
But these scientifically debatable wisdoms are far from her best work.
My mother worked full time and attended college courses in the evenings while approaching the end of her pregnancy with Mary. She would scour the library with me for hours while I curated my week’s reading, which I often completed sitting next to her swollen feet propped up in a small lecture hall. One night, she left me at home with my grandmother and made the drive to class alone. An eighteen-wheeler hit her from behind on a trafficked road. When the truck driver saw her giant belly emerge out of the car door, he nearly collapsed in panic. She surveyed the damage, laughed at him, told him she was fine, waddled back into the car, and went on her way to class.
She opened her home to my grandmother and Epileptic grandfather indefinitely. He was a difficult man to keep healthy and even more difficult to keep happy. Our dining room table often had slimy green Egyptian soup on one end for the aged generation and fish sticks on the other for the new. She was the peacekeeper who made her meal from both ends.
On Saturdays, she taught Sunday school. On Sundays, we went to church and sat in the same pew, sandwiched between the same families engaging in this weekly collective display of dedication to tradition and Christian values. Even my father would join us. My mother would run her finger along each line of our liturgy book and sing along to the sometimes creepy-sounding hymns. When Mary and I would giggle and tease her voice, she’d remind us politely that she was once in the choir and then giggle with us.
When school was over for the year, she would “meet” with us individually to discuss summer projects. She taught me to hand stitch and sew, and I spent one summer laboriously outlining the red, white, and blue stars on the sleeves of my favorite t-shirt with sequins. She taught me needlepoint, so I spent another summer finishing a giant canvas of the Madonna and child. (Point of Pride: I won the church’s arts and crafts contest that year.) She taught me the multiplication table because I needed an entire summer to learn it. She taught me to donate toys, clothes, and books I still liked but didn’t need any more to children with no toys, clothes, or books at all. She taught me to travel as much and as far as possible. She did not teach me how to bake or cook because she couldn’t be good at everything.
I liked arts and crafts so much that she enrolled me in young adult programs at the local community college. She signed me up for a lunch-at-the-library program because I liked reading so much too. She made up a cheery good morning song because I did not like waking up early at all. We went to the YMCA for swimming lessons because she regretted never learning. She bought me a flute and sympathized with me when I quit my miserable lessons two weeks in. Eventually, Mary and I got our own rooms, and she patiently spent hours helping us decide how to decorate. I made a border of photos that circled my entire room. Mary painted her room a soothing light blue and tastefully added several framed portraits of the Spice Girls. She made us happy. She made us us.
Today, she’s a chemist who has spent the last ten years saving lives from a laboratory in one of the finest hospitals in the country. We often join her in prayers for the latest trauma patient who has taken several units of blood and might not make it. She recently rescued an Australian Shepherd, who she named Salad but calls Sally for short.
This is some of her best work.
These days, when I stand next to my mother and someone strains to see a resemblance, I tell them I’ve got her character. This usually confuses idiots. I’m OK with that.