There is a deeply rooted reason for my love for things delicate and lavender. Rainy-cold breezes blustering through an open window, sending the lace curtains to flap about wildly; waiting eagerly for thunder and lightning with a candle lit, hoping the power will go out. Dark-voiced singing blasting from speakers: Blasphemous Rumours and A Forest. Hot coffee in a pretty painted mug, complete with a cat curling upon your lap. I realize these things, this huge part of me, are there because they define my mother.
My mother, my beautiful mother. You would never understand her like I do. Why she goes every day to feed her feral cats by the lonely train tracks, and sits there in silence petting their ragged, filthy fur, gaining their trust. My mother, who even with her two children running around her, always has been so alone. She is the silver shadows in the clouds above. She is the wax dripping off a candlestick. Her orange-hazel eyes, such a unique color I’ve only seen before in animals, have that same misunderstood wisdom and innocence as her faunal counterparts. And she sees with them so differently. If souls are real, hers is antiquated and weary. She always looks a little sad but why wouldn’t you be a little sad when you’re the only one like you? And everyone around, even me, her daughter, always expects her to hurry up and stop caring so much.
I emulate her most when I am at my weakest. But at the end of the day, I find I am the best version of myself only when I’m most like her.
I love you, my mother.