The Magic of the Blood

Her eyes are fixated on my hands as I slice through a blood red tomato. “That’s so fast!” she mutters under her breath. She is perpetually astonished by my mediocre abilities. She asked if she could have a turn of cutting into the crimson thing that was once a seed. I said no. I should have said yes, but I was tired from a long day, I just wanted to get the kids fed and into bed

(the shame of that).

Later that night, while showering, the steam brings up her words on the glass

Mummy Mum Mummm Mama

Like practicing her signature.

I remember writing my mother’s name like it was my own. I remember believing we were the same; our skin knitted together so finely I wasn’t sure where she ended and I began. I see it in my daughter’s eyes and I can tell she fantasises about what it’s like to be me. She practices my anger, and sometimes she wears my sadness. I want to tell her it doesn’t fit. I want to tell her that if she lives better than I have, perhaps the sadness will never fit.

This is the cornerstone of my hope for her.

As I sit at my laptop writing about the things I am still working out, she sits at her desk and writes letters to me. I find them under my pillow at the end of the day, or tucked into the pockets of my apron.

“Dear mum,” they always begin.

She’s so keen to describe that which she has figured out. How do I tell her I haven’t yet figured me out? (or does she watch my tired eyes look my own body up and down?) One night, her head was bent over her bowl of pasta when she suddenly blurted out a fully dilated “mum…you’re just so perfect, ok!?” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I’m not. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I once believed my mother was perfect. I still remember the magic of that lie and how it made me feel; giddy and terrified (that I’d never measure up). But how could I not look at the woman who split in two bloody pieces to birth miracles as if she was not…perfect?

My daughter smears blood red lipstick across her mouth and when I offer assistance she barks at me “I can do it myself!” followed by a whispered “I want to look like you.” My eyes fog up the delicate pane of glass in my heart, her name scrawled a million times across its smooth surface. I don’t even want to look like me. Will she struggle with her own face like I do with mine? Picking and pinching and analysing. I say the patriarchy doesn’t rule me and yet whose rule am I beating myself with when I see my reflection? Because for all the millions of shiny dollars backing their promise, Maybelline was never able to convince me I was worth it. Yet even if I knew it was just an old man standing behind that curtain in the land of Oz, I’d still request the same thing from him. I’d ask that when my daughter looks in the mirror all she ever sees is

awe, wonder and a holy beauty.

Our love is a pandora’s bracelet clinking with brass charms of anchors and mirrors and flames. Oh my.

So when the day comes that I inevitably fall off the pedal-stool I never wanted her to put me on, perhaps then she will realise I have always

actually

been fallibly human.

Perhaps then she will realise I have always,

actually,

been slicing and smearing and oozing blood red things from the moment I slipped from the womb. Perhaps she will recognise that there are days when I look up at the mountain where my mother lives and wonder what magic she is making today with her tomato-stained hands.

But for now my little girl is just so busy focusing her attention on my ageing hands

with the hopes that they’ll show her how to make magic with red.

With the hopes that they’ll show her how to live.

I can hardly wait for the day she realises

she had the magic inside of her

all along.