December -- Collective Soul

Go outside, observe.

The trees know that the weather is changing. That's why they are desperate to reproduce. The maples have produced so many seeds over the spring, summer, and into the fall these last few years that we've had to employ the leaf blower to clear the inches of helicopters from the patio in the back yard.

Swaths of them hang from the neighbor's tree already, shining a golden color next to the new leaf growth, and our maple trees have released theirs already, green and soft, a great littering of color across the grey of the patio.

I watch things grow, and file away the information in my brain, studying each leaf and petal in an effort to memorize the fleeting names of all these plants. Mom would have known what they were called. I have been desperately begging myself not to try to be as smart and cool as my Mother was, to not approach every task with the thought that Mom probably did this better, already knew this fact.

You don't have to be your mother.

I spent hours cleaning the other day and unearthed things that I hadn't realized I had hidden, closed off, tucked away. It's almost as if my crazy ass were hiding all the things that meant anything to me in an effort to avoid seeing the physical reminders of how much I miss my Mother, my Grandma Roark, my Aunt Sis. All these things, these artsy glass things, the prints and drawings that should go in frames and hang on the wall, framed things I made when I was little, things with kittens and yarn decorating their surfaces. I unearthed the bird books from Billie that I had all this time and that I had shoved in the farthest recesses of the bookshelf. I hate birds. Mom told me that things weren't always so. When I was little she would hear me singing in my room and peek in to find me, face to the glass of the window, watching the birds outside singing about how pretty they were and how the world was such a beautiful place. I made up my own songs then, I had loved the birds and their singing. Mom named the birds to me by their twittering songs....Whippoorwill, whippoorwill, whippoorwill. Pretty girl, pretty girl, sweet sweet sweet sweet.


Oh my. I just totally bummed myself out again.

Sorry, Mom, and God, that I hate birds.