 "Photo: Craig Calefate/The Observer")
I don’t ever remember being that little. Aunt-who-worries-about-every-little-little-thing told me that I was as small and fuzzy as a mouse. I looked severely underfed and wouldn’t drink my mother’s milk. Aunt-who-is-very-loud-and-got-to-meet-Billy Joel wanted to take me with her and fatten me like a piggie that would in time be sent to the slaughterhouse. Eep.
Today I raced myself to my shoebox bedroom to see if I really did look like a mouse back then when I was supposed to have looked like a mouse.
The album that I grab is not what I was looking for. I’m already slowly learning how to walk. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right. So many faces that have since changed, one has disappeared. Little L, she was there, too. I want to tell our tiny selves what will happen, send out a warning that we’re just wasting our time in our little bubble of a world but we’re both so wide-eyed that I can’t bear it, so I just keep my mouth shut. I’ll let them find out in due time. Even then I made ridiculously silly faces. I can just hear myself gurgle, and the sound of an adult voice telling me that my face will permanently stay that way if I don’t quit it.
I was 7 lbs, approximately. I looked like a boy. A furry boy mouse. Maybe thats why I didn’t scream or cry when I saw one in my room. All they want is a piece of cheese. I can relate. Uncle-that-gets-crazy-eyed-when-he’s-drunk almost dropped me on the head, so he said. I suspect that it might have actually happened, only he might be embarassed to say so. Why else would my brain function in such a manner? And how else to explain the bumps? Birthing is a very mysterious thing. Looking at my mothers eyes, I saw an emotion that I could not quite understand. Pride, maybe relief. Many years of waiting could bring a person relief. Whatever it was, it looked like something only a woman’s eyes could show.
I know that there is always a connection, no matter the circumstances. I know it is there, but I can barely feel it. The invisible pull that lets a mother find her child when it has been lost for the sixth time. It is a feeling I covet. Unfortunately, such things cannot be taken in stealth. Maybe it is my stubborness. If I never know the feeling, then I’ll never be able to pass it down.
My tiny self is resting on a pillow and I see the same ocean of a bed that I could have easily sunk into, the same ugly wall with its matching ugly ceiling. I used to stare up at the squiggles until I would start to see a face. Most of them had crooked noses or crooked jaws. My wallpaper is still the same pale-yellow with brown flowers that look decayed and out of all the rooms, mine is the most preserved. A museum. I kneel on my wooden floor and dig through my books, finding the one-page family tree.
I don’t understand why we remain here. The place is still full of ghosts, even if they no longer reveal themselves. I used to wonder about the man ghost and the girl ghost on the steps. I would wonder how they got there, what had happened to them. And then I wonder if the ghosts are our own.
I return to the one-page tree and read names that are unfamiliar. Pio. Narcisa. Calixta. Names of people I know nothing about, only that I’ve got a few drops of their blood. They sound so ancient and interesting and dare I say it, magical. Why did I get such a dull name? I wonder what they expected when they named me, when I came. It definitely wasn’t this. Or maybe my constant crying and insomnia and inability to keep milk down in my stomach was a prelude of what would ensue. Maybe the magic in the family blood got diluted as it went down from generation to generation and no one ever thought to save a drop for me.
I wonder why I so vehemently insist on remaining fixed on the past, unearthing everything piece by piece until it is all accounted for and found, digging for clues of hows and whys and what ifs. I always had more questions than I could keep track of, not even my little book and pen can capture every word on paper and I wonder when my soul in these artifacts will cease to exist. I’ll burn it all, saving only the image of the fuzzy little mouse baby. Maybe then I’ll be able to move freely.
There once was a mouse
who lived in a house
and ate twice its weight in swiss cheese.
