The Quiet Hour....

The house is exactly as I remember it being. A two bedroom apartment with an added bedroom in the living room. The bird mutters as I jolt where I find myself in the kitchen. While I can feel Lynda's large foot steps in vibrations through the boards on the floor I sit and watch while she irons laundry.
"Are you married yet?" what sounds like a cough escapes from her wrinkle mouth. She has her usual outfit on with platform shoes, a shirt with sparkles and tight white Capri pants. An outfit that I find maybe fitting on a twelve year old is interesting when put on a sixty year old woman. I can still see the patches of her scalp and her eyes look even more exhausted then the last time I saw her. Lynda is still pacing back in forth, talking about politics with her belly swaying back in forth between the doorway and we both ignore her.
While I laugh, " No...I'm not married yet. I see you got more tattoos?"
"ssheeessshh," she perks up a bit, " Yeah, did you see them? but they're EXPENSIVE" Her body now covered I don't know if it makes me uncomfortable or relieved the idea that you always continue to search for who you are.


"Your hair is so brassy!" what I really mean is "wow, your hair is orange, how the hell did you do that?" but I manage to keep my lips shut and the honest level to a modest lie. Her mouth twitches while she disappears to the place she usually goes for seconds until her eyes a mild daze clear up, " I did it myself, I know I've got to do it again"

It doesn't help that she has died her hair orange and that she choose a bright yellow shirt to set off the color to make her appear as if she were a blazing camp fire with legs. I find her appearance more exciting then usual when I see her rest her body against the cool tones of the soft gray seat of my mothers car or when we are waiting against a Mexico City painted background with bright cobalt blue waters and marine animals. When we reach our final setting of a mustard yellow wall I pull out my camera phone.
"HaGosh, Will you stop taking pictures of me"
"Just this one grandma, I can't help it" It's as though she came from an entirely different universe. A place where cartoons and make believe stories exist and are acted out on a daily basis.

She drifts in an out and almost reminds me of Travis. There is a whole other place that they go and sometimes I lay awake at night trying to figure out where it is they travel to between minutes of their conversations. I only come about as original as the movies I grew up watching when I was younger. A frail finger picks up a tortilla chip while my only thought is to crawl over the railing of the patio and just start running and to keep continue. I don't really know why.

My shirt is sticking to my skin. I feel like I'm swimming with my clothes on. A brilliant idea to take a power walk after eating about five pounds of Mexican food.
"Well, what do you think happens after we die?"
An interesting question that has just been brought up maybe about recently. A subject that has always floated it's way around but never really sticking to any part of the surface until now.
"I'd like to think that there is a place that you go to...I don't know what it is..but I like to think that there is a place"
" Mom, do you believe in a hell?"
The night has started its workday while the lake remains completely silent. The still water is a mirror that reflects different parts of lake phalen.
"No, I don't want to believe that there is a bad place where people go forever. " A few arm gestures later, "I want to believe that the god that we all have is a forgiving god. If you want to be forgiven you move on to where ever it is that is there but if you don't.....I don't know...I guess your just lost or forgotten, maybe?"
The idea of hell has always scared me. When I was sixteen my friend Jina told me that she heard that women who have abortions and die are imprisoned to hell where it is constant babies screaming in pain. It's scarred me every since. I think of this example as we round the bend to our house and it gives me tiny prickles up my spine. My legs ache but it dawns on me that I've had this conversation before with my mom but not really this exact conversation. When you have someone that dies that you know better then others that there is something beyond what we stumble around in. It's so hard to explain and I recently tried to explain it to a friend while on a second summit but I couldn't do it justice honestly.

Shes wearing bright teal shorts and a tank top as she puffs on a Virgina slim in front of the news. Her head shakes a little to my guess of trying to knock in all the information that it is receiving into the deep wrinkles like a little ball inside of a maze in one of those hand held toys that you get at the dollar store. We continue to talk but nothing really soaks in except into the deep folds of her face. She is beautiful but in a way I can't describe which is exciting and annoying to me all at the same time. Maybe the most interesting part of her is that she resembles the smoke that is beginning to fill the air. Something that just floats and disappear to only reappear here and there. She makes me want to grab onto something solid.