I am turning into my mother.
My mother tells me that she wakes up every day at 3.33am. Well, for me it has always been 3.36am, but it still strikes me as spooky that in a suburb not so far away, my mother too is probably looking at her clock and wondering why.
My mother too cannot seem to keep her head straight in photographs. She always tilts it to the side.
I am all too aware of this rare genetic quirk and concentrate extra hard to keep my head straight when I’m in a photograph. But no, just before the click, I involuntarily drop my head leftwards.
And then there are the wringing hands. My mother does it when she's thinking or telling an especially long story. I clutch mine behind my back but the traitorous digits come together, one hand clasped over another, wringing as if possessed.
My mother has reached that age where a conversation may be littered with medical references, including telling me about a recent infection. She knows when it’s coming because she feels a tingling down her arm. I too get a tingling under the chin and suddenly the creepy coincidence adds a tingly dimension.
These curious characteristics may not have any value, but it's a nice way to think about a woman with tingly arms, wringing hands and a tilted head, and who with those arms, those hands and that head has shaped my life.
– Linda Muller