Photoshopping the Image of My Mother Reading the Newspaper
This is an addendum to an earlier post (“Denial”) about reality and how we choose to perceive it:
Sitting in my parents’ new living room, I try to capture this moment like a photograph. The picture won't carry with it the hissing of my mother’s sentences, or the occasional smell of plastic wafting from the local meat-packing plant.
Indeed, I tell myself, I could mentally Photoshop this scene to make myself feel better.
The furniture crowded into the room is from the previous house, so that isn’t too much of a stretch. I will include in the scene the half-dozen potted plants that are flourishing. My mother always struggled to keep her houseplants alive, but now her inability to stay on a regular watering schedule has yielded more growth than ever before.
Stretching the current reality about the newspaper isn’t too hard, especially since she still has an insatiable thirst for sharing what she knows about the news. My mother doesn’t remember details, but she still has a fairly good grasp on major events. She was especially taken by the plane that landed in the Hudson. Something about that miracle kept her bringing it up in conversation for weeks. This, in itself, is almost as impressive since she has not initiated a conversation for over a year. She was always a talker and infamous for spending hours on the phone.
I can pretend that my mother looks like the image from the family photo, taken five years ago, that is framed on the wall. In it, my mother’s brown hair is styled in her normal large-curl perm, her makeup is flawless, and her brown eyes seem to own the camera. My mother, frozen in a broad smile in the center of the picture, is much more of a presence than the new version of her that now sits struggling to understand words she learned in grade school.
Once able to command the attention of a crowded room, she now prefers to slink into the shadows. She worries that people will notice her inability to carry a conversation or see how her eyes have dimmed as they wander more and more.
This is the most challenging part of mentally reworking this scene.
When her health began to fail, signs showed in her appearance as well as behavior. As she began losing her writing skills, she stopped curling her hair. The locks that she had permed for half of her life soon dangled straight and lifeless around her face. She has always looked ten years younger than her actual age, and though she no longer wears foundation, her high cheekbones smooth wrinkles from her face. The only makeup she remembers how to use is eyeliner, though this, too, is a challenge.
For a few years, I could tell what kind of day my mother was having by the way she applied her eyeliner. A good day showed lines that traced her eyes and blended well with her lashes. I would worry on days she appeared with thick, black lines that missed her lashes completely, exposing the skin between the liner and her mascara. On those days, her eyes seemed to burst from her face, and she would get confused by almost everything. As a former Mary Kay saleswoman, she would never have sabotaged her appearance in such a manner. As she lost her ability to go to the grocery store alone, she began believing that such liberal use of eyeliner was the only way to spruce up her gaunt face and hollow eyes. Though days of heavy circles worried me, I was the most frightened on the day they no longer appeared at all.
As I continue to project my mother’s former appearance on her current one, I notice my own reflection in the window. Selfishly, I consider editing out the explosion of blemishes that have recently appeared on my face as I search for new cleansers after my mother’s supply of Mary Kay products dwindled. Shaving off some of the thirty pounds I have gained over the last two years might not hurt, either.
As my head spins from all of the changes, I begin to think, maybe I should just appreciate this moment for what it is.
Sitting in my parents’ new living room, I try to capture this moment like a photograph. The picture won't carry with it the hissing of my mother’s sentences, or the occasional smell of plastic wafting from the local meat-packing plant.
Indeed, I tell myself, I could mentally Photoshop this scene to make myself feel better.
The furniture crowded into the room is from the previous house, so that isn’t too much of a stretch. I will include in the scene the half-dozen potted plants that are flourishing. My mother always struggled to keep her houseplants alive, but now her inability to stay on a regular watering schedule has yielded more growth than ever before.
Stretching the current reality about the newspaper isn’t too hard, especially since she still has an insatiable thirst for sharing what she knows about the news. My mother doesn’t remember details, but she still has a fairly good grasp on major events. She was especially taken by the plane that landed in the Hudson. Something about that miracle kept her bringing it up in conversation for weeks. This, in itself, is almost as impressive since she has not initiated a conversation for over a year. She was always a talker and infamous for spending hours on the phone.
I can pretend that my mother looks like the image from the family photo, taken five years ago, that is framed on the wall. In it, my mother’s brown hair is styled in her normal large-curl perm, her makeup is flawless, and her brown eyes seem to own the camera. My mother, frozen in a broad smile in the center of the picture, is much more of a presence than the new version of her that now sits struggling to understand words she learned in grade school.
Once able to command the attention of a crowded room, she now prefers to slink into the shadows. She worries that people will notice her inability to carry a conversation or see how her eyes have dimmed as they wander more and more.
This is the most challenging part of mentally reworking this scene.
When her health began to fail, signs showed in her appearance as well as behavior. As she began losing her writing skills, she stopped curling her hair. The locks that she had permed for half of her life soon dangled straight and lifeless around her face. She has always looked ten years younger than her actual age, and though she no longer wears foundation, her high cheekbones smooth wrinkles from her face. The only makeup she remembers how to use is eyeliner, though this, too, is a challenge.
For a few years, I could tell what kind of day my mother was having by the way she applied her eyeliner. A good day showed lines that traced her eyes and blended well with her lashes. I would worry on days she appeared with thick, black lines that missed her lashes completely, exposing the skin between the liner and her mascara. On those days, her eyes seemed to burst from her face, and she would get confused by almost everything. As a former Mary Kay saleswoman, she would never have sabotaged her appearance in such a manner. As she lost her ability to go to the grocery store alone, she began believing that such liberal use of eyeliner was the only way to spruce up her gaunt face and hollow eyes. Though days of heavy circles worried me, I was the most frightened on the day they no longer appeared at all.
As I continue to project my mother’s former appearance on her current one, I notice my own reflection in the window. Selfishly, I consider editing out the explosion of blemishes that have recently appeared on my face as I search for new cleansers after my mother’s supply of Mary Kay products dwindled. Shaving off some of the thirty pounds I have gained over the last two years might not hurt, either.
As my head spins from all of the changes, I begin to think, maybe I should just appreciate this moment for what it is.
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