a somber homecoming: coney island

Sometimes I go back, one year in ten, trying to find the woman I used to know. It’s odd to think of an amusement park being more than what it is – a fantastic, strange diversion. A house of horrors, a face contorted, a roller coaster that steals breath. But this place was once our sacred ground; it was the last time I remember loving my mother. She and I would walk the boardwalk, and I sipped Coca-Cola, licking stringy cheese and hot ketchup from my fingers. We were pale, a wisp of a thing; we were once our own postcards. I remember carrying a bookbag of books while she chain-smoked, taking the sun like sacrament. But those were our memories, we hoarded and owned them, and whenever I think of my mother I try to go back to those halcyon days. Before the ticking that was the bomb. Before our mutual cocaine addictions. Before I would tell her, twice, over a telephone line, that we could never be who we once were.

We once made a project of our pain; we practiced our sadness, pinched our face flush readying for the tears. Oh, my world. We were good at swallowing heartache. Do you ever go back? I wanted to ask her. When she told me that she couldn’t recall all those years lost, couldn’t remember the dark country, didn’t understand why I hurt and mistrust so much, I wanted to ask her if she had ever been back. Had borne witness to all that she had lost, and what that loss meant, and how those two glittering bodies on the beach faded into the ocean. Never to be recovered.

Do you go back? Because I do. Again and again and again, and I’m none the wiser.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 30th, 2010 at 6:46 pm and is filed under daily murmurs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.