POLLUTING

Perhaps my first clear memory of my mother was not of her but rather the moments without her. I would wake up to silent mornings devoid of the dish-clanking in the kitchen or the conversation between lovers on television, then I'd carefully walk down the stairs as if I held a huge bowl of water in me and knock on my father's door. 

"Where is mama?" A voice so soft as if it were afraid of its own sound. 

"She went to the market," He'd reply with a voice half muffled due to the barrier of the door, "Don't worry, she'll be back soon".

But that would already be too late, at age five that was more than I could handle, and at that very moment all the concentration I built up carrying the big water bowl downstairs would have tilt and ended with my face red overflowing with tears, like washing a ripe peach. 

Most of my childhood was spent upon the dark wooden floors in my bedroom listening to countless stories on tapes and occasionally visiting my mother downstairs where she'd be sitting in front of the television blowing her nose due to tragic dramas. Once she'd see my appearance she would order me not to look at the television for I was beginning to get near-sighted, and also because soap operas were inappropriate for children. She would ask if I came to have her help me in origami, and before I'd get a chance to answer, she'd tell me that she knew nothing about it and could not offer any assistance. The pictures she drew were beautiful though, and she'd quickly sketch a figure on paper instead and hand it to me for coloring. I'd then run back upstairs and disappear for another few hours. 

There were many afternoons where the sun in Taipei permeated the walls of our house and drained us with sweat. And there I'd stand in front of the screen door in a floral dress waiting for the breeze to stop by and dry off the strands of my hair moist against my forehead. The blue sky and cicada chirps were the basic ingredients of summer sometimes supplemented with motorcycle engines fading in and out as they passed. We would rarely have air conditioning on because my mother would tell us that coolness will follow if your heart was calm as if she were a wise Buddhist monk, and so I would lie upon the large mustard-yellow tiles in the living room which were the coolest part of the house. Her other methods of killing our heat involved us cutting grass jelly together, for the refrigerated gelatin was cold and slippery to our touch, and sometimes I'd secretly dip my hands into the ice-packed sweet soup just to enjoy the artificial winter a bit longer. 

In the afternoon I was allowed to watch an hour of cartoons followed by a brief nap. She would sit on her bed, back against the wall with me lying in her lap, and one hand softly patting my back in a steady beat, not too fast and not too slow which worked better than any lullaby. Often times she would fall asleep faster than me and the patting would lose its rhythm, and I would shrug one side of my shoulder to wake her up. Most of the times she'd awake and continue hypnotizing me to sleep; other times, her hand would drop, her mouth would open and exhale rhythmic warm air to my face instead, followed by soft snores from the back of her throat. 

Sometime during the evening we'd hear the knob of our front gate twist and turn and that was my father returning from work. My mother would scurry my brother and I to hide in the living room as a surprise, but excited and nervous as I was, I would always just follow my brother to hide behind our entrance door in which the crack was not large enough to fit two. She would laugh yet leave me be for half of my butt was sticking out and was quite apparent. It was a laughter that could freeze the world, as if during that moment everything was gone, and all there was left was her laughter, loud and echoing in a cave filled with happiness.

It was until one day this laughter had vanished that I realized how resounding and heavy this sound really was. She sat in the pink french chair in our living room one day with her arms limp and legs crossed; at first I thought she just had the television on real low, then I realized that she was just staring into space. For once, there was no water running nor the brisk clinking of chopsticks as they were being rubbed together for wash. There was just my mother mute, the clattering of window blinds as the wind instructed, and the sudden abrasiveness of my footsteps, never sounding so harsh and elephant-like before. The car accident had chiseled smiles from her face, and she sat there like a fossil watching time pass by, appearing to be both weak and strong. She denied her moodiness, but when I asked her to smile, she flashed a smile so quick and bitter as if it were a frown, and then she went off again in her trance, a statue refusing to be interrupted.

My mother with her dark hair short and her dark oval glasses was once long wavy-haired and beautiful eyed. She never wore make-up for her lips were rosy and eyes were deep, but she wore three inch heels, padded shoulders and mini skirts. She never neglected to tell me that she was the prettiest girl in her school, and when I replied that five of my other friends also said the same about their mother, she responded yes, but they are lying, and I am not, followed with that distinct laugh that alone could reverberate in a symphony hall. Much of her is covered nowadays though, except for the times when she wants me to comment on her new wardrobe, then she would strip quickly in front of me without hesitation, while telling me that her former perfect body had sacrificed heroically for the birth of my brother and I, and therefore its remnants.

One night in Paris, far away from the giggles and words of my mother, I had a dream where I was in that very bed, the bed that she had shared with me so many afternoons of oriental wind, with the sun traveling through our balcony and tinting the bed sheets golden. The wooden floors were still the same mahogany brown and the bed had never seemed so luscious and grand. And there I was again, unable to fall asleep, tossing and turning without my mother there to brush me on the back. Then all of a sudden she comes- with a cloud-like pillow in her hand, and she splits it open excitedly for me to see its inside, and there I saw, a pillow stuffed not with cotton but instead inundating with crisp, lime-green grass. She gives it to me and says try it, this is my secret, it always helps me fall asleep... And then I finally fell asleep in my dream, safe and sound, with intermittent scents of fresh-cut grass, rolling into my breath in waves.