On Red Dresses and White Flowers
By
J. Ellington
By
J. Ellington
There was the smooth, cool feel of the stage floor beneath my feet and I waited very still behind the closed curtain. The memory of carefully breathing dark dust and space all around me. The murmur of the school through the heavy drapes. Somewhere in that murmur among the faces, my mother’s chestnut hair, blue eyes. The heavy opening and a flash of attention in a too bright light. Whispering. Nervous quiverings like the twitching of horse skin with flies. So many eyes pointed at me and I want to shrink and hide. I had never done anything like this. My hand in my partner’s sweaty grip, the smooth music begins. It sounds red. I step and pause, step and twirl. The nervousness starts seeping away with each breath; something else replaces it, something like joy. The red dress swirls, he flourishes, I tease, red flower in my hair, he chases, I acquiesce, we sway and snap, the yawning darkness of faces breathes out, hands clap, I think about my mother. Watching. I am happy.
Ten years ago. I sit now by my open window and think about ten years ago. After my successful performance, I searched for my mother, still full of the feeling of happiness. She was gone. My friend’s mother found me; she told me: your mother had to leave early. Was she there for my dance? She saw you dance. And the mother of my friend gave a strange smile when she said that my mother saw me dance and I felt troubled. I saw that smile and I doubted myself. I thought maybe my dance had been inappropriate. I felt the small knot forming in my stomach; tightening away some of the happiness. I look out my window now at the small white flowers on the tree outside and think about that moment years ago. I remember the tight stomach. I remember I told myself it was probably nothing. I had gotten home, that day, later, and my mother’s bedroom door was locked. I heard her crying but trying to laugh. I heard her talking to a friend inside. She looked so perfect. I will never be that. My stomach filled slowly with acid guilt.
Once, several year ago, I was visiting home from college, looking through old things. My old journals. Dead flat flowers inside pages; faded brittle and beautiful. Pictures of my cat. Pictures of the red dress. The red flower in my hair. I remember the music, my bare feet on the cold stage floor. Inside the closet I want to see the red dress but I can’t find it. It is gone. My mother says Oh that old thing, kind of scandalous don’t you think? I knew you couldn’t really want it. I gave it away for you. I look out the window at the fluttering white flowers now and think of my feelings then, the conversations we tried to have, the things said and not said, I wonder what it must have been like for my mother, to look into my questioning face and to have no words for what she felt. My mother danced ballet when she was young, she danced more than I ever did; I do not understand her pangs at the sight of her dancing child.
Perhaps I am still too young to feel a sense of regret or despair. Perhaps my mother’s distress was a fleeting moment and she too feels this same happiness I feel as I sit by an open window with a tree full of tiny white flowers. Or perhaps it ate at her until she couldn’t bear the sight of the red dress.
A few days ago my husband asked, “Do you think we will have a boy or a girl as our first child?” I tell him I don’t know. We aren’t even pregnant yet. Too soon to think about that. And yet I am already thinking. Will my child one day stand on the stage while I watch from the dark? Will I think about all I have never been? When they come searching will I have fled to mourn in private my life slowly passing too quickly? I do not know. The white flowers are nodding softly; their delicate scent is wafting now with the spring warmth, in through the window. When my mother was young did she feel sorrow at the passage of time as she waited in stillness behind curtains or jumped in waves at the beach or ate dinner with her own mother? Perhaps we cannot think about our lives passing until we see ourselves in our children, doing all that we did and all that we didn’t. Perhaps it is difficult to think beyond the present until we see in the curved backs and red dresses and rhythm of our children a future that stretches out beyond us, a life we will not live.
As I write these words, on the floor in my small apartment by the open window, I think all these things and my life moves inexorably forward. The plants on my sill lean gently towards the light and the end of their quiet lives. Perhaps I should fight this passage of time with teeth and tears. Perhaps I should run and rage. But I don’t. I gaze out the window at the white flowers on their tiny branches and I feel happy. Those blossoms will bask in sunlight a few more days and then float gently away. I am glad they are here. I feel myself as a small piece in the movement of the worlds; I am here and I am leaving.
I smile and lean back against the wall. I picture my future child, a daughter, waiting very still behind closed curtains. Music whispers. She dances. I hope, someday when I watch from the dark, that I smile.
J. Ellington is an essayist who enjoys tending her houseplants, walking next to rivers and trying out new Thai food restaurants. She currently lives next to mountains in Utah and plans to stay for at least another year before moving on to explore some other patch of the world, writing essays all along the way.
Ten years ago. I sit now by my open window and think about ten years ago. After my successful performance, I searched for my mother, still full of the feeling of happiness. She was gone. My friend’s mother found me; she told me: your mother had to leave early. Was she there for my dance? She saw you dance. And the mother of my friend gave a strange smile when she said that my mother saw me dance and I felt troubled. I saw that smile and I doubted myself. I thought maybe my dance had been inappropriate. I felt the small knot forming in my stomach; tightening away some of the happiness. I look out my window now at the small white flowers on the tree outside and think about that moment years ago. I remember the tight stomach. I remember I told myself it was probably nothing. I had gotten home, that day, later, and my mother’s bedroom door was locked. I heard her crying but trying to laugh. I heard her talking to a friend inside. She looked so perfect. I will never be that. My stomach filled slowly with acid guilt.
Once, several year ago, I was visiting home from college, looking through old things. My old journals. Dead flat flowers inside pages; faded brittle and beautiful. Pictures of my cat. Pictures of the red dress. The red flower in my hair. I remember the music, my bare feet on the cold stage floor. Inside the closet I want to see the red dress but I can’t find it. It is gone. My mother says Oh that old thing, kind of scandalous don’t you think? I knew you couldn’t really want it. I gave it away for you. I look out the window at the fluttering white flowers now and think of my feelings then, the conversations we tried to have, the things said and not said, I wonder what it must have been like for my mother, to look into my questioning face and to have no words for what she felt. My mother danced ballet when she was young, she danced more than I ever did; I do not understand her pangs at the sight of her dancing child.
Perhaps I am still too young to feel a sense of regret or despair. Perhaps my mother’s distress was a fleeting moment and she too feels this same happiness I feel as I sit by an open window with a tree full of tiny white flowers. Or perhaps it ate at her until she couldn’t bear the sight of the red dress.
A few days ago my husband asked, “Do you think we will have a boy or a girl as our first child?” I tell him I don’t know. We aren’t even pregnant yet. Too soon to think about that. And yet I am already thinking. Will my child one day stand on the stage while I watch from the dark? Will I think about all I have never been? When they come searching will I have fled to mourn in private my life slowly passing too quickly? I do not know. The white flowers are nodding softly; their delicate scent is wafting now with the spring warmth, in through the window. When my mother was young did she feel sorrow at the passage of time as she waited in stillness behind curtains or jumped in waves at the beach or ate dinner with her own mother? Perhaps we cannot think about our lives passing until we see ourselves in our children, doing all that we did and all that we didn’t. Perhaps it is difficult to think beyond the present until we see in the curved backs and red dresses and rhythm of our children a future that stretches out beyond us, a life we will not live.
As I write these words, on the floor in my small apartment by the open window, I think all these things and my life moves inexorably forward. The plants on my sill lean gently towards the light and the end of their quiet lives. Perhaps I should fight this passage of time with teeth and tears. Perhaps I should run and rage. But I don’t. I gaze out the window at the white flowers on their tiny branches and I feel happy. Those blossoms will bask in sunlight a few more days and then float gently away. I am glad they are here. I feel myself as a small piece in the movement of the worlds; I am here and I am leaving.
I smile and lean back against the wall. I picture my future child, a daughter, waiting very still behind closed curtains. Music whispers. She dances. I hope, someday when I watch from the dark, that I smile.
J. Ellington is an essayist who enjoys tending her houseplants, walking next to rivers and trying out new Thai food restaurants. She currently lives next to mountains in Utah and plans to stay for at least another year before moving on to explore some other patch of the world, writing essays all along the way.