My Daughter is...

a victim. of my impulse to tell stories.

My mother had never told me stories. My mother has zero memory of everything that has ever happened to her, it seems. Memory loss? I will never know.

I heard many stories while growing up in the Caribbean, everything from anansi stories to bible stories. They were largely narrated by my friends or their family, usually the mother or grandmother. Occasionally, my sisters would tell me family stories which i always enjoyed; there is nothing more entertaining or sorrowful than digging-up family memory. One aunt is a walking archive; another tells different versions of the same story.

There were other things my mother didn't do,
like, taking a lot of pictures while i was growing up. It explains my obsessive compulsion to take pictures of my daughter. I may have over 500pics of my daughter already and she's barely 2 years old.

My mother's stories are what i miss the most. I missed the experience of cuddling-up to her, inhaling her mother-scent, listening to her words as they roll off her tongue in waves, travelling in milliseconds to get to my tongue...

So i have my own daughter, for political reasons. I need someone to pass things on to. To love enough to care what she hears; to love enough to care that she hears my voice like a march in the dimly lit room, hugging her consciousness.

My daughter is also a victim of my ambition. My mother had not showed me the ways of the world. The blows i received were shocking, sometimes nerve rocking. I refuse to blame her. Perhaps her mother was also silent. I guess i'll never know.

Talking, yes, that's another thing i'm good at. I speak a lot. As if speaking against the painful silence i grew up in. My daughter is also a definite victim of my love for speech. I speechify to her. She doesn't seem to mind. Having her makes me realize just how much i want to be her. I want to become my daughter. Breathing. She breathes life into me. I cannot become my mother. I miss her stories...