-In the middle of writing, I caught sight of my reflection in the train window and though, ‘What is it like to be the person who is NOT the writer?’-
Swirling shades of blue slow-dance in my dad’s eyes while my mother talks. He’s watching, but not seeing, a chattering woman with jerking, waving hands.
They’re sitting on the lounge sofa, Dad reclining against the chord cushions, looking normal. My mother is sitting cross-legged, her knees bouncing against his thigh, her hands darting about. For a writer, she relies a lot on her hands acting out what she wants to say. I’ve seen her standing in a circle of people, squatting and twisting and putting on a voice when probably a sentence would have done. Those hands conduct her. Stopping and starting, jumping around like her thoughts, her voice, her everything.