uptight process

I believe the initial reference here comes from the novelization of the Hook movie (?). Happy graduation to the wonderful mellington third...

A mother's touch is like the cool side of a pillow.

That's what children say, when they want to describe the feeling - especially to those who haven't got one. Wonderful, and balming, and, if they had the word for it, panacea - perfect panacea! So perfect. So natural. So right. So true.

The answer to everything. Maybe she doesn't have the answer to everything, because that's what fathers are for, but she more simply is. That's why fathers would find her, after all. Since they like to be looking.

A mother's touch is the network of lines on her palms that make up the difference and the versimilitude between she and you; what she has got, and what you have given her, because those are wrinkles, silly child, don't you know?

It's what we get when we're older. It's how we know we've been here.

What she has given you is everything and nothing. Probably, your hands look pretty similar. Possibly, they don't at all. Possibly, they're not even good at half as many of the same things.

(You could have a sister. And the sister could get the hands, soft hands, while you could get the sour attitude, which isn't a terrible thing, to have a backbone, and some people are even fun for it, and it lends some interest, to the gentle painter, and how come your sweet sweet sister has got to shoot a gun?)

A mother's touch is also the warm side of a pillow; is the scowling, scurling breaths that heave senseless antipathy and apoplexy (but never, never bold- and bald-faced apathy) into the basin of illness that is a mother and her daughter, a mother and this creature, a springoff in every way aspirationally superior by very dint of generation because that's simply how life works, isn't it, we get stronger?! but never, never good enough.

(Creases, and fingernails bitten. The marks of wear, and Shania knew she'd be proud of herself if she had deeper calluses - if she played the violin, and had a chin-rest bruise! Not that Mother would, but...she'd stomach.)

Mother never yelled at Titania. Mother never had to yell at Titania. Or if she did, Shania was never good enough to hear it. Never important enough to hear it. Because we never needed Shania.

(Aren't we all soldiers? Don't we always need all of us? Or am I forgetting - tell me, am I crazy?)

Aren't I supposed to be Titania? And so why won't you let me be?

(Shania doesn't want to be. Shania would honestly like all that Titania was to be left alone. She really didn't deserve worse than that. What she's getting, by way of Shania. Shania, Shania, Shania.)

It's not that Mother believes she can't. It's that Mother believes it her due, simply to try, and try, and try (to be tried for, and to be owed).

Forever.

I'm trying, Mother. That's all a mother is supposed to want - for us to try!

You would have loved Titania if she'd had to try. You would have. I know. Because I loved Titania. And you, too.

If Mother had only let her try...and keep trying - let her, you know, let her! - then she could have had both. Isn't it enough not to be perfect at everything? We're not cradle-born soldiers, not like them!

Father wasn't perfect. He was just sweet. And that was alright. It's easier for you, isn't it? Since you don't have to be.

Isn't it just so natural? Never again.

Between warmth and chill, an essential exchange of energies. As nurturing is supposed to be, an essential exchange of energies.

But it's not so easy, is it?

That thing was once a baby. Can't you love it like a baby?

Can't you love it like a woman, proud and loud and born to be torn?

A mother's touch, the cool side of a pillow.

Tossing, turning. Lurching, learning. Never retaining a blessed thing.

And Shania is so, so cold.