It’s not easy to admit that they fell a few more millimeters. That’s what I think when I get out of the shower and face my entire body. I don’t accept counting in centimeters as long as that mirror is mine. As if that would reverse or delay this accursed maturation that takes over my body, increases it before withering away. I’ve been avoiding being naked in front of me, looking at this in detail, but I’ll have to get used to wrinkles and flaky skin; the creams are as effective as the teas, at most, they don’t do any harm, and pass for calming.
I just passed by your room and saw you looking at yourself, looking for defects, imperfections, and parts to be modified. Ah, if I could convince you that if perfection doesn’t exist, you are an example very close to it; youth have a vitality of its own that when we realize it, it was, and we were pissed with idiocy. People complain about cycles and PMS and want to get rid of them, and when they do, everything is so weird. I miss when I had a paper diary and circled the dates and my desperation when I thought the pad wouldn’t do it. I didn’t have another one in my bag when I was a few days late, and I felt pregnant, even with precautions, or worse, even at the stage where I hadn’t even had sex. I’ve already wasted energy and collagen on so many silly things.
That’s what I tried to tell you when I got back from the mall two years ago when I got distracted and crashed my car. You know I’m not a bad driver, but I wanted to convey an experience to you. I saw you worried in the store, rejecting several pieces because I thought you weren’t well. I thought you were beautiful and told you in front of everyone, and you got irritated, even on the way back, and I ended up losing control. I’m glad there weren’t any scars left, not at least on our bodies. I don’t know at what moment and what happened that makes you feel, worse, sure, that you are ugly and inadequate, which speaks when you think about your body. You get mad when I say it’s social media and that you should live more in real life. I think it’s the insane comparison with manufactured people, edited photographs and films, chosen parts, the best highlighted, the not-so-good, hidden, or decimated. You look great, and I would say, admittedly a little envious, that men must think you’re great, and you’re looking at your girlfriends. What a hell of an exchange. We believe it’s all physical and carnal because you feel the hormones in your body, but it’s the attitude, much more than a body. Of course, a big body helps. That’s what you have. Stop inventing defects.
Our rooms are side by side. We’ve done so much together in our lives; we have laughed and had a lot of fun. We’ve already gone out there proudly with the same clothes. You used to get so vain when they said you looked like me, and you loved the expression, one face, the other’s snout, and they said we were two seals. And you grew up, and a silence was established between us. Worse, we shout more than we speak, and it’s not you asking for my help, as it was when you were little. It’s an even half-crude attempt to push me away. Sometimes when I insist, it hurts.
There was no fault at the end of the marriage, and neither are you or your father. It finished! I also imagined that it would last forever. And when I try to get rid of that thought, it’s not because I think I’m more competent than you, it’s because things have really changed.
I’m a lot less old than I look in your eyes, but you’d better not see me naked, I think it would scare you. Of course, I could have done so many different things. But, I know it’s hard for us to talk about sex, you even want to tell me your stuff, but you never want to hear mine, you also put me in the group of asexual mothers. But I’m not, not yet.
I don’t know if it was good to ask for your help in choosing a photo for the dating app. I confess that I haven’t even gotten used to that shape yet, it seems much better, but I’m from a time when faking orgasm was a kind of good practice for modern women. How many didn’t even bother, just assumed they were a reservoir? Of course, I never mentioned any of this to my mother. I’ve never seen sexy panties or a porn piece in your grandmother’s wardrobe. Vanity for her was being made up and wearing earrings, she always put on lipstick, and there was no one to take it off. I don’t know if I remember the last time she and my dad kissed. I’m talking about real kisses, the ones I would talk about, “Stop!” out of sheer envy, the kind where the lipstick comes off smearing everything. The fate of a mature woman’s lipstick is the napkin, and I dreamed of changing that. I think that’s why my marriage ended.
Why don’t I shout your name and you come? Maybe it’s for defense, but I’m at that stage where I’m afraid to try, I’m sure it won’t come, and I prefer not to risk it. If I allow myself more risk in relationships with men, I allow myself less with you. When I was your age, I also locked myself in my room, but I didn’t use headphones and the music was loud, not so loud because my mother complained, but she knew what I heard. I don’t even know about you, which music you like. If I were to throw you a surprise party I wouldn’t know how to list ten songs for the DJ. It makes me wonder how I turned into a mother like mine, despite all the plans I’ve made since we got along wonderfully, to be different. I think I’m going to make that cornmeal cake that you loved and ask you to have it with the coffee that you started drinking, even if adding that protein, and then we put on “Como nossos pais” and hear Elis Regina screaming that we’re condemned to be like who we came from. I no longer have mine here to complain, blame, or fight. I will be helpless in front of you, hoping you understand that I tried and that this body I have is the best alternative of myself that I could get. Some traces of what I experienced are in it, but I admit that many marks of what I didn’t experience are missing. I didn’t realize it. After all, I didn’t have the courage because I didn’t have the time. I think it took me too long to leave where you are until I got to where I am today. It was painful, full of uncertainties, with costumes always trying to follow fashion and now almost giving a fuck about this dictatorship. I am no longer able to spend a bomb on a bag, no matter how long it lasts, I no longer queue for bags, I want someone to invite me to join a queue at the cinema, but the cinemas also do not have lines for the movies that I want to see. I decided to buy a new TV, I talked about the series, I spent hours watching them, but I really wanted to go see a movie that takes me out of place, not physically, psychically, and having to face a queue, what if the man next to me put his hand on my leg and come with his mouth towards me, I’ll love it, I still want those things.
I don’t allow myself to draw attention to the noise in the kitchen. I’ve never been the door-slamming or step-marker type. But I want this to be the smelliest cake I’ve ever made.
I never allowed myself to cook for any other man. I didn’t want them to think it was a weapon, I do want to find another partner to call mine, nothing against having a little fun first, living without commitment, but I want to, not at all costs, not anyway, not anyone, and I also handle myself well. I thought I liked Antonio, and I really did, I’d say I loved him, I know you liked him too, but I’ve already tried to tell you at least three times that I broke up with him because one day I saw his look of desire on you and then I felt him coming over me. It wasn’t out of jealousy, envy, or dispute, it was because I thought he was a scrotum; he was almost 60 years old. He could even show up here with you, maybe I’d have a heart attack and call your dad, but he walked in after a long time in this house as my boyfriend. He had to know how to hold back. We got along well, and the sex was really good, he screwed everything up. If I hadn’t caught him looking at you, I would just think he was more excited, that it was just the effect of the medicine, but I didn’t know how to deal with that kind of attitude.
And you, when you needed to take revenge on the world, you said I was hopeless, and look, I only weigh eight kilos more than when I married your father, how many people don’t look at me and say I look like a girl? How many men don’t look at me and say that I’m a “hot crown,” not to mention the far from small group of those who say that I look at least 15 years younger, 10 I think is even feasible. Yes, after Antonio, I plunged into work, I agreed only to meet two men, I went to be on the first day, as I had never done before, but I didn’t allow myself to reach my age without knowing what it was, and if you wanted knowing what I thought, I would say quietly: I recommend it. Although perhaps this advice is unnecessary for you. But I read that your generation, despite all the freedom and ease, has sex less than mine…
I’ve already put all the ingredients from the recipe that I still know off the top of my head. I’ve already beaten it and poured it into the pan. I think a tear has formed and I go back to the bathroom, I look in the mirror, I don’t need to dry it off because I’m alone, and I don’t mind crying, I reach for the cream and notice that my leg is drier than it’s ever been, but the veins haven’t taken over yet, muscles still don’t feel like visitors, they’re here, requiring much more effort, but they are.
I lost the discomfort of menstruation when I didn’t even find it uncomfortable anymore and I lost it along with my thin waist and gained a bigger arms, and if I say that around my friends, I run the risk of being lynched. They think I look great. And I think so, but even so, looking in the mirror is a challenge, getting used to the new dimensions with the new formats. I didn’t want to change the breast after I breastfed, and as I enjoyed breastfeeding, but he’s different, it’s impossible not to have a nostalgia for what we once were, a fear of losing the hand and becoming that person we don’t even recognize anymore, that person that the mean cousin, who never took care of herself comes to praise. She never did during all the years that you were, let’s say, in shape; now she makes a point of saying you’re okay. And that has the potential to hurt. I believe that I am a product of my choices, my actions. I didn’t want to lose control of my body, not because it was a standard that men wanted, but because I felt good like that, of course, I passed desires, but that’s also what living is, making choices and passing wishes.
I would have taken fewer bizarre lines, I would have spent less time and energy showing that I am as capable as any other human being who has worked hard for a good education, that several times I ran the risk of you crying more because I needed to finish a report, your father at this point was firm, we shared, he had some idiotic colleagues who made fun of him that he was too soft, of course, he was far, in meters, not in kilometers from the ideal, but he made an effort, also because I demanded that from him, there was a cost. I consider myself a very successful person, I have a career, I am respected, called to give lectures, but here at home I am more like a mute, someone with communication difficulties. I think that today this is my biggest hoax, being a communication consultant and speaker and being afraid that some minimally curious journalist will decide to make a profile of my personal life and start interviewing you. It makes me feel insecure, and I can’t call your name or knock on your bedroom door. Maybe in my ideal world, yes, we all have ideal worlds, even those who know they don’t exist or are useless, but we do, I didn’t have to knock on your bedroom door or when I gave you compliment, you respond politely, I raised you very well, even though I worked a lot. I never missed one of your performances at the theater, I already canceled an important meeting for it, and I never demanded it. I never threw it on the table, I did it because I had pleasure in seeing your growth, your development. You are a beautiful woman, and knowing that you don’t see it as simple as that is frustrating. I believe that it’s just a phase, that we’re still going to get closer again, and I’ll be able to show you some paths that I was taught and others that I learned by bumping into very distinct surfaces.
This cake smells good, I get dressed and return to the kitchen. I open the oven, poke it with a knife, it’s ready. I take the gloves that have been in the kitchen at home since your father’s time, I put them on that plate that has a frog, the one that you liked when you were a child. I open Spotify and type “Como nossos pais,” and turn up the volume.
It doesn’t take ten seconds, and you scream “Mom! Mother!” I go to your room and grab the doorknob, and it’s locked. You complain about my music. That you are studying for the Finance test. I say that I made the cornmeal cake that you liked so much and I haven’t made it in years. You release: “You’re crazy!” Turn the music down! All this without even approaching the door.
I think about saying a few things to you, but I return when Elis screams that we live like our pareeeeents. I look down at the cake and cut a hearty slice. I take it carefully to my mouth, it’s delicious, it brings back several memories, I keep traveling in time, as if that little piece of fennel were psychedelic, even though it doesn’t allow me to have any hallucinations of tenderness with my daughter, that must demand a lot more. I go to the intercom and ask if Júlio, the good plump doorman, doesn’t want a warm cake. I know you won’t even touch the cake.
In a minute the bell rings, and he is startled by the amount of cake. “I was in the mood, but I’m already satisfied!” He smiles gratefully, “It looks great! And the smell too, you could smell it from the elevator. God bless!” “Take care, and don’t forget to give me the dish back because my daughter loves it.” I’ve almost closed the door, and I hear Dona Claudia, “I wanted to thank you for that video you recommended, my wife and I learned a lot! We even spoke at the church, and Sara is much more open with us. You were splendid!”
It was just what I needed to end this long reflection started when I noticed my breast a little more sagging. As they say in church, not in Júlio’s, where I was raised, Saints at home don’t work miracles! With you I don’t know if I’m going to learn or teach things. I just know that today there will be no interaction. I don’t know whether let out laugh or cry. I think you’d prefer the ironic laugh; it installed itself between us. If you saw me crying, I’d lose points, but I’m going straight to my room. I shouldn’t have attended to Júlio in that outfit.
*Elis Regina was one of the most talented Brazilian singers and died precociously at 37 years. “Como nossos pais” (translation: “Like our parents”) is a famous song telling about the contradictions of wanting to be different.
Photo by Anton Luzhkovsky on Unsplash
Marcelo Candido de Melo
Marcelo Candido de Melo, 57 years old, is Brazilian and lives in São Paulo, the most cosmopolitan city in South America. He had a marketing career in big companies before starting his own publishing house. He realized he was a writer after spending over a decade editing books and telling authors how challenging it was to make a living from literary talent, especially in Brazil, where educational issues have always kept people away from reading. He unintentionally started as a ghostwriter, and projects began to appear, sometimes as a ghostwriter, sometimes telling the story of a person, a family or a company. His first novel was a critical success and was adapted for the theater, but just as production was about to begin, the country entered a new crisis. He is currently working on completing his second novel. In addition to the first one, he has already written 17 other books and publishes two little texts on Instagram every Wednesday. He has two no more children: one is a screenwriter and writer who moved to California, and the other is a university student still eager to discover the secrets of life. He is married to a visual artist and also an amateur actor. Culture is deeply embedded in his life! His inspiration comes from a curiosity about human beings and all complexity of their existence.
