Wait to Weight

Here’s a secret: my father isn’t dead. He is waiting for me. He is a presence I carry around with me and when something good or bad happens he sees. I can’t see what he looks like. I can’t hear him. But he is always around, on my periphery.

He is waiting for me. He has been waiting and waiting.

My mother is Jennifer Connely’s nose and cheeks and Barbara Hershey’s hands and chin.
She is pieces of actresses from horror movies I find comforting to watch and think about.

He still waits. He told me to wait for him. He would never let me go. No matter what. And so I wait too. We wait together in orbit of each other, close but not seeing.

I can’t make us stop waiting. I can’t disassemble my Hollywood mother. But I can do other things.

I can run every day. I can stay thin enough to see all the ribs join my sternum. I can excise all the variety and excitement out of life and eat, drink and fold in exactly the same ways for a decade.

When the wait is over, when my mother is an average woman. When.