Tarot Creativity Challenge, Day #5

The Nine of Swords.

My mother was never one to experience much worry, guilt, or anguish. I think she was largely free from those emotions. Certainly when she followed her brother/boss into that shopping mall and pulled an automatic handgun on him and his young son and made a series of incoherent demands concerning the family business while gesturing with the gun into the faces of the brother/boss and the son and screaming onlookers, she seemed to be free from worry, guilt, and anguish. She told me that divine voices expunged all doubt from her mind, that they urged her on, giving her confidence and courage. She told me she felt inspired. Perhaps she felt less inspired when the police stripped the gun from her hands and found it empty, and when her brother/boss howled in laughter, the hot breath of it singing her face. But on those few occasions that I've spoken to her about it, I detected no worry, guilt, or anguish in her voice, except perhaps over the fact that she failed to kill brother/boss, as the divine had told her to.

I don't ever remember her exhibiting much worry, guilt, or anguish on her own part. On mine, yes. But that was different. When upon leaving our second grade talent show she pulled me aside in the dark parking lot and punched me twice, once on each side of my head and the diamond on her wedding ring breaking the skin on my scalp while my father looked on, for not being as pretty as the other girls in my dance group and for being the second best dancer and not the best, she was worried about me. She was guilty because of me, and she was anguished for me. But not for herself.

She didn't show much worry, guilt, or anguish when she rolled her eyes in that exaggerated way—the muscles of her entire face rolling with them and her head lolling on her neck like a broken thing—and flung her arms out and screamed at the ceiling when her daughter brought home a report card with a B and a C+ on it. That is to say that she showed a lot of anguish over my grades, yes. I don't dispute that. But did she show any worry about overgoing the melodramatic theatrics in a way that would embarrass even the most hysterical of her daytime dramas? I don't think she ever did.

She did feel some worry when she confronted me one day about the fact that I went to school with known terrorists and murderers, which was news to me. When she asked me if I was ready to do the right thing and defend our family if we were attacked, or to prevent our family from being attacked in the first place, I really got the sense that she was worried from the way her hands and voice were trembling. And when the disgust rose up in me and I shouted a refusal, and she slapped me to the ground, I know she did so because she was worried. Again, for me, not for herself.

When she woke me up in the middle of the night, pulling me from the covers and making me kneel next to the bed and pray for forgiveness for being ugly and lazy and stupid, because ugliness and laziness and stupidity were sins—it was right there in the book—and the divine hated me and I had to beg the voices for mercy, I do think she felt guilty about having given birth to me. I do think she felt worried about having a daughter who was such a failure, and about how she was going to have to deal with that fact for the rest of her life, and I think she felt anguished about everything that I was. Anguished would be a good word for it. Still, again, I would argue that that anguish was misplaced.

In any case, that anguish was a temporary thing. She got over it. She found a cure for her worry, guilt, and anguish. She was a bit anguished when, while taking me to my first day of college in the distant southern part of the state, she tried to drive the car into the center divider, screaming that I was utter shit and worthless and had done nothing, nothing, nothing with my life and promising she would destroy us both. I say she was anguished because I saw her crying, and I assume that action is indicative of anguish. But the anguish would end with our mutually assured destruction. Or it would have, if I hadn't grabbed the wheel away from her, barely able to see for my own fear and my own tears but somehow managing to steer the car back into the lane. Again, she might have experienced some anguish over her failure, and some guilt.

No, no “might have” about it, that time. That time I know. When she made her tearful apology a few days later, saying something about changing her meds and saying “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry” until the words had lost their meaning, I expect that was real guilt. Real anguish. I didn't quite know what to do with it at the time. I sat and listened, the muscles stiff and hot around my eyes saying “Yeah, I forgive you,” until the words had lost their meaning. Not that my words had much meaning in the first place. I felt guilty about lying. Not anguished, though. I felt a little anguished, maybe, about the fact that I didn't rip my mother open with my words, that I didn't make the air thick with accusations and drive her in that sobbing state to strangle herself or swallow all her pills at once out of overwhelming feelings of worry, guilt, and anguish. I felt a little anguished over my failure. But I got over that.

Now I go to see her and she is calm. No worry, anguish, or guilt. Whatever medication she is on is working well. It is as though the past never happened. She is still abrasive; she tells me how to interact with my boss, tells me how to do my work, tells me how I need to present myself in the office, how I need to dress. She feels no anguish over saying these things, though. It is as a light-hearted ribbing, the kind that men do, and it's not worth my feeling anguished over it, even though every time she tells me these things I feel like some vital organ inside of me is shriveling. She does not tell me how I should be with my husband, and for that I am thankful. Nor does she insist that the divine voices tell her that I am failing in my great purpose, a purpose which was only ever known to them and to her. The last time I went to see her to show her how my belly was swelling, she didn't offer me any mothering advice. That was good. If she had, I think I might've gone into the kitchen, got a knife, and cut her throat open.

My mother shows no worry, anguish, or guilt at all now. She picks up her cat, kisses it and talks baby talk to it. She watches the news and complains volubly at the daily betrayals of our nation. She waters the plants in her garden, and she smiles while doing so. These are the actions of a person with a clean conscience. These are the actions of a person who has been absolved. She meets each day—each day diminished now down to mere human scale—with courage and with confidence.
My mother shows no worry, anguish, or guilt at all. And that's fine. I have enough worry, anguish, or guilt for the both of us. Especially when I place my hand on my stomach and feel that small heart beating beneath my hand. The worry and anguish and guilt threaten to split me open.