Before the Readathon: Birthday Edition

Today my mom would have been sixty. I miss her beautiful eyes, the way she lit up when talking about Southern Gothic literature. I miss her altar, but I am grateful that this first birthday happens on Day of the Dead.

And I have pillaged my brains for an appropriate ofrenda, thought how to paint a sugar skull over my prairie of freckles, to embrace everything this beautiful holiday has to offer. In the end, instead of a material item, I decided to read. Mom was a big reader and an incredible writer. It kills me that she never got to read my book.

Maybe I would offer her candles, light some incense. I love this holiday.

—

In preparation for the readathon, I schlepped to the library with an empty reusable grocery bag. The wind was biting. By the time I made it to the sliding glass doors of the library, my hair was tossed about on my head. But I picked up:

Beautiful World, Where are You? So I am not normally one interested in Sally Rooney for unfathomable reasons. Sometimes I crave non-speculative literary fiction, and today is one of those days. Rooney is about my age; I am curious to see if she has struggled with the metaphors on top of metaphors lurching nowhere that I seem to generate in my own writing.

Wuthering Heights. Can you believe that I have made it to thirty-one without having ever read Wuthering Heights? I don’t even know what the plot is. I had considered buying this one to celebrate the good things that have happened this past week — finishing the novel, having a (so far) good physical. But when you’re on a budget, well, you find just as much satisfaction by pressing that borrow button on Libby.

Prelude to Bruise. I browsed the poetry section. I did not have a specific book or author in mind; I merely ran my hand along the spines of fat and skinny collections. On a whim, I peeled this one away from its mates on the shelf. Shrugged, tossed it in the impossibly large grocery bag.

The House of the Spirits. I read my first Isabel Allende this year (Violeta) and I found that it chugged on in a quietly compelling way. Needless to say, I wanted more of her work. While I was digging through the first shelf with the A name authors, this one popped out at me, jiggling itself: Pick me, pick me.

The Musical Brain. So this will be my first time reading Cesar Aira, someone I have wanted to pick up for years. The library did not have Ghosts, the book on my radar. But I could use a good short story collection.

On top of these, I have the books I am presently in the middle of. Without giving it much precise thought, I borrowed Bless Me, Ultima on Libby. I’m not sure what I was thinking except to say that I am a Chicana, I live in New Mexico, was I the target audience of this book? The freckles on my face snort, but my heart says, yes, this book found its way into your spur-of-the-moment lap.

—

This is not an exclusive readathon. That’s right: It is time to work on Project Guernica, which was my mom’s favorite thing that I am writing or plan to write. Of all my work, this one she loved best. It is appropriate that I get started on it on her birthday. After all, it is dedicated to her.

—

I miss my mother. Sixty. She was far too young to slip away from us. Her favorite books included As I Lay Dying, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Wuthering Heights, Hamnet, The Buried Giant, any anything by Joseph Campbell. When she was in the hospital, I read excerpts of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn to her.

The greatest gift I have of my mother is that I can remember her for who she was, our friendship (when I became an adult), the way that she loved reading and shrimp tacos. I laughed at her once because she wanted Taco Bell for her birthday dinner. I will always remember her, not her final months. I read for her. I write for her. I love for her. Losing her…what can I say. To quote Sigur Ros (again): But I always stand up.

The readathon commences. And the writing will flow like lava. With my book done, I can enjoy the newness of another world, this one set in Spain. Because Mom was a writer, I will always have our shared vocation within me.

Happy birthday, Mama.