Desire Path
Emma Marion |
School must be some sort of peculiar punishment that someone made up to torture kids for having too much fun. Instead of being here, I want to go outside and roll in the green grass, or take a magnifying glass to the ant hill by the side of the fence. I want to run through the forest behind the house and throw rocks at squirrels, dip my feet in the creek, and pick flowers to bring home to my mom.
I collect all sorts of flowers for her. Prickly bull thistles, warm yellow dandelions, tall stocks of goldenrod, and her absolute favourites, the Alberta wild rose. Every time I collect flowers for her, I clutch them tight in my hands and close to my heart, the thorns from the roses stabbing into my skin until I start to bleed. I don’t ever mind, because I know how much mom loves them. She’s tried growing them in our garden multiple times, but mom has anything but a green thumb. That’s why I pick them for her. They bring colour into a seemingly dead household, and a soft smell to the air.
Our house always seems so bleak, so grey. Dad passed away five years ago, when I was seven, and sometimes it felt like his ghost stood where his body used to. He’s present in the pictures in the hallways, watching me grow up. Mom brought him to my grade six graduation by wearing his old, and now broken, watch. She wears his shirts sometimes, and I hear her crying every time she has to wash one, knowing she’s washing his “scent” off. She said that there was no smell like that of someone you love.
My wildflowers bring life into a house that rarely sees it, and an old sparkle to my mom’s eyes. I wish I could see it more often. I love when my mom is happy, even if it is few and far between. She used to be such a proud and elegant woman, but now she stands hunched over, cold and empty. A husk of what she used to be.
Sitting in my uncomfortable desk today, barely listening to my teacher, is like torture knowing my mom is at home wasting away in her chair. Right now, I can’t pick any wildflowers. The sound of the bell ringing pulls me out of my grim thoughts, and I run home as fast as I can. My chest is heaving and my breath is hot by the time I reach the forest. I keep running down the desire path I made after several trips through it.
Desire path. A path created by consistent travel on the same pathway, out of convenience or familiarity. My desire path leads me towards the creek where I can pick flowers, and then home, where I will always find mom sitting at the kitchen table knitting, the needles clicking loudly and melodically together. I travel this path as often as I know flowers will be growing.
Today I only found two wild rose flowers around the creek, so I clutch those flowers like my life depends on it, pretending it doesn’t hurt my hand. I reach the house and I give today’s picks over to mom, apologizing for the lack of the small pink roses that she loves so much. I wait for her reaction. Mom says nothing, but she smiles at me, and everything feels whole again.
