Changing a Scarf

When she starts to put on her lipstick, I realize that she is about to put the final point of her make-up on... As I watch her intently, I catch myself making a big "O" involuntarily, as if the lipstick is going to overflow from my lips...

Then, she opens the drawer in which she carefully placed her scarves, and takes out one that suits her, whether it's a fluffy blouse or a two dirham "skirt-dope", whatever she's wearing that day, and she quickly ties it around her neck like a swan, with her hands reminiscent of a pair of sparrows. I think she is the most beautiful woman in the world when she leaves her chestnut-colored, wavy hair on the scarf... Just as a black apron and a white collar are a sign of being a student, the scarf that my mother wore on her way to school is like a sign of being a teacher for me.

Every day she prepares with the same care and goes to school with enthusiasm. I bet he knows each of his students as well as he knows me... Who has no boots, no coat, which has good finances, which needs it, which aspect is developed, which is lacking in what subject... In fact, what does the obese student have in his diet? what is forbidden!

Every day I hope that when she comes from school and takes off her scarf first, she will undress as a teacher and become a “mother”. He, on the other hand, with his voice that he used to keep high; “Don't make a noise, I have a headache,” she says. How much noise can I make alone! I still say "okay"... We spend the evenings in silence with the energy, interest, patience and aching legs of his heirs...

I'm coming home before that. I'm zero at cooking, but I start cleaning the house as soon as I take off my school uniform to make my mom happy. I leave a few cleaning cloths in the middle in case the detergent smell is not obvious... He smells the cloths without having to see them;

“Oh, did you clean up? Bless your hands!" she says.

Then he goes and looks at the coffee table at the bottom of the nested nesting tables, which I was too lazy to wipe;

"So you didn't delete this?"

I forgot so much(!) that I pretend to see the coffee table for the first time... Next time, I start from the bottom coffee table, but this time instead of looking at it, he goes and sticks his finger between the carvings of the seats...

Everything in the house has to be in a certain order, including the location of the furniture. Even a small trinket can change its location, provided that it is moved to another house.

It was as if God had given him friends who rhyme with his name so that he could adapt to the obsession with order in life; Whenever my aunt's name is mentioned, my chuckle ends with my mother's scolding. What did her parents think when they named it? “We did it, the result; it!" does it?

I still love them all. Because my mother is the only one who laughs the most and sincerely among these rhyming aunts. Except that one; In every heartfelt song, every sad movie, sometimes even out of the blue, she cries as if there are tears on the guard ready to take action at any moment...

I watch with interest as he eats an olive in a few bites every morning. I find it strange, but I don't ask why. It must be some kind of habit... One day when my cousin is with us, at the breakfast table, we laugh at her eating olives with a little bit of courage from each other. All of a sudden, he puts down his fork and starts crying again. He talks about how my grandfather, who looked after the population of six, was trying to live on with a civil servant's salary, how many foods rarely entered their homes, or even never, so they learned to "mix" with two eyes and two fountains, with sentences that we can barely understand from their hiccups. Then he gets up from the table and leaves. We just stand there with my cousin with the bites we can't swallow...

During my high school life, we have three people living in the house; my mom, me and "Rose's daughter"! One of my biggest misfortunes happens to be falling into the same class with the math genius daughter of Aunt Rose, who teaches at the same school as my mother... "Rose's daughter got 100 in math", "Rose's daughter got 100 in chemistry", Rose's daughter down, Rosel' fame girl up! Even though she knows her name, she insistently prolongs it as "Rosel's daughter". I'm guessing it's Rose, not her daughter. I wonder if they do not give pedagogical formation to them, do they teach there, too, "do not compare children, do not compete". So, motherhood formation doesn't listen to morbidity... She learns all my notes before she even comes home, from Rose's walking periodic table, "wiretapping" daughter.

"Rose's daughter is going to write med school, so do you"

he says, when I started my senior year of high school. My mouth stays open. I wonder whether I should be sad or happy for this great expectation that my mother, who knows my mediocre intelligence, did not realize that I would not be a doctor. I can't explain that we are in different lanes with Rose's daughter.

“She is the numericist mother, I am the verbalist”

Even my squeaks can't break his stubbornness.

My grandmother says “every child has a different inclination, my child, let him read whatever he wants”... I think I should look up the dictionary for "inclination", but from the way the sentence goes, I deduce that he said something in my favor...

As soon as he says, “Look, even my grandmother thinks so well,” this time my grandmother scolds;

"What do you mean 'even my grandma', donkey colt!"

That's right, the words of love are not flying in our house. My mother's understanding of love is based on "prohibition"!

“Don't go out without drying your hair well!”

“Don't be late!”

"It's very cold tonight, don't open your cover up!"

"No, you can't stay at them, I don't know your family!"

I can hear the unspoken “because I love you” at the end of those sentences. I'm learning that there are a thousand ways to show love. I know her love from the trembling of her hands when I have a fever, the way she makes up unimaginable excuses when she cooks my favorite meal, because she postpones her own needs and meets mine exactly when I want it... I know that my mother can love "like this"...

When she dies, I hate all those rhyming aunts... Every living thing that can still breathe even after my mother is gone, myself included! Even because they lived undeservedly and because they didn't live even though they deserved...

Now I keep her favorite scarf in a tiny chest, along with another scent I'm afraid it will fly away... and I feel guilty whenever I eat the olive in one bite...

“I kiss the wounds that you tried to hide from me, mother... Happy birthday!..”