My mum likes to make chicken soup when we’re sick. I eat it reluctantly because it’s not the soup I’d choose. I want tortilla soup.
(It’s not actually tortilla soup. It’s sopa de frijol, and I eat it with aguacate y chile. But I call it tortilla soup because I have tortillas with it.)
But I’m too sick, or too ashamed to ask for something other than what she’s offering. And so I take it, eat it, and appreciate it, even if I don’t enjoy it.
♦
In the doctor’s waiting room I take seven tissues, sneeze three times, and four people move away from me. I want to tell them I don’t have a cold, but instead decide I’ll remember this the next time I want to be left alone.
After waiting only fifteen minutes, the receptionist tells me I’m next to see the doctor. A white lady complains to the receptionist that she’s been waiting for over an hour. I feel bad. I keep scrolling aimlessly through Twitter and I see people talking about #BuskingBecky. I wonder if the white lady lied like I’ve heard people do to their phone company when they just want something for free. I look back up at the white lady, and back down at my phone; I feel less sorry for her now.
♦
I like looking at my tattoos in bed at night once the lights are out, and crossing my eyes a little to make it look like I have more covering my body. I like to pretend that my skin is covered in scars, with stories and stamps permanently etched all over me.
I read once that boxers intentionally break the bones in their fingers because the scar tissue creates a barrier of strength between them and their opponent—a tough outer shell to keep their soft insides protected.
I wonder how many needles and ink I would need to do the same, but remember I can’t tattoo my brain, and resign myself to the idea of continuing to go to the doctor. I consider the irony of hurting myself to protect myself, and conclude that I’m probably not strong enough to take the pain anyway.
♦
My fiftieth most-played song this year is by my friend’s band. I realize that I listen to this song when I miss my dead-end job; working with people I didn’t like and talking to people I didn’t care about.
Existing is easier when you think you have no ambition.
My friend told me she listened to a podcast about burnout. She said she thought she was depressed but really she was just tired.
I said two things can be true and we laughed and drank and I went home early because I still had work to do.
♦
I like to eat things I’m allergic to—I’m never sure of when or how to give up on the things I love.
I wake up the next day with a swollen face that makes my lips look fuller and my mum worry. I’m happy to take the attention.
My lips are already full though, and my mum is always worried about me. And I feel guilty when I remember these two things.
Appropriation and manipulation are never kind.
♦
Lots of my friends’ mothers have passed away this year, and the thought makes me want to crawl into a ball under my bedsheets.
The movie I watched last night when I couldn’t sleep was about a family celebrating Christmas after their mother has just died. No one can find the recipes she made for Christmas dinner, and no one knows how to exist as a family without their matriarch.
I cried from start to finish, worrying about not being able to find my mother’s recipes, feeling alone, not accomplishing things, and not being strong enough to take the pain.
And suddenly I was tired.
I slept and dreamt of my mother’s soup. She grabbed my face and kissed my forehead. I looked down at the black bean soup that showed my future. And I was happy and she was happy, and so I drank it down as fast as I could before my fortune changed. Drank my worries away, with black bean soup.
About the author
Vanessa Giron is a Latinx freelance writer based in Naarm. She primarily writes on identity and culture, and how these things have shaped her as a woman in country that is not her own. She is a member of the West Writers Group with Footscray Community Arts Centre as well as a critic for The Big Issue. You can find Vanessa on Twitter @vanesssagiron or on her website vanessagiron.com