Slog
News & ArtsFriday, June 5, 2009
Life In the Split
Posted by Charles Mudede on Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 3:16 PM
This morning, around James and 5th, a woman across the street waves at me. She is around 50, black, and wearing a tracksuit. I think it is my mother. She is on her morning walk; she is waving at her son. But a closer look reveals the waving person to be not my mother but a crackhead who has mistaken me for a crackhead or dealer. I look away from her and walk up the hill.
But to slip by a trick of light and colors into that split second was something wonderful. In that split second I believed that my dead mother was alive and out and about. She was in the world with her own body. The thing about a death is that it finishes not so much the person but the relationship with that person. Instead of the subject/object relationship, there is now only a subject—you who survives. The death of a close person is the total internalization of that person. Your living body becomes the site of their burial. It is here inside that the dead have something like an afterlife (alive but not alive, in time but not in time). They roam the body like a ghost roams a tomb.
To see my mother in the crackhead was a liberation. For once she was outside instead of inside. The illusion of her freedom made me happy for a split second.
1
Especially if I met them in costume at Burning Man or an Arts event where they were dressed up.
6
14
i said something almost exactly like that at my moms' funeral 2 months ago.
but, you know, more positive. so my entire family didn't collapse in despair.
16
SERIOUSLY.
SUMTIMES I THINK I SEE MUDDY CHARLES MUDEDE WATERS IN SEATTLE. BUT I DON'T. B/C HE IS A GHOST WHO LIVES ON THE INSIDE OF AN AUTOGRAPHED FIRST EDITION OF DAS CAPITAL. LIKE THE PUCK OF DA PAGES. HE TOOK TOO MANY MUSHIES AND THEN TURNED INTO AN APE AND A BLOB AND A GOAT HEAD AND THEN INTO A BOOK AND A CRACK-ED AND THEN A MAGAZINE EDITOR TYPE AND THEN HE WAS AFRICAN TOO.
It was hot. My mom wanted the floor fan moved over. She asked the nurse.
The nurse struggled and bent down to look at the outlet, because the cord wasn't long enough to reach where my mom wanted the fan to be.
After a few moments my mom says pretty loud, "you know, they sure are reluctant to pull the plug in this place!"
The nurse's face went from pure fear to smiling in an instant -- the instant it registered that all of us cracked up with laughter.
In this moment, my mom is alive always.
23
I am also glad to hear that Will met some people at Burning Man but don't know who they were. This is the kind of news that I live for.
25
33
I really liked your thoughts here.
Advertisement
Most Commented on Slog
-
Hating People Doesn't Make Them Thinner by Jen Graves
-
Los Angeles Gay Bar Bans Bachelorette Parties Until Marriage Equality Is Attained by David Schmader
-
Fill in the Blank by Grant Brissey
-
This Reminds Me of the Great Calculator Scare of the Late '70s/Early '80s by David Schmader
-
Idiot Tries to Defend Bigoted Anti-Gay-Marriage Preacher on Anderson Cooper by Paul Constant
-
Six Moms with Too Much Time on Their Hands and a Shitty Website Decide to Fight Gay Superheroes by Paul Constant
-
Why Mayor McGinn's Wife Canceled Her Family's Seattle Times Subscription by Eli Sanders
-
What the Hell Is Wrong With Seattle's Pride Parade? by Dominic Holden
-
The Saturday Morning News by Unpaid Intern
-
NYC Man Ticketed for Not Riding in the Bike Lane by Jonathan Golob
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (36) RSS