My teen is learning another language. Nouns only get him so far. Round verbs clash with square pronouns. Roles befuddle fluency.
We joke, we sing. Mom (loud) and kid (embarrassed). We pick up cuss words, gingerly, like dropped fruit (bruised but still good).
Months of drudgery, then he drafts paragraphs about a family tree, and the apple does not fall all that far from the trunk.
***
I quit shaving my legs when the kids were little. It just happened, slowly, during blustery seasons of hormonal storms.
I’d look at the razor in the bathroom cabinet and shrug my shoulders, Next time. Next times kept sneaking out of reach.
They taught me to shave my legs when I was a new teenager in this country. Parallel blades and foamy cream because that’s how it’s done.
I wholly obliged, even if thin-skinned shins dripped blood, even if pink rashes raised angry fists.
There was a right way. And a wrong way. It was my job to make others comfortable. Wasn’t it?
***
My kid writes about our family tree and stabs harsh pencil points at invisible targets. Such discreet distinction in old languages, such tucked-into-creaky-drawer labels.
Nouns that come in shades of he, she, or it. Period. Ripe pronouns to match. Period. Adjectives that need to be sliced or whipped into foam to fit. Period.
Neat quadrilateral folders in spacious zig-zag drawers make the world go round, merrily.
***
Decades later, my dedication fizzles. Supposed to and don’t you think you should stop bothering me.
A rusty metallic forest curls around my ankles, my calves, up to my knees. I wear long pants. Leggings with skirts in the summer.
My child rumples up his nose and avoids my gaze, avoids the sight of my exhaling skin, the way the breeze stirs hairs like sea grass.
In winter I joke that my jungly legs are thermal undergarments. Or braided Viking trusses, worn proudly.
There is an ancient rhythm to their dance. I like stroking them flat, then watch them stand back up. Wordlessly they mumble, Nope.
***
I stopped shaving my legs, but I kept mowing the relentless lawn. I hated every moment. Sore shoulder, swollen thumb joint, itchy patches of skin.
Weed-whacking was worse. The damn machine upset sharp pieces of bark. They jumped up as if to catch a comet by its tail and slammed into –
my chin. Or right below my eye. Left a mark every time. I kept mowing. If wiry hair can be stubborn, so can I.
***
Grass begins to whistle in the spring winds. Dandelions poke out their buttery heads, invite the bees of the world. I toss aside my long sweats—
yank on capri yoga pants and take my bare legs out to mow the lawn. Long leg hair. Trimmed grass blades. A dusty tale of the ages.
***
My kid is learning about pronouns in another language, doesn’t even stumble when he introduces himself to his new teacher as →
sister, cousin, granddaughter. He → she describes his → her sibling as neither girl nor boy but as →
a word that has no equivalent in this language we study. So his → her sibling prefers →( … ) and likes the pronoun(s) → … and … because that’s how it is.
Grades be damned. Norms, too. Period.
I twist my sea of leg hair in amazement. These kids have absorbed that conformity drowns out individuality. They intuit: change births growth.
Expectations sigh and flutter out the window, descend like airborne seeds across a just-cut lawn.
One of my children is searching for a new name— a shining, happy one that goes with summer fruit and shaved legs. A name that has legs.
The other one wraps muted flannel around a shy body, goes back and forth between this pronoun and that one. Both smile.
It’s a different world. It is. I’m glad for my kids. They insist, It’s still me. Nothing is really different.
They mean their change— monumental survival, essential— is not that drastic. I think it is. I think how lucky they are.
***
I roll socks with bright stripes up my fuzzy legs and head for the garden, lawn edger in one hand, heart undone in the other. There’s a word for that in any language.
Alina Zollfrank, from (former) East Germany, loathes wildfire smoke and writes to get out of her whirring mind. She cares for two teens, a husband, three rescue dogs, and countless plants in the Pacific Northwest. She finds inspiration in both the lightness and heaviness of this world. Her essays and poetry have been published in Bella Grace, The Noisy Water Review, Last Leaves, and Thimble. See more at her website.
Featured Artwork:
Cactus Flower
Painter and poet Carmen Germain is the author of four poetry collections, the latest being Life Drawing, featured in MoonPath Press (2022). Her paintings and drawings have appeared in various literary art journals, and she has been a visiting artist-scholar at the American Academy in Rome. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, the traditional homeland of diverse Indigenous tribes near the Salish Sea.