living off of the land
Eleonora’s hair has always been a task handled by her village. Not a literal village, but the succinct family she has had, including neighbors near and the neighbors far she got form others, helping and being the village that they all tended to, their love, their hearts. It was always a community thing, tending to her beauty, her hair, her history in the forgotten lines, folds, scars, bumps, and pigment of her body, her soul captured by this vessel, held delicately and tortured by the world, the empires touting they’re better since they have no form of community like her, like she always has had. They want profit, and she needs the hands that aren’t her own to trail through the length, the weight, the thickness of her curls, ink them with oil, deepen the sable and pick at each strand of dirt, rinse and repeat until she enacts the care to another person, someone she knows, someone she doesn’t, someone kind, someone like her in any respect; living.
She, Auntie Jory, let the steam of a porcelain tub with burgundy claw feet, mix with lavender and some salts, a chair of the freshest cherried finish is where she rests, the ingredients of Eleonora’s hair and scalp care resting on a stout pillar of greyed marble. It’s all facing a long sink, of similar marble yet matte painted cabinets. It’s all so clean, all so clear and posh and too much for her, but still, she rests her head back on the bath pillow Auntie Jory took from one of the cabinets she stared at. She stares at it all still, even the fined ceiling of white, all of this white and red and gold and soaked in the demise of others.
She does not like riches, and don’t bite her tongue off for her hypocrisy, but now having it, having it now when she passed what she was raised with in a sense, without the buildings, but with the packed cities, the packed bites of tongue, the shared, misconstrued dialects that she’d flick through, the languages so rich and harping and everything just so together. She’s alone in this big house, this nearing-mansion with only two other people, two older women. It’s perfect if it were just this, if it were just them, no one else but then, then she’d be okay with it. Maybe others would too, get this selfish desire, but she’s not really here, she’s not really used to her Auntie Jory anymore, and she’s especially not used to not being a mama’s girl.
“Is the water too hot?” She’s sweating, the bath water fogged with essence and oils and care for her stress, but she’s yet to scrub herself, waiting until her skin is damp enough for a body scrub then soap then rinsing off her hair with a cup of fresh water to cool the senses, shock her into remembering how much of a privilege it is to even have healthy hair to care for, to have the products to care for it before reminding herself of the stress that are long curls dealt with alone versus with an experienced few fingers and sculpted biceps. The water isn’t too hot, it’s just right, even letting her forget of the honey that sticks to her skin. Hair then face then body then hair again and then rest. She’s used to it, used to community even if there was no unity where she was, only that disgust of herself, that disgust her mother shielded her from, her *family-*not-family. As much as she could at least, and in this bath, it feels this was all she really needed, if people could see her now, see the care and passion and love of facilitating Eleonora seeping from her Aunt’s voice then maybe they’d’ve never touched her history, or maybe they knew and that’s why they still call her those names.
Her lips part, lungs taking the steam and growling at the temperature, the texture as it licks at her words, “It’s perfect, Auntie.” She hums, letting her fingers leave her hair for a moment, dipping into the comb she’s always known that’s also here, that’s always been here, with her even as she left. It wasn’t her home, but the memories of it were, the smell and age of her aunt’s hands, the care with which they handle her that the people fearing age can never fathom. She wants to be old if she’ll look even a sentiment like her mother her aunt, their life in the world that’s not been hard, and yet they’ve had each other. Always. “Mother, you mean.” Her eyes of ponds meet her Aunt’s of green, the moss in the morning dew, the moss hidden in the world of the creatures that are far smarter than the convoluted humans Eleonora has always been a part of. Ups and downs of humanity, of her own community. Her lips are still parted, looking, feeling for words that have yet to’ve formed in her life here, however, here is plausible. “Right… Mother,” she confirms, trying it on her tongue and matching it to her face of age, not to her mother’s because she has a different name, has always had a different name. Her mother is different form her aunt, and yet her tongue doesn’t completely refute the new titular claim.
She doesn’t remember much of the time her aunt and mother had together, she doesn’t remember because they only had nights together when Eleonora was sleeping. Nights that weren’t filled with talk of school, with talk of their life together as a three-woman family, not even their work in the world, but just them in what world they created in their apartment. They never said what they were, and even now, Eleonora doesn’t know what to call them together. They’ve always been her family, but parents, together? Her mother’s accepting, her aunt is, but that doesn’t automatically mean Eleonora is gay, or her family is. She can’t be, she can’t because that’s far too much of a platitude. But they look so good together, they’ve always looked so at peace and Eleonora knows it’s not wrong, but no matter what happens in the walls of her world, they’re still under man’s gaze, they still feel man’s touch without life, what they can and can’t be. Eleonora can be here but not out there.
Maybe in this book though, maybe in this book that can be her life of a fairytale. “How…” She takes a nominal breath of the steamy atmosphere and maybe her aunt’s words, her mind are really an augury as so many have said, because it is too hot now. “How long have you two been together?” She raises one of her brows of black, both sharp just as her features are, so it’s slightly intimidating as she watches her aunt find amusement in the question, as if she doesn’t need to know why she’s asking, what happened to make Eleonora ask this, just that she’s grateful to have, that it’s normal to ask. “Since birth basically.” Her teeth are white, a bit crooked because it suits her, like the hands that made her knew every bout of her imperfections made her perfect, and maybe the asymmetry of Eleonora, of her mother are also what make them fit together as three perfectly. Maybe that’s why no one wants them together as a family, maybe that’s why Eleonora always knew their warmth of blankets and late-night movies was more than the world could ever handle.
“So… you’ve always known you loved each other like…” She hums, supplying Eleonora’s forgotten tongue, “Like all the people in this land do. We take care of one another like the land wants us to herself. It’s… It’s Moksha, Heaven, and that’s why you’re asking, why you’re adhering to my construing.” She plucks at the last of Eleonora’s strands, letting the brush glide through the care done from her hands of experience as she makes to bound it in a bun and flip a silk wrap over it. “My daughter, your mother and I love you very much, even if you are my brother’s child, you are always going to be mine- we even share the same eyes.”
She huffs a laugh that hits her chest, caving it in before she ties the silk a top Eleonora’s widow’s peak, finding her eyes directly on hers rom below, an awkward position forgotten for the blue and green sincerity of eyes. “No matter our love’s trouble to your heart from our forgotten love caused by distance to our blossoming reunion from death and the life of you; you are as much allowed to confusion as we all are, time to adjust... Just know, my daughter, you will always have a place in my heart, you will always have a place in this hearth because my love for you is unconditional, no matter if you think of yourself as our daughter or just hers. You’ll always have my hearth.”
Her sharp features make the cut of love burn harder, break her body like a bag of bones that are supposed to hurt her, do hurt her because they are all bones, everyone here and there, and they hit so good against her, teeth to her flesh, teeth to her beating brain, heart. Her aunt’s eyes have always been her own, they’ve always shared more than the flesh of their bodies, the history of skin, the lines of her crooked lips when smiling, they’ve always shared more than what the world would ever know. Interests, tongue of choice, scratchy voices when singing, the breath of a newborn borne into the wrong world, wrong time, a moment alone in their own world of walls, of plants and silence. The world would never know how gentle it is to have an aunt as a mom, to have a mom who loves an aunt and not the brother of her. The world will never allow anyone to know the truth of how gentle it is to be loved by women, loved by the community no one wants yet everyone needs.
She catches the steam in her throat, it’s nowhere near tepid, but the heat of her tears might shame it into a lower temperature. They never fall, btu they do swell like the steam to her lungs, clearing out what she never knew was okay, what she knew but never voiced. Her mother did have someone after Dad’s death; her mother always had someone besides Eleonora’s dad, her mother always had love in the way Eleonora craved, pure, unconditional, ever lasting. Past all the stars, all the life, all the reincarnation, they had each other, they had karma in the most vulnerable form; love.
“Let’s make you feel whole, my baby.” She finds herself without honey on her face, staring into, not ponds like her own, but the greenery she can she here, can have here because it’s a book, a fantasy based on a reality she’ll never get there, never can hope to get because no matter the aegis of her mother’s arms, her hands on her ears, her flesh, her eyes, her nose, she’s never enough. Her mother is not a God yet, her mother is her mother, her mother is her aunt.
The care for the rest of the night dwindles and she finds herself in her room, painted in the night moon with yellowed lights of a few glass tulips above as lights, acting like the outside because they are a family for the Earth, Earth-bound. She doesn’t feel it, or maybe she finally does after all this time, as an Earth-bound body, being, sitting on a plush, decorated white comforter, the sheets letting her find peace with wrapped curls freshly done, refreshed skin, a clear mind reassured. The sheets let her find resignation in a way, a new way tampered with by clear, singed eyes. There is hope in people here, even if it’s just in her home again, in the community, the village that sprouted from the bud of a little apartment now grown mansion. It’s just like her home again, only not, only not because this is a book and the page just turned, not the moon.