alicejadelubin
Digger
When I was in elementary school, the girls gossiped about their mothers and their jobs and where they shopped or where they didn't shop, almost as if they put them into an imaginary competition. I sat listening to their dull droning pitchy voices, as a child myself I felt almost mad, and distraught, I wanted to join the conversation but shoot, I didn't even know where my mom shopped (not perceptive enough then to know that she never bought anything new unless essential, and even then, often putting purchasing whatever it was off until no longer needed or forgotten). I wasn't embarrassed, just confused as to why I didn't know these things about my mother. This is a photograph of my mom in her “thrifted” skirt she got at an annual clothes trade my family friends hold and her heirloom fur coat. Overlaid photographed perfume patterns sprayed onto printer paper. The perfume stains add to the piece's idea of childhood embarrassment and animosity towards parents through my memory of when a classmate asked, “Hey , where does your mom get her perfume?” she had a smile like she already knew the answer. I said “Bath and Body Works” in a sassy strong voice, knowing my answer was a lie. She said “No, because my mom goes there and your mom doesn't smell like my mom does.” My twin sister sitting next to me chimes in, “Alice doesn't she get her perfume at the co-op?” Rage flew within me as the blonde little girl said with a grin “Oh…I already knew that because your mom smells bad.” I knew full well she didn't but part of me wanted to believe her, take her torments as facts, I was embarrassed now, and mad at my mom for not being “normal”. She never went shopping or bought me the new toys and summer dresses most girls had, not wearing new clothes or sickly scented perfume. Now I realize that while I was sitting in that room fuming and flushed, she was in class getting her PHD in biology no one helping her, a single mother with twins. Even now it confuses me and makes me feel guilty that she has learned to live with so little, but she's my mom and she does it for us, and that is nothing to be embarrassed about.
Digger
When I was in elementary school, the girls gossiped about their mothers and their jobs and where they shopped or where they didn't shop, almost as if they put them into an imaginary competition. I sat listening to their dull droning pitchy voices, as a child myself I felt almost mad, and distraught, I wanted to join the conversation but shoot, I didn't even know where my mom shopped (not perceptive enough then to know that she never bought anything new unless essential, and even then, often putting purchasing whatever it was off until no longer needed or forgotten). I wasn't embarrassed, just confused as to why I didn't know these things about my mother. This is a photograph of my mom in her “thrifted” skirt she got at an annual clothes trade my family friends hold and her heirloom fur coat. Overlaid photographed perfume patterns sprayed onto printer paper. The perfume stains add to the piece's idea of childhood embarrassment and animosity towards parents through my memory of when a classmate asked, “Hey , where does your mom get her perfume?” she had a smile like she already knew the answer. I said “Bath and Body Works” in a sassy strong voice, knowing my answer was a lie. She said “No, because my mom goes there and your mom doesn't smell like my mom does.” My twin sister sitting next to me chimes in, “Alice doesn't she get her perfume at the co-op?” Rage flew within me as the blonde little girl said with a grin “Oh…I already knew that because your mom smells bad.” I knew full well she didn't but part of me wanted to believe her, take her torments as facts, I was embarrassed now, and mad at my mom for not being “normal”. She never went shopping or bought me the new toys and summer dresses most girls had, not wearing new clothes or sickly scented perfume. Now I realize that while I was sitting in that room fuming and flushed, she was in class getting her PHD in biology no one helping her, a single mother with twins. Even now it confuses me and makes me feel guilty that she has learned to live with so little, but she's my mom and she does it for us, and that is nothing to be embarrassed about.