Lavender Tears
Jul. 4th, 2007 04:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyetteThis story was posted on my website as part of that crossover I never got around to writing. I've edited it for inclusion in the Ivy B. Greenflower catalogue. (http://www.geocities.com/ivybgreenflower/summaries.html includes a list of all of the short fiction I've ever written and made public with brief summaries.)
Please excuse the fact that it's written in the pretentious way people who think they write well write.
My family is gifted with strong long-term memories. I know my mother loves being able to remember specific memories and emotions. To me, however, the gift is a curse.
I remember my first house. I remember sweeping staircases and beautiful portraits hanging on the walls. I remember magic around every corner.
The memories haunted me when I was younger. When we first moved to this house, with its sixteen bedrooms and top-of-the-line appliances, I hated it. We were the first people to live in this house, when my first house had been lived in for hundreds of years. The house itself was magical... if walls could talk, they would speak for years nonstop and still have fascinating stories to tell. If this house's walls could talk, they would talk for a day. There is nothing "special" or "cool" or "wonderful" about the house. I will not and do not refer to it as "my house." My house is the old, secret one with its sweeping landscape of lavender plants and thick trees for acres around it. Hidden away and towering beautifully but warmly. This house is protected by a white metal fence and super-expensive security systems. My house is protected by the trees and the old wooden fences, and that rusty old gate. I remember walking through the halls, though I was only five years old, and feeling the spirits that walked the halls before me. It was no mystery why some rooms were kept decorated and clean as though the people who lived there were still alive. It often felt as though they came back and "haunted" their old rooms. Sometimes, I'd think I heard murmurs and whispers, but I couldn't understand the words. I was never scared in the night as most other children were. I never feared ghosts and spirits and "the monster in the closet." There was no reason to, this house and its spirits would certainly protect me. I embraced everything. I drank in the culture of that house.
I also remember people. I remember what my mother was like, she wasn't the way she is now. She wasn't happy to the point of being neurotic. She was moody, deep. Beautiful. My father was the same. I remember other people, too. These memories haunt me the most.
The clearest of memories are of people who aren't alive now, but were then. I know now they came to my house and stayed late in the night because of their shared passions. There is one night that stands out in my memory. A lady with green eyes and red hair, and her husband. A man with long-ish hair. A man with brown hair. I don't remember the details much. I remember they sat in my kitchen for hours. I grew tired of playing alone with my toys, I wanted to see what all the laughing was about. I went into the kitchen and wandered in circles around the table, as was my way of getting adults to notice me. I remember the long-haired man ruffling my hair as I passed, sweeping me up to sit on his knee. "Hey, kiddo, what are you up to?" Those people were never too busy to appreciate childhood.
The dreams I had when I was six were horrible. I dreamt of the people in my house, and then the house collapsing in upon them. I remember them screaming, and I remember the house crumbling and suddenly rising up again as the house I live in now, with the seeminly innocent but sinster door opening to reveal my overly happy parents, smiling as if nothing had happened. I still hate this house for taking those people away from me. For a long time I really believed that this house was the reason the other was "destroyed".
It still stands, waiting for me. It calls me. I remember the scent of lavender filling the air as my mother opened the windows. Now I smell car exhaust. I hate this house. There is no feeling of the warmth of ancient spirits. Plaster and concrete rather than stone. Photographs rather than paintings. Linoleum rather than wood and rugs. I hate it. I hated my parents for a time, too. Because we came here and pretended that magic didn't exist. After a few years of confusion I gave up on my unanswered questions, preferring to remain quiet about the heartbreaking decision to move here, and I kept my feelings inside.
The curse of my memory again flares as I look at the pitiful herb "garden" on the windowsil. A stalk of lavender. For the first time in sixteen years, I smell the delicious scent of lavender, and my heart and soul grow wistful, filling my mind with ancient images long forgotten. Part of me grows angry with my mother for making me leave the wonderful home I only remember those vivid snippets of. The rest of me is thankful for the memories I do have. Tomorrow, they have promised to explain everything about why they left there.
My trembling hands grasp the pot with the purple plant in it. Overwhelmed suddenly with the whilrwind of memories and thoughts the scent has evoked, I feel tears of both joy and sadness leak out of my eyes.
Lavender tears.
-4:11 AM
Please excuse the fact that it's written in the pretentious way people who think they write well write.
My family is gifted with strong long-term memories. I know my mother loves being able to remember specific memories and emotions. To me, however, the gift is a curse.
I remember my first house. I remember sweeping staircases and beautiful portraits hanging on the walls. I remember magic around every corner.
The memories haunted me when I was younger. When we first moved to this house, with its sixteen bedrooms and top-of-the-line appliances, I hated it. We were the first people to live in this house, when my first house had been lived in for hundreds of years. The house itself was magical... if walls could talk, they would speak for years nonstop and still have fascinating stories to tell. If this house's walls could talk, they would talk for a day. There is nothing "special" or "cool" or "wonderful" about the house. I will not and do not refer to it as "my house." My house is the old, secret one with its sweeping landscape of lavender plants and thick trees for acres around it. Hidden away and towering beautifully but warmly. This house is protected by a white metal fence and super-expensive security systems. My house is protected by the trees and the old wooden fences, and that rusty old gate. I remember walking through the halls, though I was only five years old, and feeling the spirits that walked the halls before me. It was no mystery why some rooms were kept decorated and clean as though the people who lived there were still alive. It often felt as though they came back and "haunted" their old rooms. Sometimes, I'd think I heard murmurs and whispers, but I couldn't understand the words. I was never scared in the night as most other children were. I never feared ghosts and spirits and "the monster in the closet." There was no reason to, this house and its spirits would certainly protect me. I embraced everything. I drank in the culture of that house.
I also remember people. I remember what my mother was like, she wasn't the way she is now. She wasn't happy to the point of being neurotic. She was moody, deep. Beautiful. My father was the same. I remember other people, too. These memories haunt me the most.
The clearest of memories are of people who aren't alive now, but were then. I know now they came to my house and stayed late in the night because of their shared passions. There is one night that stands out in my memory. A lady with green eyes and red hair, and her husband. A man with long-ish hair. A man with brown hair. I don't remember the details much. I remember they sat in my kitchen for hours. I grew tired of playing alone with my toys, I wanted to see what all the laughing was about. I went into the kitchen and wandered in circles around the table, as was my way of getting adults to notice me. I remember the long-haired man ruffling my hair as I passed, sweeping me up to sit on his knee. "Hey, kiddo, what are you up to?" Those people were never too busy to appreciate childhood.
The dreams I had when I was six were horrible. I dreamt of the people in my house, and then the house collapsing in upon them. I remember them screaming, and I remember the house crumbling and suddenly rising up again as the house I live in now, with the seeminly innocent but sinster door opening to reveal my overly happy parents, smiling as if nothing had happened. I still hate this house for taking those people away from me. For a long time I really believed that this house was the reason the other was "destroyed".
It still stands, waiting for me. It calls me. I remember the scent of lavender filling the air as my mother opened the windows. Now I smell car exhaust. I hate this house. There is no feeling of the warmth of ancient spirits. Plaster and concrete rather than stone. Photographs rather than paintings. Linoleum rather than wood and rugs. I hate it. I hated my parents for a time, too. Because we came here and pretended that magic didn't exist. After a few years of confusion I gave up on my unanswered questions, preferring to remain quiet about the heartbreaking decision to move here, and I kept my feelings inside.
The curse of my memory again flares as I look at the pitiful herb "garden" on the windowsil. A stalk of lavender. For the first time in sixteen years, I smell the delicious scent of lavender, and my heart and soul grow wistful, filling my mind with ancient images long forgotten. Part of me grows angry with my mother for making me leave the wonderful home I only remember those vivid snippets of. The rest of me is thankful for the memories I do have. Tomorrow, they have promised to explain everything about why they left there.
My trembling hands grasp the pot with the purple plant in it. Overwhelmed suddenly with the whilrwind of memories and thoughts the scent has evoked, I feel tears of both joy and sadness leak out of my eyes.
Lavender tears.
-4:11 AM
