no-bake

A lot of troubled sleep, dreams of, but eventually I found my morning. Made plans to workout at the gym with friend, but her boyfriend needs more of her. We reschedule, her for need, for time, for love, me for the sun. How can anyone workout indoors when the out is so fragrant? I walk into the kitchen where I find the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, my mum, in a tight black dress and strappy black heels, sans makeup, sans shower, but so morning raw, las vegas like. She says she's been up since 5am, wanted to test her feet on platforms, wanted to feel sexy. I have to feel that something about yesterday woke this within her. Something about the watermelon dress & taking pictures in the garden. She says, "I feel safe with you here, it's like you make me feel confident in myself, and all I want to do is walk around feeling sexy." She walks around, waters the back garden with her long hose, waters the front which the Sikh children across the street call, "the Jungle House." I try to remember when, before all of this, I could wake up in the morning & right away feel sexy. Then, I know that I do this, that I have done this since for myself, and that the surprising thing to me here is that someone else does. So many of us need a reason. I've needed reasons. Then you realize that either someone's going to be there or they're not, someone's going to appreciate it or they're not, whatever the case, the only person that is constant & worth the effort, is you for you. You or your mother. You just have to remember that a mother's appreciation of your essence can be just as important.
Mum was up since 5am, trying on her thrifting finds for her husband, both of them laughing, him appreciating her beauty, while I am up in bed, trying to sleep, conscious of something sad & so infinitely real that it's hard not to notice. I look out across the carpet, where I jumped into bed last night and kicked my glass of wine across the floor: a large large splattering of what looks like a murder scene at my feet. I remember one of mum's only rules: don't get blood on the carpet. It makes me remember on a run the other day, my friend confessed a dream she had of me: that I was in a coffin, my organs outside of my body, blood everywhere, but she affirmed, "We knew you'd be okay. You weren't together, your organs were on the outside, but it was clear you'd be ok." For some reason, I think this is a parable, a haunt, but an okay haunt. I wondered if it meant an imminent death, but I believe in her belief that I'd be ok, that I am.
I went for a run this morning, which resulted in a great anger. I was so incredibly angry, for many reasons, and the only thing that felt like relief was the fact that I entered the kitchen, to mum in her tight black dress and strappy heals, and I say, "I'm so incredibly angry! And I just really need a snack right now!" Upon which she encourages us to make no-bakes. We make no-bakes angrily, and then I eat until I'm not angry anymore, the goo of oats and chocolate peanut butter dripping between my fingers.
I feel like this is a parallel universe. One where fragments of beauty are revealed to me in order that I maintain faith. A portrait of my mum. Dreams my friends have. Running. Eating. Sleepless nights. Anger. Self-betterment. Stages. All I can think of is the great gratitude I have in making someone feel encouraged to be sexy from the start. Don't we all deserve that?