I remember coming home to my mother with tears pooling inside my eyes, in the brink of falling. With blotches of sweat on my clothes, scratches on my elbows and knees, dried mud on my face the shape of Australia, and hair messed up enough to have birds make a nest out of it. I reeked of whatever the Park had smelled like: the dust on the monkey bar, the rust on the handles of the swing, the mud on the bottom of the seesaw seat—I reeked of childhood.
“Mommy…” I’d come home crying. Before I could even tell her of how a barefoot boy in the park came rushing towards me, and laughed as my knees crashed on the playground, she would pull me in her arms and sing what came to be the only nursery rhyme I can still sing today: “My toes, my knees, my shoulders, my head…” Pointing to my toes, my knees, my shoulders and my head, I would sing along to this nursery rhyme’s utter lack of rhymes-- but it was the perfect remedy. This was the song my mother cradled me with to tame the troubled child, and until now, this song had taught me the most primal things a mother could teach her daughter about having a body:
My toes; My toes are placed on the bottom end of my body for balance.
Due to my excessive exposure to western films, when I was younger, I had dreamt of becoming a ballerina. I never told this to my parents, but when I’m alone at my room, I’d twirl around wearing oversized stockings, persistently forcing my toes to be on their tips. I would skip study time, and dance to whatever background music the TV plays. Until came the day, as I was pathetically attempting to ballet-dance to the Spongebob Squarepants opening song, when I twisted my big toe a little too much. So much that it had turn purple in a span of 2 days. You see, losing one toe would change the whole course of your walking.
My toes are placed on the bottom end of my body for balance. But it would take more to change the world than with little tip-toed movements. Physics teaches us that equilibrium is eventually achieved. Our lives are inherently composed of different temperatures; soon enough, everything will drift into one intersection point.
It was then, when my mother told me that balance is the key to a healthy life.
My knees; My knees are made to bend for submission.
I remember my mother waking me up early in the morning for Sunday church. I watch her dress herself up neatly: she would skip the sleeveless shirts and shorts hanging on the ledge of her closet and choose what she describes as “wholesome clothes”, and she would dress me up in the same manner. You see, as a kid, I thought that Sunday is the day where families purge the sins they would repeatedly commit every Mondays to Saturdays by dunking their fingers in unsanitary water they prefer calling “holy.” It was vague, doing it as a kid, but I followed how my mom did it anyway: She enters the church, dip two of her fingers in holy water, kneel in front of the altar, and look for a vacant seat for us to sit in.
I go to school the next morning, and learn about Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam and how their gods are neither named Jesus, nor the Father, nor the Holy Spirit. The next Sunday, I prayed to multiple gods in the same church. I thought the more gods you pray to, the more chances your prayers will come true. I didn’t believe in the same god my mother believes in, but I believed that we all submit to our own individual deities. Growing up, I learned that gods aren’t lottery tickets, and the world does not owe you anything. You see, the world will bring you down to your knees, and mom tells me: When the world does bring you down to your knees, it would be the perfect opportunity to pray.
But I have never seen my mom ever brought down to her knees. She is a strong mother, and my dad calls her a strong wife. When they would argue, my dad would playfully quote the bible saying “Wives, submit to your husbands…”
But my mom is never brought down to her knees.
Television tells us that a woman’s contentment may ultimately be achieved through marriage, household chores, removing your husband’s tie, removing his socks, cooking him breakfast before he leaves for work. Wives, submit to your husbands! It is stamped in the surface of our culture for women to aspire for marriage. I too, as a kid, had dreamt of being a wife one day. But at 16 years old, I had stopped dreaming for a husband.
My Shoulders; My shoulders are made broad for solace.
Before my mom sings me the song to comfort me when I come home crying, she would let me cry it out on her shoulders first. She tells me, while patting my back as I cried myself dehydrated, that there is no shame in crying yourself clean. I was a sensitive kid: in my few attempts of leaving my room to actually get some sunlight, I would always end up coming home with wounds, scratches, and a face too wet with tears I could drown. It happens so often that my mom’s shoulder is probably dented with the shape of my head by now. But I fit there perfectly: In the space above her collarbone, right beside her neck, in the curve that is a mother’s shoulder—it was solace as I knew it.
She would then tell me that I will meet friends who will need my shoulders too. Friends will do things that will hurt them and they will demand for your shoulder. I was never good at keeping friends: In grade school, I only had two people to eat lunch with—one of them was my cousin, and the other is just there to finish my dad’s cooking. In high school, I had met friends who didn’t stick around just for the good food. They say that a good company is more fulfilling, anyway. I witness them get their hearts broken and they would come looking for my shoulder, and I would offer them both.
I am not good at keeping friends, but I am good at listening.
However, no one is invincible to the treacheries of our limited selves. The shoulders that you use to carry the weight of your friends’ tears, are the very shoulders that’ll falter in carrying yours. So when the solace you are able to give falls short, know that it is okay to give it all to yourself.
My head; My head is placed on top of my body to know that perception always comes first.
My mother tells that- in any situation- I should always use my head first. She makes sure that I have a written criterion of what my boyfriend, or girlfriend, should look like. Of course, the criteria always pertain to hers, but she says that writing criteria is making sure that I have protection first before I let them in. I laugh at her in times like this.
But she says the only luxury she can bestow upon me is knowledge. When she tells me this, a flash forward registers into her mind. At the thought of mortality, a mark of a loving parent is making sure that they leave behind a child who can stand on their own, and know how to maneuver through the pitiful cracks of life. When I know that she thinks about her impending death, I talk about the things I grew to love which keep me alive: philosophy, art, poetry, and people. In times when I realize an impending, inevitable succumbing to our perpetually limited existence-- I owe it to the ideas, the crafts, and the people I love, the very account of my survival. In a world where half the population lives in agony, death becomes a gift.
When I tell her all these, a rewind registers into my mind:
When I was younger, my mother was the only woman I looked up to: At the sight of her kissing my dad, at the feel of her embracing me with her motherly arms, I knew, that the very first account of our ancestors have had a hard time crafting a word encapsulating everything that a mother is. It was hard not to look up to a woman like her. Until now, even when I’ve grown 5 inches taller than she is, I still gravitate to looking up to her.
My earliest memories of her were watching teach me the song and actions of “My toes, my knees, my shoulders, my head…” But more than that, she taught me how the most primal lessons in life can be found in our own bodies. Our bodies are physical manifestations of what must be a grand scheme behind the cosmos to place everything in their perfect positions. Indifference takes this for granted; it makes us forget how our body parts work together to form a unified entity. My mom had not only taught me a nursery rhyme to sing in front of you, more than that, she taught me what I may pass on from my mother to you: Gratitude. We have a lot to thank our puny bodies for. So while we’re at it now, let’s give a thanks to our toes, our knees, our shoulders, our heads—and our moms.
