I’ve been writing a lot about the women who reside where I work. Why? Probably because they’re all mothers or have mothered. Have been wives or have been loved, have lost true loves. Stories I’ve had, will have, with no one to listen to them. Some only share a little. Bits here and there. Some over share and luckily for the both of us, my memory is mostly shite. It doesn’t matter though because I create my own narrative really. I remember a lady who loved Billie Holiday and saw her play more than once in some club in Chicago back in the day. Talked about how Billie was high as a kite but, boy did she sing! I would play Billie for her in the lobby and she’d sing along in a crackling falsetto that was awful but beautiful in a melancholic, endearing way. She always thought someone was stealing from her, change, jewelry, even her granny panties. She was a pain in the arse but I loved her. She reminded me of my great grandmother but she was a redhead, like Bricktop. If you don’t know Bricktop, please look her up. Grab her bio if you can find it. I will share the resident’s name because she has passed and I don’t want to forget Imogene. Who spat at racists on the train because they didn’t want her to sit where she sat. Who could fight like a bull, love like a goddess. Whose age ate away at her legs first then at her mind a little but not her mouth. She could holler like she was calling pigs to feed and of course, had that crackling falsetto. She could tell a good tale, put you in every little story. Just like my great grandma Maggie and I was always listening, always listening. I’ve been told many times that I have an old soul and always shrugged it off, awkwardly. But now that I’m older I know that some of us were born aged or wise or knowing. Were exposed to life lessons directly or by always looking, always listening. Always open. What do you call a person who everyone wants to tell their story to, confessee? Please, tell me there’s a word for a person who is a vessel for confessions and fears and dreams and regrets? A person that people who familiar with or not, don’t have a problem sharing things that better kept to themselves? Maybe. And I’m not talking about someone who doesn’t realize they are sharing. Well, maybe they all realize in a way. They are speaking a truth in one way or another, even if it is a memory plastered on the present.
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