Scaly Feet

Used to Be Mother walked here this morning. She doesn't knock on the door when she arrives. She enters with her pink hat and sunglasses.

She's soaking wet on her back and arms from perspiring so much with that heavy coat. She shows me some chin hairs that are just "driving her nuts" that she wants me to tweeze. While I am at it, could I please fix her eyebrows because they look liked Shredded Wheat and are "driving her nuts".

She places her head in my lap and stretches out on the couch. All those cookies she eats every day have made her heavier and lumpier. She has some stains on her pants and shirt. She wears a blue sapphire necklace with her turquoise outfit. She has blue and white socks of a different blue altogether.

When I finishing her grooming, she tells me how the scales on her feet "drive her nuts". I have her remove her socks, and we roll up her pants. Yes she has hundreds of small scales of dead skin that have not exfoliated and have now created little sores. I remind her she has had this problem before and if she would just exfoliate and put on lotion, she wouldn't be troubled by these.

As I rub her legs with coconut oil,  she relaxes. I look at her bunions and gnarled toes. I see her varicose veins and spotted skin. I feel this intense love for my mother. I want to hold her in my arms and let her know how much she means to me. I don't. She is asleep. I continue rubbing hoping that my movements up and down her legs transmit my love to her body.

bunions, hammer toes and corns

those little white dots are scales of dried skin

Ah this is the life