Her Majesty likes to disappear.
I usually start looking in all of the places she shouldn’t be, and I almost always find her in front of my make up drawer. This morning, she has slipped away and I find her poised in front of the open drawer running her fingers against the end of a large brush.
“What are you doing?” I know the answer, but for some reason motherhood requires I ask the question anyway.
“Making my eyes pretty,” she says with a grin.
I put her glasses back on and pick her up to better examine her eyes. “But your eyes are already pretty. You don’t need make up.” I twirl her for good measure and place her back on the floor.
She points proudly to her left eye. “But this one is prettier because I put the pink stuff on it. I like the pink stuff.”
I sigh. “I know you like the pink stuff, but are you supposed to be in my make up?”
“No.”
I usher her out of the bathroom, through the bedroom and into the hall where she turns to look at me. “You forgot to put your make up on!”
“Maybe I don’t want to put on make up.”
“Why?”
“Maybe make up is based on the needs of a now defunct patriarchal society but advertized as a necessity in order to drive up sales for a product I don’t really need.”
She considers this for a minute. “But it would make you prettier. Maybe if you added a little lipstick…”
And it’s moments like these where, for just a moment, I think I’m having a conversation with my mother instead of my daughter.
