Making dumplings with my mom
is one of the two ways I spend quality time with her. The other is when I’m helping her look for white hairs on her head and plucking them out.
I don’t mean in a sad way, like it’s only times like these that I feel close to her. It’s more like I think these are the times I’ll remember fondly when I look back at my mom. Her yelling at me to press the dumpling skins harder or else all the inside stuff will fall out and when they do she’ll make me eat all of it. And when she’s sitting on a stool in the bathroom with her head bowed down and I’m standing behind her feeling like a chimp. The silence only broken by her occasional cussing when I accidentally pluck a black hair instead of a white one.
It’s a little strange… but I feel really close to her when we do these things because these moments feel completely and thoroughly ours.
