Through the Looking Glass

The other day, I pulled out my parents' wedding album. I don't know why I thought of it; it just kind of popped into my head while I was sitting alone at home, eating a bowl of cold linguine. The album is not kept in a prominent place that beckons one to say "Look at me!" like a coffee table book. Rather, the album is stored in the least used piece of furniture in the least inhabited part of the house: a chest in the foyer.

As I flipped through the pages, I found myself thinking more about the person who I was when I had last looked at these photographs than the photographs themselves. The last time I perused the album must have been at least ten years ago, if not more. When you're younger, you look for pictures and objects that help you to piece together whatever world existed before you came along. Some children are more angsty about this problem than others: the idea that the people who created you came before you. As for me, I was always more curious than indignant.

However, over time, the concern for whatever previous eras passed before you lessens. You no longer see the photographs and objects as methods of constructing history, as "those belonged to Daddy and Mommy." Maybe the photographs and objects don't ever transition from being "theirs" to "ours," but nevertheless, they inhabit your world and you possess some sense of ownership over them. Sooner or later, they become like the rest of the photographs and objects in your home.

But every now and then, you'll find yourself examining at them with the eyes of a three year-old and it's like looking at the night sky for the first time. It's bigger than you and there's nothing that you can do to make sense of it.

Tonight, I was attempting to unwind in all ways possible, which led me to the basement with Cat Power's The Greatest in tow. Barefoot and clad in a painfully color-coordinated lounge wear outfit (oversize Colgate sweatpants, tiny maroon spaghetti strap tank, and white sports bra) with my hair in a bun that resembled a pastry in a way that it never has before, I became Miss Gumby as I stretched and bended in every way humanly possible. And when I was extended backwards over my green exercise ball -- a giant gumball of a thing that could probably use some air -- my almost 23 year-old eyes settled on one of those things that existed long before me.

A foosball board. Any foosball board these days would have legs, but this one circa 1975 does not. So you sit on the floor with your own legs tucked under you or out at your sides, your back hunched forward a little bit as you concentrate on controlling the long knobs that connect to the lines of little men.

When my parents were a few years older than me, living in an apartment behind the middle school that I would attend two decades later and saving all of their change in a huge plastic pretzel jar, the foosball board was the central object of their dates. Yes, that was my parents' idea of a cheap date, sitting on the floor playing foosball, my father on the red side and my mother on the yellow side. Maybe they were drinking cheap beer and eating salt and vinegar potato chips. Maybe the TV was playing in the background. Maybe they were wearing their pajamas.

They haven't touched the board in years, although I distinctly recall watching a game when I was very young. My parents rarely exhibit any sense of competition with one another, seeing as they don't have any common ground on which to compete, like sports or cooking. And they rarely argue. So there's never any sort of dynamic action to watch, unlike some couples who, for better or worse, are constantly engaging in some highly watchable way. My parents don't make very good people-watching material, which suits me just fine.

But when it comes to foosball, my parents went into an entire other mode: one that I have yet to see again, although have seen traces of during a game of badminton or laser tag. My sister and I looked at one another, taken aback at their antics and fervor as the white ball rolled around the board, occasionally bouncing out of bounds onto the red carpet. The black-haired players spun wildly at their quick hands, skilled as though my parents had competed professionally in the Olympics. They called each other out on tilting the board. They disputed unfair goals. They cheered at their victories. They were not my parents, at least how I knew them.

I rolled off of my giant green ball and stared at the foosball board propped up against the wall. I spun the handles and watched the players sporting their ketchup and mustard uniforms rotate a dizzying 360-degrees. I considered the foosball itself, still white and mapped with scratches, and marveled that although unattached from the board itself, it had not been absorbed into our black hole of a home like other game pieces. The pegs from Trouble, houses from Monopoly, architectural ruins of Mousetrap -- yes, all of those have become separated from their home boxes. But no, not the foosball, a sphere that seemingly repels entropy and any sensibility of our current family.

For no reason at all, I looked at the gigantic wall mirror that makes the room appear twice as large. Two punching bags, two treadmills, two universal gyms, two green balls. One me. For a split second, I had one of those strange childhood moments in which you look in the mirror and become entirely unsure of everything and anything. You look yourself square in the eye and it's like looking at a stranger. Maybe you got lost in the mirror. Maybe you got lost in yourself.

But what you do know is that the only thing you want is to run to your room, where everything belongs to you.