if you'd ask me what i thought of whenever i heard the word 'girlhood' i'd probably instantly think of ye-sol, my best friend, and i playing dress up and doing each others braids. but now as an adult, whenever i hear 'girlhood' i think of my mother as a little girl, hair slicked back with two too tight braids, wearing a itchy dress her grandma got her while holding onto her bunny stuffed animal her great uncle gifted her before his death.
i think of my mother nimble fingers braiding her friend's hair because they liked her better than other girls because she didn't do a messy job or make them too tight, doing hand claps, playing jump rope, going back and forth with playing soccer with the guys in her class and spilling about family chisme with the rest of her friends, making bracelets in the school garden, being asked to go to the counselor's office because she was the only one who knew how to mind her own business- but also knew the right people to talk shit about other people with.
sometimes on the rare trips we took to california, in the unknown city where my mom spent the rest of her childhood and few teenage years after her mom moved them away from south korea after a fallout with a few people, i'd see a glimpse of her inner child before my grandmother would scold her for acting like a kid and say 'you're a mother and adult, act like one to set an example for your daughter'. for the remainder of my trip my mother would, although still voiced and showed her loved towards me and her cousins, would be silent and cold around her mother.
i remember my other mother, the once famous artist sa-ra, would always seem to have a busy schedule whenever we went to california. i still don't know if it was because of her drug use or because she hated my mom's family, with the exception of my mom's aunt and uncle.
