No Reason for the Skin Reminders

Today I was sitting in on a conference call with several co-workers when I noticed that one of them had skin that reminded me of my mother. This lady had no resemblance to my mother at all. She has reddish hair, she's tall and she has a nose ring that would've made my mom cringe. But for some reason today the skin around her neck reminded me of mom.

There was a cluster of freckles and a tanned patch that reminded me of my mom's skin when I was younger. When our house had a pool and mom spent a good amount of time out in the sun watching us kids as we begged for attention while attempting a jack knife or cannonball. She'd always patiently look up from what she was doing (usually attending to the landscaping) and smile and clap no matter how badly our dive went.

I used to stare at that patch of skin at night when she'd rock me in our recliner. I'd sit and stare at her freckles, sometimes connecting the freckles with imaginary lines, and watch the oven clock slowly turn away the minutes. Every morning I'd wake up in my bed and wonder how I got there.

It didn't strike me as particularly weird for being reminded about some aspect of my mother. I've seen people in passing and thought "Wow! That woman walks like my mom" or even seen a guy who eerily reminded me of my grandfather.

What was odd was that I saw another woman this afternoon whose skin also reminded me of mom's, although at a totally different time in her life. The woman had a taut, almost yellow face with circles under her eyes and a chill went through me. I couldn't look away.

It's weird that after all these years, I can be living my life and get a physical reminder of her. Now I'm trying if there is a reason for the sightings or if I'm trying to find the reason in them.

On another note, my hair smells like chicken. I ate chicken at lunch and it squirted into my hair, which was lying on my boob shelf. Although I was happy that my shirt was spared the majority of the attack, it left me smelly for the rest of the day. In fact, even though I put my hair up in a pony tail, the smell of chicken still haunts me.