October 31, 2016 - 16:07
"Sometimes he treats me like I'm the one who needs looking after. When he was little, he used to crawl up onto my lap and play patty-cake with my cheeks, holding my face between his small palms. "Calm down, Mommy," he'd say, looking deep into my eyes. "I love you" (158).
This passage interested me because it relates to Yumi and Lloyd's relationship. Like Yumi, Phoenix calls his mother by her first name. And he rarely shows her any respect. Yumi treated her father very similarly, right before she ran away. I think that Phoenix truly loves Yumi, as Yumi loves Lloyd, but Phoenix can't look up to Yumi as a role model.
"I've never been able to make them feel safe," I said. "Maybe that's what happens when you run away from home. You get older, but you never grow up." I held out the cigarette to prove my point. "See? I come back to this house, and it's like I'm a teenager again. Smoking. Sneaking out to sleep with Elliot. It's like time just folded and my whole life between then and now never happened" (240).
After I finished reading this part, I immediately began to think that Yumi feels she is an teenager, trapped in an adult's body. I think that if Yumi did not run away from home, she would have had her life sorted out. I think she would have also gained guidance on how to raise her children from her parents. To me she is a hands off, and self-absorbed adult/parent who is trying to get her life together while juggling the three lives of her own children.
"Instead I slipped on my robe and tied it tightly around my waist. It was the same mirror I'd had as a child, and I'd grown up in front of it, turning and craning my neck, searching for clues to the future. The mirror was the same but the girl was gone, leaving only phanton limbs and a flicker of her excitments" (208).
I think this passage also helps identify Yumi's identity. She seems to be stuck in time, and has been since she ran away. I think she still feels guilty for running away and having sex with her teacher, that is why she is still holding on to what was. Now that she is back in Idaho, I think she will learn to let go of what she used to be and move on to discovering her true identity.