Mother May I?

        Do you know how many posts I've dictated to myself in my head that went absolutely nowhere because I didn't have computer/internet access? Now my very own, brand spankin new laptop has arrived, I have access to internet 24hrs a day (if you include work) and my mind....is a blank.  

        To be honest, I think I've just gotten used to not having anyone to talk to (about anything that's really important) so the thoughts have just dried up.  

        I'm dried up.  There's such a thing as too sober, as my dear Papa has wisely stated.  The last time I saw him, a few weeks ago, he was in a desperate state, worse than I've ever seen him; I'm scared to call him now because I know my mother left him hanging and I don't want to hear the suffering in his voice.  Just when I finally got him to admit he needed her and to be willing to give her an official position at the university (instead of just milking her); it's what she proclaims she's always wanted and I finally make it happen and she abandons him like he was her own child (ha!)

        She finally arrived literally at the stroke of midnight on the eve of my daughter's ninth birthday (her first with me and without her mummy).  Earlier that night, I lay with Ms V on our empty balcony to watch the full moon traverse the trees while an outdoor concert filtered through the night air towards us.  And she said, 

        "Maybe I could just kill myself. Life is so DIFFICULT!"  and she was disturbingly calm and flippant.  It was a rough night.  Never count on my mother for anything, except that she will show up too late whenever you need her the most.  I was so broken after this shitty month in Uganda and yet by the time she showed up, I'd already pulled my shit together and moved my baby and I from the old place to our new home.  By the time she showed up, all my vulnerabilities had been tucked away behind my warrior spirit, so much so that it didn't even phase me to put my arms around my little girl's articulated ribs and hear her threaten to take away everything I have committed myself to living for.  Can you imagine? Five years; ten; fifteen years down the way, after so much loving and bonding, and FUCKING committing she may decide to let her demons win after all, and poof, it will all be gone.  I should be able to imagine since I know exactly what it feels like to have the heavy love of my mother's arms around me, but still feel empty and insubstantial enough to think it no big deal to wish myself away.  

          Besides that rather dramatic moment (in the end I dredged through the psyche that is Ms V only to find she was "afraid to fail"-we had been discussing her upcoming entrance into school-and so it goes), the most amazing part of that night was that Ms V didn't know the date so she wasn't sure when her (happy) birthday was.  I convinced her the date was August 5th and we'd missed it by 3 days-it was surprisingly easy to convince her, but in true Pollyanna fashion she said "well, never-mind anyway, but at least we have to celebrate my Happy Birthday sometime".  

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          In the meantime, I've become a working woman.  We live exactly nine minutes brisk walk away from my job. We also live two large blocks away from the ocean, but the last block is a series of ultra-exclusive mansions that hide the view unless you walk about 10 minutes down the road to our favorite pier.  

           At night, just about now, I hear the Islamic prayers observing Ramadan, the sounds of night insects have replaced the crows and exotic day bird sounds; and then, out of the blue-the deep, deep blue, in fact-comes the bloated groan of a cargo ship at sea; it sounds to me like a plaintive yearning; a reminder of obligation and duty in it's most lonesome form. But there is something else: it sounds to me like a miracle begging to be born, magic begging to be remembered, the chance of a lifetime waiting for the perfect moment.  When I hear that sound I feel renewed in my own commitments; I've come this far, but my journey goes on; beware-the journey goes on.  I hope that sound will always affect me like that.  I want to always remember that this-right here-this is what I started.  And I am committed to carrying it on (and therein lies the miracle, right?!).

          Perhaps it is time to air out those hidden vulnerabilities.  My daughter has chosen to flirt with alienation from me.  My mother is here for a time, but it was I who had to sit her down and break all her Ego barriers apart so that she could do a decent job standing in for me as primary caretaker.  So now they are enjoying each other generously; following my orders in partnered conspiracy.  It is a painful thing to go through.  I needed her, my mother, to take some of the load off while I get into this new job, but that need has come at the price of being excluded, of losing respect.  I don't understand why, when it was my mother who was working, my daughter revered her for it and looked down on me for staying at home, and now I go to work, but it seems this too has earned my daughter's disregard (if not disdain). Frankly, I think it is the ironic fact that my mother really doesn't give a shit (and I do) that makes her the favorite.  

          In any case, plugging along warrior style just makes me a poor facsimile of my mother; I am not so cold and practical; I am not so ruthless and flippant. Both my daughter and I are flirting with separation, testing our need for each other, testing our Love for each other, hoping perhaps it is not so strong, hoping we can reverse the bond; denying our mutual commitment. Perhaps she is scared I will slip away from her, as my mother so often slipped away from me. I know I fear the indications that the journey ahead may not be as straightforward as I naively believed. I know I fear there is a burden in her heart that was there long before I came along and may be there for a long time yet.  I think we are both suspicious of the other, suspicious of the other's potential to break our hearts.  My mother is just a distraction.  This right here, this is a Transition and we are fully in the throes of it; we are suspect that what we go through in the next several weeks will determine forever; little do we know.....it's all already happened.

          I held her in the moonlight but only after letting her slip into a pit of fear and leaving her to flounder; at first I lay there alone and felt....betrayed; then it hit me: the future cannot betray you, but your present fears can; if she was not ready to fight her fears, then I would fight them for her. So I pulled her down to me, into the nest of my Love, and begged the moonlight to fill her with the heaviness of its beauty.....of its existence. I whispered,

 "Life is not difficult; Life is just Life. Who ever told you it was supposed to be different? Who ever told you it was supposed to be so simple?  I think Life is beautiful and so do you; you sing about the Joy of Life all the time baby, all the time; you don't even hear yourself; but I do. In every moment it is up to each of us to decide how we see Life-beautiful or difficult. But either way, Life is just Life.....and baby, we are ALL afraid to fail....
          
          Her tense body relaxed into me and she began to yawn,

          "Hey......guess what happens at midnight."......

  

           
        

Friendship (2)

A stroke of luck makes the empty space shine brighter. 


                   I remember how when I wrote this I purposefully did not say good or bad, though at the time I was referring to good luck.  The whole point of it was that in any case, the movement, the presence of positive energy will reveal hidden secrets in the empty space around it-if you know how to look.  


                    I can't imagine what must be going through miss A.C's heart for her to hurt someone she has loved and trusted and been loved by for so many years.  After the news about her father, she felt she had to spend Christmas with the family she stayed with, but the next day she came out to my house and lay in my bed while my mother an I cooked quietly in the kitchen.  When she came out to eat, she knew she didn't have to put on a good face, or say much of anything at all; she knew she was safe.  


                   And now, with her absence in my life, there is a pain in my heart made of wondering if anyone I ever get close to will eventually run away from me.  She is not the only one, this is true.  


                   It's funny how, in order to be a better, healthier person, so much of my adult life has been dedicated to healing old wounds, some are apparent, but many are like this pain, just raw tragic questioning.  What am I worth?  On the one hand I have an organization that is willing to put thousands of dollars behind my predicted contribution as an employee, on the other I have a friend who has been longing to be rid of me.  One stroke of good luck and one stroke of bad; Where should I look? Which part has the message of value that I should hold on to?  It is possible it is somehow the same message?  


                   The empty space shines brighter.....but what does it say? Am I safe?



            

Friendship (1)

               A stroke of luck makes the empty space shine brighter.  


             This was my last facebook status update, after finishing the novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (just saw on IMBD that the movie came out last year), a story about a the life-long friendship between two women in an ancient Chinese province.  I was surprised by how many people liked my update, since it seemed like a very obscure statement to make.  


[an aside:] One chic, who I barely knew a million years ago, stole my line and put it as her status update (instead of sharing mine so I get credit).  I was a bit perturbed by how many more likes she got, but decided against de-friending her for it.  In the interest of friendship (see huge fascinating post below).

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              The friendship in the book carries out mostly through Nu Shu, a women's secret writing written on fans or embroidered on handkerchiefs, shoes for bound feet, etc.
       
               It left my me thinking about the power of a single stroke of paint, which led me to remember the modern dance class exercises where you play with negative and positive space; the stroke of paint would be a persons body, say a hand curved down like an elephants nose.  In dance you are encouraged to put just as much value on the negative space, the space around the body, the air within the curve; you are encouraged to see the shapes being communicated within the negative space, within the absence.  

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               It is funny my first thought was of dance, because this play between negative and positive space is most concretely and recognizably demonstrated by those illusion art pieces we've all seen a million times (all? ha!). 


               But the reason why dance would come to mind lies within the story. Though Nu Shu is a tangible art form, the communication that it represented was very much a constantly flowing, secret and unique relationship between the two women. The women became friends as girls in a contract that established a life-long bond between them before they had even known each other.  This was a normal cultural practice at the time.  They were old sames, matched through astrology and chance; committed for life.  Their friendship was a dance that could never be replicated. 


               My facebook status was referring to my anxiety over recent, positive events in my life.  I have landed a job that is beyond anything I've ever had or could have hoped for and will relieve all pressures for me to pay for school for my daughter.  The play went amazingly well and I was truly shocked by the sincere compliments I received by strangers and others in the cast on my acting ability (hahaha!) We have found a place which is within spitting distance of my new job and will make our lives wonderfully easy as far as convenience.  All of this happened within a few days and all I could think about was what was missing.  A stroke of luck makes the empty space shine brighter.


              My acute and chronic sense of worthlessness did not enjoy the positive attention the universe was giving me.  I wanted to feel bad about myself again; I wanted to feel safe. So my mind strove to think of all the things I still wanted or all the things that could still go wrong.  


              It does not surprise me that a week after all this happened, last weekend to be exact, I went out with some cast members for a big night of fun and got too drunk and threw up, and kind of alienated them as I was very much that girl.  I wouldn't give a shit if any of them acted that way, because whatever, shit happens, but these are fairly judgmental people- which is good in this case; I wanted to be judged.  


              On Friday night, I read that Jennifer Love Hewitt's mother had passed away and that they were very, very close and still living together.  I had a very emotional reaction to this as I thought about how I would handle the sudden passing of my mother. What if? What if? What if?  (it isn't that I am pessimistic normally, it is just that all this positive space, all these new strokes in my face have me scrambling) What if? What if? What if?  


              The next morning I received a short email about one of my closest friends in the states.  I had no idea that anything untoward was going on in her life, as facebook had not told me so.  Her mother had cancer, it was fast and hard, chemotherapy hadn't worked, she had a few days to a week left.  What would it be like to have to write that in a message to someone? How do you do that? Since the day I met her I've known my friend as a cool glass of pink lemonade.  She lives a wonderfully, happy, carefree life in which she is a happy, little dancer, dancing to a beat of her own and giving you no choice but to join in.  Her family is so ideal it is remarkable; as in, they are not remarkable or heroic or astounding anymore than anyone else, but they have lived an ideal, functional, happy life, and raised wonderfully happy children, and that is fucking remarkable.  And now her mother is gone and she is not even 26 yet.  I knew her mom, not well, but well enough to think highly of her.  I was very shaken by the news.  


                The last time a friend lost a loved one, it was two days before Christmas when we found out.  We met in Grand Central Station, in the late afternoon.  I had just come from my first one-night stand (only?), and we were meeting to do some last minute shopping.  It was she and I, and another friend who had originally introduced us but then turned into a super-bitch.  We sat on the floor of Grand Central while crowds rushed by us in winter coats and holiday frenzy.  Grand Central has this very cool light show and orchestra and such during the Christmas time that is actually quite magical and sincerely festive.  I was a little spaced out from my oddly enjoyable, unexpected night and the fact that I was rushing home in the evening to expect my mother who was arriving from Uganda.  


                A.C's father had had a misdiagnosed cancer that had taken some six months to wear him down.  A.C said that her mother had tried to call her several times but had not gotten through; she admitted she was avoiding the call just in case it was bad news, but even as she said it seemed like an impossible idea.


                 Then she got a text message and said, "my dad is dead."  We spent the next twenty minutes curled over our bags, bawling our eyes out in the middle of rush hour in Grand Central Station.  The swarms of people passing by must have wondered, three 25 year old women: a Mexican, a Croatian, an a Ugandan huddled in a pile crying unabashedly (actually super-bitch was pretty dry-eyed and looked embarrassed, I remember that distinctly) but no one bothered us, no one stared; I felt protected by a shield of dignity.  I had no idea that I would cry so hard, since I had never met the man.  But to this day I cannot think of him without feeling the loss.  He was my father, because this friend, Ms. A.C was-until recently-my old same.  


                  In the novel, the friendship ends tragically, as the protagonist of the book, the one who is telling the story as an old woman, tells of her biggest shame in discontinuing the friendship and rejecting Snow Flower over a misunderstanding.  She read the fan wrong and misconstrued the meaning of her friends message and she never finds out until she comes to her deathbed and cares for until her passing.  But of course it is too late, and the guilt haunts her.  The friendship had suffered because as the protagonist's life developed with luck and fortune over the years, her friend, Snow Flower, suffered horribly through tragic circumstance after tragic circumstance.  


                  Two days ago, I wrote A.C a message I've been trying to write for weeks, to ask her why she has completely abandoned our friendship suddenly and without explanation.  I know how hard her life is now (actually I don't, as she has been so silent).  After her father died, she continued with school and eventually moved back to Croatia.  Her family life was incredibly difficult due to his passing.  She came to visit me in Uganda and stayed for two months.  I spent the next twelve months risking everything in my relationship with my mother to get her to help A.C get a job in Uganda and move in with us.  She did and spent one year living with us.  


               We have always been like twins, though you would never know it to meet us.  Only two days separate our births, and she has always gotten on with my mother, maybe more than I.  She was forced out of Uganda on an immigration issue. Back in Croatia,  her life was just as bad as it had been and the last time we spoke, I really agonized of her health.  No one can take that much pain and bad luck without being affected by it. I prayed and hoped that she would find her way back, but this time I could not do much as my life was also in total shambles.


                   I moved here and have continued my struggle to find peace and happiness, so far succeeding far better than I ever did in Uganda, and with the blessing of a wonderful daughter to keep me searching for the Truth of Love on her behalf (as well as mine).  The main purpose of the message was to tell of death of our mutual friend's mother (though I am much closer to her) but as it had been so long and weighing on me so much I had to speak of my broken heart.  This is what she wrote back:


The truth is that our friendship has been unhealthy and damaging for me for quite a long time now. I believe that a friendship needs to make people feel happier for the time they interact with each other and are in each other's lives. This is not the case for me within our friendship. I believe that we are on different paths and have non-complementing energies, and staying in our friendship is hurting me.


                   I am surprised by how I can read this without feeling so bad now.  Like I said, the last time we spoke she was begging me and my mother to find a way to help her come back so of course I didn't see this coming.  She was going to be my bridesmaid eventually and I hers; we were going to raise our babies together; and grow old together if we never found husbands.  She was my old same.


                   So I got my wish didn't I? Nothing like total abandonment to make a girl feel like she's not worth shit, right?  Yeah, well.....maybe for a second.  

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

"Goddess Brigit inspires, empowers and encourages us to express our Truth through our purpose.  She offers assistance in releasing and transcending fears; self-limiting patterns and unhealed energy, helping us to feel protected and supported through any and all aspects of self-expression and communication."
Who is Goddess Brigit

          The night ended on a funny note as far as Truth telling goes (in Uganda "funny" more often refers to disturbing, uncomfortable, unnatural, wrong. But in Uganda, we have no negative feelings-no wait, we have no words for negative feelings): I was snuggled up to the Little One- we were both reveling in the peace and love and nurturing that occurred between us and within us today; plus I was feeling quite ill (either Malaria again, or tooth gone rot-most likely both-but surely not throat cancer...?!?) 
          I was sick and she was sick of the ghosts that have been hampering her dreams and evening hours. Silly little children's fear, right? Not to this proud heathen.  There's definitely some superstitious happenings that have been going on in the last few days; individually, each of us have felt...invaded (even as I write this I hear her whispering in her sleep and the feeling of a real conversation occurring in front of my blind eyes is making my mama-bear fur stand on end). 
         So we were snuggled, and what begun as scary ghost stories turned into giggling real life stories that were far scarier than the idea of astral-travelling evil relatives and a recently passed mother's protection:


             "Aunty please sleep with me!! When you sleep with me, I'm so comfortable."
             
             "You're comfortable when you sleep with anyone."


"Yes, that's true."


              This introduction led to the topic of the very few men that were listed on the "it's okay to sleep with" list. This in turn led to the topic of why other men were not okay to sleep with. This topic was disturbingly led by the little one:


             "But I don't want some man, you know, kissing me, ewww gross!"


             "Why would a man want to kiss a little girl? (please, please, please say you just heard from so and so that such and such)


             She leans in like an wise owl schooling a naive little chickadee, "You knowww, in Uganda...heh...there are men who kiss. little. children." 


             I try to re-assert my authority on the subject, proclaiming my vast understanding of the evils of pedophilia. "Yes I know, those men are everywhere. They are very very sick and bad.


             "Yes, I know." She looks at me trying to asses if I am worldly enough to handle what comes next; and I'm fairly sure I am not but will attempt to fake it.  "Let me tell you..." 


            What comes next is a play by play account of the cancer-stricken man who lived across the street from her and her mother's apartment, the women (and girls) who frequented his home, and the group of little girl's who avidly stalked him in order to report back to authorities-guess who was their leader...
              In the first episode, she'd witnessed said man approach a "beautiful, half-naked" woman walking down the street, propositioned her, led her back to his house, and had some sort of...relations with said woman (I could not lie there and let her try and describe what she did not understand, I had to insert..."gross things?" to stifle my mental freak-out), the most scandalous being he reached over her and stuck his hand in her..."what is this they wear? bla? As IF wanting to TOUCH her breast!" We both looked at each perplexed and disturbed by this possibility (well I was disturbed by the fact that this conversation was happening, but there it is). I got a comic relief from my disquiet when she explained her return home:


         "So I ran home and my heart was just beating: UH-HEH, UH-HEH..." she pants heavily, demonstrating, rolling on the bed, closing her eyes with hand to little chest. "Mummy asked me what happened and I couldn't even talk...I just lied there until I was asleep"


         Part 2, according to her, was the "not so scary" episode, involving a child, who judging by the height she indicated was about 2 or 3 years old, but considering her heroic escape, "she was a clever gal", she sounds more like Jackie Chan aged 35. Though I was too curious to know if she actually stayed and watched the whole episode above, this time I begged for her to cease and desist, I was SCARED, this was too REAL.  She denied my request-welcome to the big girls club:


         "And now he brings home a young gal, and he says 'take off your dress' but she was a clever gal and she says 'no! why should I?!' and he says, 'so I can give you medicine', so the gal took off one dress but she had one on underneath." 
          And the man gets angry, and he shouts at her, she hits him, he shakes her, she kicks him and runs out of the house. 
         "When I saw her kick him I thought, eh! this is a clever gal. I told myself then that if anyone tried to kiss me, I would kick them just like that gal. So when she came running, for us, we called her, 'eh come, come!' And I said, 'wow, clever gal, good job'. And she screamed, 'RUN, Ruuuuunnnn, don't stay here!!' And then she just...ehhh-started crying and shaking like what."


        Mind you understand, though her mother had not given express consent to these...investigations (I hope, I hope, I sincerely hope) Each of these episodes (I will assume they were more and it was only her mercy for me that made her end her tales) were immediately reported back in detail to her mother, and the response was more to confirm what a bad man he was, than to try to heal or reinstate the innocence of her child.   


        This is not a story of trauma, this is a story of communication and it's to POWER:  Are you afraid of the dark?  I know I am.  But don't let the dark know; tell it to go to hell.  You got an evil-witch sending you bad dreams? Sing a child's song about how stupid she is to make you think of your biggest fear-losing the ones you belong to...again.  If there are dirty men in the world and you know too much about it, make a list of all the men you feel safe with, and torture your Aunty with a scary fairy-tale. After all she's there with you, and the dark is not as powerful as her warmth and her love.