MIND THE GAP

[Disclaimer: wrote this over a month ago; hard time letting it out; too intimate, you know?  Had to wait along time with this stuff deep inside me.  But balls are moving; time is healing; the drama is dated; the issues are not; updates to follow.] 

         I walked into the house this Friday afternoon from work and my daughter greeted me at the door unusually subdued.  I had been so paranoid about her behavior lately, but this Friday afternoon I was feeling so good I had not predicated anything untoward.  Immediately I was tense, “damn, just when I let my guard down”.

  “I’m sorry.” She began. Then ushered me to my room.  The door was closed. 

“It’s my fucking computer, I’m gonna open this door and see it lying in pieces. God help me.  I even hesitated: “What Vannesa?! And why are we even in this area?”

She took me in, and the room looked fine:

“Sorry that I cooked today.” She looked up at me with big sheepish eyes. 

          She is not allowed to use the stove.  My relief was so great I had to bite my tongue to hold it in and positively reinforce my daughter’s confession…by being stern and questioning.  Apparently Anna, the housekeeper, had refused to cook early enough for her tastes, so Ms V took it upon herself to warm her lunch.  “When she was finished with her work.”

          That was the part that got me; how is she finished with her at-home school work before lunch, when it is supposed to keep her occupied till I get home at 4?

“What do you mean you were ‘finished’? How could you be ‘finished’?!

“I meant my morning work!”

“What ‘morning work’?? Since when do you have ‘morning work’??

           So far I was only feigning sternness and was more playing logic games with her responses (something you will often find yourself doing with a precocious nine year old, whether you want to or not). Apparently, my hand gestures had given me away:

“Could you stop doing this ‘’? She asked with desperate bewilderment written all over her open wide face.



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 (this sarcastic gesture is something she has often questioned me about; as a once-upon-a-New Yorker, I do it often, and she finds it tiresomely abstract and thus useless-with good point)

           We broke through our cultural bridge and fell into a pool of laughter.  The innocent absurdity of such a moment was lost on neither of us.....

           Much later she sat at the dinner table writing sentences as punishment for being caught cheating during our card game.  In that car-crash-slow-motion-breakdown that has become all too familiar in our house, I brought dinner to the table to find she had been writing in teeny, tiny illegible letters and was pouting and angry.  A discussion ensued about what exactly had caused this punishment and where her anger should appropriately lie.  Somewhere there the car flipped and my little one was in my arms, keening and fighting me, and I just kept holding her and saying, in a quiet steady voice:

“Stop it; you have to stop it; just speak to me; you have to stop fighting; this isn’t you; just speak to me…: and so forth. 

         I could not believe how quickly I had lost control of the situation; control of my child, and I think I just held on to the body as if that might help me hold on to the girl.  But she was gone; way gone; and the keening and mewling with no words wouldn’t stop; and she started to look around in desperation-“Is she really frightened of me right now? Am I being frightening?” But there was no one to ask, not even her.  And then within the sounds came, “maaaaammmmmmmy”

And that’s when I let go. Whatever point I was trying to make, what ever objective I was trying to reach, I had failed and things were crossing a threshold I could not allow.

She stumbled off to her bedroom a few steps away, and fell to her bed still mewling, and mewling, and mewling-

[aside: as I write this I strangely think back to when my one year old puppy gave birth to a still born pup in the back room of our compound, with only me to watch over her.  I laid some newspapers down and tried to make her comfortable while I bore witness to something I had never been exposed to and had no idea how to handle.  When the stillborn was out, my puppy just kept licking it, trying to bring it to life, looking desperately up at me and mewling, mewling, mewling.]

         I sat there, my body literally shaking with the force of my little girl and wondered if I had overreacted, if I was in the wrong, if this all could have been prevented.  But there was a calmness in me that appeased those questions; I had not been angry, I had been scared; something was off, terribly off, and everything in me knew it. 

          I could see into the room, and I could see the edge of her bed, so I just stared at where the ends of her legs, and her insanely long feet (she’s gonna be six foot, that one) were. I wanted to call out to her, but my mother’s voice in my mind, “just let her be”, stopped me.  For once, I agreed.  In the case that I had somehow misguidedly caused a trauma to my child, and she was, in fact, lying there terrified by me, the only thing I could do was let her be, she would be feeling trapped as it was.

         Shortly thereafter, the cries stopped. A strange thing happened:  She sat up in bed and leaned past the door, her finger thrust deep inside her mouth, and looked at me….as if she was very confused.  She lay back down; I kept eating; I could see her playing with her legs; a doll; rolling about in her bed quietly. She got up and looked out her window, sat on her bed and started playing with a pair of doll scissors, trying to cut her towel.  I stared: 'was this about to start up all over again? Would I have to think about sharp objects and pills laying around for my nine year old child?' 

           She felt me looking at her, looked up….and smiled with her eyes in that shy way when she thinks I might still be upset with her from the day before, but she really hopes I’m not.  Her eyes were all puffy from crying.

“You’re dinner is very cold.”

          She jumped up and came and settled down to her meal of now congealed pasta and fried fish.  I was already full and felt I had some phone calls to make. I was feeling un-tethered; I needed to connect to something sane.  No one picked up.

          I went back to the living room to give my quiet presence, in case absence signified anger.  I was still not angry, and I was beyond scared.  There was no panic in me, but perhaps a slight premonition.  As I sat there listening to her eat behind me, the radio on in the background, I thought of the moment when I would have to explain to her teachers that my child may have behavioral issues we had not previously been aware of.  I tried to think of how to describe it in a nutshell: “It is as if she has three different brains, a sixteen year old, a nine year old, and a three year old. No, I know,” I reassured my invisible audience, “that might be the way to describe any nine year old girl; in fact, anything I would try to describe would sound normal.”  I thought back to how many hours of discussion it took my mother to understand I was not just snapping at Vannesa without reason, I had reached a threshold of desperation very few others would have been able to reach without doing a lot worse.  “With Vannesa, you have to see it to understand….she just snaps.”

         Dinner was over, and Ms V carried her plates to the kitchen with-seriously?-a bounce to her step; she was miming the lyrics to the song on the radio (“Summer, summer, summertiiiime…”) as she emptied her food into the garbage, put away her leftovers and washed her dishes.  The only thing to remind me that I had not lost my mind and it was perhaps now about an hour since she laying in her bed in the throes of an emotional fit, were her still puffy, squinty eyes.   Otherwise, I was watching a well behaved, happily satiated nine year old. 

She came back to the living room and hesitated, looking around at the windows and doors, and me. “was she still scared? Wanting someone to come rescue her?” but she didn’t seem scared, she seemed lost, and looking to me for rescue.

“Yes? Do you have something to say?” She shook her head. “Do you need something?” She tugged at her shirt and kept looking around trying to pinpoint something.  And I thought, “she’s just come back; she has no idea where she’s been”.  But of course I thought I was being dramatic.  I turned off the radio, told her she looked like she needed me for something but that I could not read her mind so she would have to communicate.  She came closer to me (with Ms V that speaks volumes) and said she didn’t know what her mind said.

“I just feel dizzy, and I don’t know, like my body hurts.”

“Vannesa come here.” She came and stood over me.  “Who am ?”

“My Mama.”

“Do you feel safe with me?” she nodded.

“Would your mama ever hurt you?” She shook her head.

“Do you remember what happened over there?” I gestured to the dining room table.  She looked…

            I couldn’t tell if she was grinning in sheepish shame, but as the conversation continued and her denials continued, I swear she looked like I must look when meeting up with someone who has recently seen me after too much to drink.  Like, I want to act like I do remember, but I also really don’t and I’m curious to get the details.  That’s how she looked-curious.

          And so it goes.  The last thing she remembered, and vaguely at that, was writing sentences after cheating at cards.  And then she found herself in her bed.  I remembered the look of surprise or confusion when she sat up and peered at me.  Something in me clicked.  No panic, no fear, just a click of a steel lock as it unlocks into a vault of knowing: the yawning, the mental withdrawal, the never remembering what she had just done, the once upon a times that only verged on the unthinkable…The door was unlocked.

I told her what had happened and explained why her body hurt. She was so….she said,

“Wow! That must have been hard, sorry mama for your suffering.” And I almost lost it, and I wanted to lose it because, Lord FUCKING knows I reveal my trauma in delayed response and I am damn scared of when this will hit me. 

         She admitted there were times when she was somewhere and didn’t know how she got there. (Fuckfuckfuck. I am really hearing this. This is what I’m hearing)  I honestly explained the complexities of the mind-sometimes after being very scared at some point-and how it  protects the person, but reassured her this was not necessarily the case with her, only that the mind was complicated. 

         She went to bathe and found me afterwards, curled up on my bed, clutching a silent phone.  No one picked up.  She looked…sympathetic, more so than I’ve ever seen her before.

“So….how are you?” She asked, her freshly scrubbed body wrapped tightly in my Indian print house robe.

“I’m okayyyy.”

She glanced around then fell into the scoop of my body I didn’t even know was there; I curled reflexively around her until I felt her fit perfectly and knew, it would always be there waiting, whenever she would need to fall.....

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."......

  

           
        

Bonding Over Body Bits

              A few nights ago, I arrived home from rehearsal like a walking zombie (due to a previous late night youtube marathon of My Big Fat Gypsy's Wedding).  Ms V was wide awake still, having decided to wait up for me.  I sat on her bed and she blurted a question she had clearly been deeply ruminating in my absence:


              "What is this???" (points to her bellybutton) 


              Her angelic sincerity snapped me out of my lethargy.  I impishly tired to convince her that the bellybuttons sole reason for existence was to make that trumpet sound when someone blows on it (I demonstrated).  She protested my claim amidst much giggling, but her perceptiveness couldn't hold out to my insistence, especially as I had shown that neither the elbow, cheek, or shoulder were adequate places to make said trumpet sound.  And when she tried it on me, she could find no tangible fault with my irrational argument.  


            I could not bring myself to leave her so deluded and eventually admitted my treachery then gave a brief lesson on the true purpose behind the bellybutton, using her doll and a lamp plugged into the wall as props. Unexpectedly the conversation turned;  Never play with a child's imagination, unless you're in the mood for a trip: 


            "I wish I could see a woman with a woman or a man with a man; oh, I wish I could see how that looks like!" 


            (Uhmmmmmm, Pardon the Fuck?) "What? Why??"


            "Mukaka says they are there! Like in America or what.....I just want to see how they get a baby....or what....."


            We had, a couple of months ago, been forced (thank you much progressive parenting 101) to honestly respond to Ms V's classic "where do babies come from?" question with a brief synopsis of the biology behind procreation; we smartly used the broader example of the entire animal kingdom to keep things safely scientific (frankly, one would expect trying to imagine ostriches, giraffes, and lizards making babies would be overwhelming enough that there wouldn't be the time or imagination left to ponder same sex coupling-bah!).  Apparently Ms V's imagination had used these scientific basics as a diving board into the deep dark depths of Adult Content!


            I still felt myself in somewhat familiar territory.  When I was her age there was a couple who lived across the street from us; a gay couple.  I used to sit in my living room and keep watch at the window hoping for a glimpse of the fabled pair. Once during my vigil I "caught" them in an intimate moment: they were both outside trying to change the bulb on a floodlight at the side of the house.  One man climbed a short ladder to reach it, and the other reached up and put his hands around his partners waist to brace him (to protect him).  I felt I'd caught a glimpse of exactly what I'd been looking for: evidence that, despite the negative connotation when the gay couple was ever mentioned in the neighborhood, there was nothing at all negative or mysterious about them.  They were good; they were right; they were Love.  This notion was amplified by the contradicting fact that the rest of the neighborhood, including my home, held dysfunctional, lonesome, and sometimes violent families in which Love was a barely contrived facade.


           In any case, wherever my curiosity led, from the lofty ideals of universal romance to the more carnal realms of Danielle Steel imagery (I was a young and avid reader) I had the prudishness, fear, and wherewithal to keep my musings to myself; the Little One has no such filters:


            "I also want to know how they put their cho-chos (vagina) together, or..... what. And they have like holes-?"


            "Vannesa!! Where did you get these ideas from?!"


            "Eh! But you said I should tell you all what's on my mind!"


            "Ah, yesss," (damn you psychobabble degree) "but who told you all these things? Why are you even thinking of them?"


            "Uhmm, I think television or something." (we don't have a t.v-hmph!) "So do you have a hole in your cho-cho?"


            "Oh for Gods sake!" (For FUCKS SAKE!!)   


            I then launched into a Progressive Parent 101 spiel which supported her right and desire to be curious, affirmed my commitment to be honest and open with her, and redirected all such detailed-oriented questioning for when she will be old enough to understand the answers. (Whew!)

ARTEMIS (DIANA) OF EPHESUS

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     Ms. V also has a running joke (that only she finds amusing) that slightly varies each time but basically involves my acquiring (sometimes at through her direct effort) an extra set of "buttocks", one or two extra sets of "bleasts", and (of course) a spare "cho-cho".  Sometimes though, she is the one (usually by taking mine) who gets a secondary set of female fertility organs (Yes, in Africa this most definitely includes the buttocks!).  She will choose the most innocuous conversations to intercept with this imagery, and will giggle adoringly at her fantasy.  At which point I thank God for my highly pretentious academic background which is steeped in the social sciences.  In these instances, images of ancient (and not so ancient, depending on the source) fertility God and Goddess statues come to mind; the classic Greek tragic hero, Oedipus also occurs to me (but that's probably my psychobabble training reminding me of Freud's say in such matters).  In the end, though, my daughters "joke"  seems more a ritual in which she uses these images to substitute our bodies having never been joined in organic creation; in mother-daughter coupling (a thing, I'm afraid, dear Freud would never have been able to understand).  


            Lucky for me, I do.  My daughter is my muse, and I use her stories, her words, her ways of seeing the world to guide me on my path as a storyteller; it is an odd thing to do; though she does not fully understand this ritual of mine, she accepts that it is my way of learning her, knowing her, and thus knowing myself.  It warms me to think that this ritual she has developed, of amplifying my femininity and then (rightly) claiming it for herself, is her way of learning me, knowing me, and thus knowing herself...... 


            Or maybe she thinks she's gay. Either way, works for me.  

A Run For The Hills (1)

              Nothing like an unexpected adventure to do what a weekend holiday in paradise, followed by some much needed time a part, still could not accomplish: we, three, are finally a bonded, harmonious, peaceful family again (fuck March) Yaaay April!! And all it took was the threat of a tsunami (why didn't I think of that?!?).


              The Little One and my mother arrived a day later than expected (which I should have expected) on Wednesday afternoon.


             I will tell you a secret: part of my anxiety at being away from the Little One, is that a.) she wouldn't miss me b.) she would find she was happier visiting her other relatives that she used to live with when her mother first died, and so my mother would decide to let them take her back c.) she wouldn't miss me AND wouldn't be happy to see me.  


             They came in soaked from the days rain, my mama looked just as shy of me as I was of my daughter, as if she goes through the same anxiety over me (and a tiny part of my mind made a note of this).  The Little One would not look me in eye; she carried a big suitcase and concentrated on trying to bring it in, ignoring my attempts to help her.  My heart did a tailspin and I did all I could to not fall on my knees in anguish.  The art of adulthood: to be falling apart inside, and on the outside, you are exchanging small pleasantries:


    "hiiiii, look you're all wet" (oh my God, she hates me).


     "Here let me help you" (damn it just give me the suitcase, great the driver's watching, can they all see it??)


      "Hi mama. Hi Little One! I missed you! Ohh you're cold, huh? (WHY won't she look at me? what's happened? What's going on?? I've completely FUCKING failed-can't let it show, must not let it show, fuck, fuck, FUCK)


      "Would you guys like some tea?....I said would you like some tea Vannesa?? (Mama says ALWAYS act like nothing is wrong-I HATE being a grown-up!)


             Well, melodrama is in the mind of the beholder. After a cup of tea, a sweet snack, and some Mindful techniques of emotional observation (did I mention I have a therapist now? She's no Guru*, but she is a good dose of "just what I needed"-God Bless!) it occurred to both of us that, "Hey, I actually still love you; and wow! You TOTALLY love me to!" A much needed separation, followed by an equally integral reunion.


             It turned out that, despite some unsettling health concerns that had been the cause for the delay, my mother was only stopping in long enough to take a shower and grab new clothes before hitting the road for an out of town workshop.  There hadn't been any power since the night before and my mother left while the building manager was trying to rectify the problem.


             We sat down to a nice meal of homemade fish and chips (a little indulgence to welcome home my Love); It must have been four o'clock so this was late lunch, early dinner.  I considered maybe taking us to the movies, but the rain (though light) didn't seem to be letting up.  Then my mobile rang; it was my mother......


             "Soooooo, I've just gotten an update on my phone, there was an earthquake in Indonesia and Dar Es Salaam is on alert for a Tsunami."


              The funny thing about me: I need a therapist to navigate the overwhelming pressures of choosing a country to settle down in, getting a job, getting a boyfriend, etc. But give me an unexpected crisis and I'm ON IT, like WHAT! I become all Peaceful and Zen. Let's recap:


 I have no power, no computer, not even batteries in the radio; 
the fridge is semi-stocked (my mother just unloaded a shitload of avocados for me to do I dunno what with so no threat of scurvy); 
I can't swim; 
Everyone I would think to call in Dar will probably be at this out of town workshop-though I probably wouldn't call them anyway; 
my mother spent the night before in the hospital after a severe migraine attack and is now on the road on a four hour journey; 
how come everyone in other natural disaster crisi (crisi? really?-blame spell check on that shit) always seem to have boats?-
I don't EVEN HAVE A BOAT!!

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DISCLAIMER: Don't get me wrong. I am not in anyway dismissing the horrific, tragic, realities of natural disasters.  I am in no way trivializing the suffering that happens. I am sincerely relating my exact thoughts as I spoke to my mother about what could very well be a life-changing circumstance and looked around our house instinctively trying to spot what could be turned into a flotation device in a pinch.....to no avail.......