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.  

Your Mother Has Been Caught (1)

Once Upon a Time....(time, time, time)


          It was near about Christmas time and the family had decided to spend it deep in the village. Not our ancestral home, but a village in Uganda near to a town called Hoima.  This place had become a kind of home for us as we had decided to commit our love and support to enriching the ancient land and empowering the people.


          The exact place in this village that we called home was a plot adjacent to a man with five wives,  two brothers, and a gaggle of babies between them. He was a prominent member of the village council.


           When we first visited his home to show our respect to his hosting us, we went to the back of his compound behind the main house where there was the typical hard dirt area and a hut for the kitchen.  The babies were everywhere, in all shapes and sizes, with large dark eyes indicating the distinct relation to their father (underneath the dirt you could believe they were the children of a king).  By the kitchen hut lay a sleeping pig with engorged pink nipples, a dusty dog with puppies tucked beneath her, and a young woman beached on a mat and heavy with pregnancy, staring listlessly at the visitors; the flies intermittently landed on each one and all seemed too bored and bloated to do a thing about them.  Every year I've gone since-though it has been awhile-there is always a fresh baby to hold whose eyes still have that blank, blind look about them, but they are large and dark, just like their fathers.


        On this particular occasion, we had come more by self-indulgent capriciousness, rather than dogmatic dedication.  We had come to play.  My mother had charge of three naughty twenty-something year olds, young enough to need her protection, old enough to demand freedom for mischief.  We were carelessly innocent.  It was a perfect holiday brood.


       The abode we called home, in that adjacent plot, was made entirely of sticks and mud and we would giggle when we forgot and tried to lean against the wall, only to have pieces of the house come crumbling down.  Lucky for us no wolves came knocking. Our kitchen was the open fire under the big tree, and it was often here that visitors and family alike would gather and commune.  


        The babies were allowed to escape from the eternal tedium of their lives to join in the adventure of watching and interacting with us-visitors from another world.  When they weren't playing "throw rocks and dirt" or stealing fruit we would have given them anyway (a habit of the perpetually hungry), they were waiting on hand for any instance that they could find to run an errand for us: fetch sticks for the fire, bring us some fresh cut sugar cane, or dig up some greens for supper.  Only one of the wives was actively in charge-it was not the young woman I had seen earlier.


        They willingly allowed us to play with them like dolls, piling them up for pictures, adjusting their torn, insignificant clothes to hide their genitals from the peering eye of the camera. It didn't take long to observe there was a distinct character designation among this troop of 9-12 children. There were leaders, fighters, and a caretaker who managed the disturbing act of maintaining an infant of no more than 12 weeks on his small bony back while playing a game of futbol.  At times I would dare to intervene, lifitng the wailing baby to me, gently clearing the dirt from her eyes, asking that she be sent back to her mother "where she belonged".  But, even at such a fresh age, she new whom to depend on; she would only wail harder until she was back in the arms of the boy. And should she be sent to her mother, within 15 minutes he would come trumping through the dirt path, shoulders hunched and strong, the wailing baby tucked between them in her rightful place.  I never stopped marveling at how gentle he could be with her, a mere four or five years old himself. No, that is not an underestimation or a miscalculation due to his malnutrition: by two you can help your mother with small tasks, by four you are the primary babysitter, by six you will have had your first beer-this is Village life, and we are only visitors.
         


         Or so I thought.....


        
        
     

Adopting Woes

         "But how?? How d-d-do you open your heart?"  She wails.


         I respond without hesitation; I respond instinctively from some place deep within; some steel center of Divine Force. I respond while having to convince every doubtful, broken, willful bit of my being that what I speak is Truth. I have to do this with such reflexive speed that the questioning, internal healing, and resulting response leaving my lips happen in a seamless transition. We step through a portal....


          I'm beginning to understand all the horror stories I've read in adoption blogs and forums. Parents safely claim, "it only gets worse". Bitches. I understand the need for them to make this claim; having become conditioned to that first version of the child they bring home (specifically if the child is above the age of 6). What they-we-fail to comprehend is that, that first version is just a shell, a protective layer made of head-nodding obedience, and intuitive, survival-bred manipualtion  (actually, they say babies are biologically designed the same way: with large eyes and reflexive smiles, they are made to seduce us into nurturing them).  It is US who make the mistake in believing that their instinct for survival, their adaptation is some special secret saved for those that have suffered and is thus a permanent gift of theirs, a skill, a magic weapon, that they will use without guidance or teaching forever and ever as they see fit. I understand it, but I do not approve.  Having read the horror stories, and commiserating woes found in many of these forums, I am left feeling disgusted.  The laments are always the same, "she/he was so great when we brought him/her home, but now we don't know what to do?!?"  How foolish they all are when the creature grows so comfortable it lets its guard down and bites, because biting is all it knows...
         How dare we-they-be so shocked that when that loving shell cracks, inside there is a vulnerable little thing, perhaps malformed from lack of exposure to the Light. A scared, broken being, perhaps vicious from fear that you will now see it and turn away in disgust or fear-"this isn't what we were expecting".....


       Watching my child collapse in anguish has that cliche, slow motion, car crash feeling.  It is actually happening.  This is happening and everything I say to her will cement, now and forever, my emotional bond with her. Yes, it IS now and forever, because I can remember wailing out my anguish at her age, my mother holding me, and me knowing she had no FUCKING clue how to help me; she had no FUCKING clue how much of my pain was rooted in her careless behavior; she was so busy being frightened.  And that has never changed.

        
         This thought only adds to the secret fear that what I am seeing in the face of my wailing, agonizing, child is the results of a few months under my influence.  As if this fear is not damned-full enough, beneath or alongside it is the thought, "also, she does come from your blood, maybe she is just revealing the same innate flaws you daily fight with; after-all, we all know how her mother was....


         All this while, we smugly pondered at how easily the Little One has been left seemingly un-affected by her tragic circumstance.  It was easy to get used to someone who seemed to reject the natural damage of a tragic circumstance [maybe it's just as easy to get used to a daughter who has always steeped herself in mourning.  So used that you never think to pull her out of it].  It was easy to feel arrogant (even though we only lucked out) that this poor, innocent thing-innocent of her poverty-should fall into our care; as if, by her natural ability to adapt, we have proven ourselves capable.  It's been easy, and the hard part is just beginning....


          I scramble to retard the momentum of despair that is building fast; I sing the pop song* I've written her.  Even in emotional upheaval, she has time to pause, listen, and smile at me with sincere enjoyment. (I knew it was a hit) but it doesn't last for long.  As soon as the song is over her eyes go large and black again; her shoulders squeeze together while her body shudders and shakes with her cries. 
           So....I speak French;  the bits and pieces of inaccurate phrases tumble from my lips while I stroke her controrted face: "Ne pleus pas mon fils-ma fille (ma fils...damn that's not right, but it sounds a lot better-whatever she don't know); "c'est pas grave"....


       [Unless it is, unless its you crying because you want to go live with my sister and not moody, silly, me.  Unless it's you crying because the genes in your body just kicked in and this is only the tip of the iceberg. Then, I'm afraid, it might be a bit more serious- Or not? Am I so regretful of who I am, I fear the idea you might be like me someday? Hmmmm....I can't say that I am my Love.] 


       "Life is sooooo HARD!!". She is mourning for the FIRST time since the day I watched her across the grave where her mother lay while dirt was thrown on top. My sister clung to me, and even through my own tears, I could not help but notice how she cried and sniveled like a broken, little girl-except there was the little girl whose mother was disappearing, looking on, calm and serene.  


         "Well it's about fucking time isn't it", the deep steel center of me throbs this feeling out through my bones,  "Bare witness Lady: THIS. Is. Your. Job."


         Whatever is yet to heal in me has to be left for another day, my daughter is flailing herself into a pit of despair, and that isn't going to happen on my watch.  I am not going to stand back in fear.  I know, in that moment, it is up to us to decide, once and for all, how we are gonna live our lives, or else our pains/fears will decide for us:


       "No! Enough now, Vannesa! Come on, this isn't you!! Enough crying, NO! Life IS BEAUTIFUL!! Yes it is hard sometimes, okay, and yes you can cry, but then you have to stop and say ENOUGH.  It's beautiful even when it is hard, my Little One.  And sometimes we have bad days and the sad thoughts shout at us, but then you just have to shout back, with your heart (I place my hand on her thin chest and INVOKE the Will of God that what I speak be a Blessing) You have to SHOUT back with all the wonderful blessings you've had in your life, all the good memories and stories.  Come on now-"


        Her wailing has stopped, but I think-I know-it is only paused, "But how?? How d-d-do you open your heart?"


        I speak quietly now, but with feverish force-["yes, I know this is Truth-give it to her and tell your fears to shut the fuck up about it." my heart reminds me]:
        "By Loving someone; by being kind to someone who needs it (her thin arms snake their way around my neck and pull me close to her face so I have to whisper); or by being Loved or having someone be kind to you; by those moments when you let yourself feel total Peace (Relaxed Body, Easy Mind*); by seeing something beautiful-like the sunlight in your eyes, or the clouds or the trees, or a baby smiling; by laughing with a -"


      "You know what?" she whispers, "I need a book.  I have to write down everything you've ever told me.  I have to not forget."  
      "You're going to write down what I say, like I write down what you say to me?" (she nods) "Okay, that seems fair; good idea, baby."


      There is a brief stillness, "I will NEVER forget my mother." Her eyes well up again, she sounds so damn desperate.  [No, My Love, I have you now, I won't let you fall again.]  
       "Of course you won't!! No, of course not. Baby, sometimes we can open our hearts through sadness too! Through the mourning of someone we loved who is gone, through feeling the pain of someone else's loss, or the pain in the world, but only when we let that sadness teach us, and in the end we find Peace again....  And you know what?  I will never forget her either. I have learned so much about life from your stories of your mother.  I think about her everyday. Every. Single. Day.  So of course we won't forget her. Both of us.... Actually, why don't we write down in a book all the stories of your mummy also, so that we won't forget?"
       "Okay...."


        Our bond perhaps exists in our screwed up genes, or in our broken hearts-perhaps.  No matter; it will, definitely exist now in the way we choose to remember, in the stories we choose to tell, in the words we use to tell them.


         Our hands are dirty; her mother is buried; she is in my arms now; we will walk away now, and we will write our stories, because Our. Life. Is. Beautiful....


       

We do not Choose the Families we Have NOR the Families we Make

        We went to the mall on Saturday.  I feel so restless with this anemia shit; I haven't been anemic in years and I forgot how....insidious it can be.  I talked of biorhythms with regards to my Cycling/Spiraling theory, but really, I tend to turn every experience I have into a bout of psychoanalytic, intellectual introspection: "I have no thoughts, I just need quiet and grey (?)" It's not always mental Lady! Did a bit of research, turns out these are all Grade A symptoms of anemia (including the heart palpitations I mistook for anxiety over possible past, present, and future failures). My particular kind of anemia-there's like a BUNCH with obnoxious names all with different causes but similar symptoms (the one caused by heavy prolonged drinking did lead to some serious anxiety re: past/present/future-bah!)-but I'm pretty sure, my particular kind of anemia is due to the malaria meds I had to take last month and a change of diet that is now absent of leafy greens (I do not cook leafy greens, alas....)
         Well, good to know; there's something else to blame in my body other than my mind for once (stupid blood) but since I am now so out of it physically I have nothing to do but think, let the introspection begin continue...
       
         The mall idea was with the hopes of finding some really good vitamins till mama returns with the hard stuff (check!), but also to give Ms. V an outing.  But all the while I was just so TIRED, and it bothered me that she should have to make do with a tired mama. It also made me realize how attached she is, not just to me, but to my every single movement.  I watched other children her age and younger play around but she clung to my each and every step and breath, mirroring them with her own.  If I didn't find something interesting, neither did (could) she. When I finally begged to sit down, children played and looked and moved around us-she looked with her eyes, but her body stayed right next to me; so close, as if she wanted (needed) to know if even the hairs on my arms moved, so hers could do likewise.
         I struggled with being frustrated by this, by trying to will her independence, because the fact is: just as I'm getting the hang of this, just as I'm getting accustomed to that attachment, she will be an adolescent, and her previously suppressed autonomy will burst forth, probably with fierce expression. I will shudder to think how I once lamented that all I have to do sometimes to get her to keep still is hold my breath.
     
         At night, I watched her play with a toy I found for her and I thought about families; I thought about my own and the one I'm creating.  One of the noticeable differences with other people in the mall and us, was they were all families with siblings, and we are just a pair.  This is beyond rare in Africa; it is so freakish that the waitresses where we lunched couldn't help but interrogate us throughout the meal with smiles of suspicion (a total of 3 different women at least 8 different times came and asked probing, personal questions we were forced to mumble awkward answers to through half chewed bites of chicken*); it must have killed their minds to wonder how we came to exist-a question I couldn't really answer.  Coming from a family of six, I had heard of only children, but what that must have actually looked like was beyond my imagination-sorta like Pluto maybe?
          Later she told me of a dream she had where her doll turned into a baby, and we adopted her and gave her a new name, and she was ours (but I refused to breastfeed-ha!). Oh poor Little One, she wants a family so badly (liking freakin Penny or Annie) but all she's got is me; no amusing characters seem to be coming forth to fill in the blanks.

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        I do think about my future children and how easy they will have it compared to her: there is no way I will be able to exert this much demand and training on a future child, especially one I've raised from birth. I will have learnt some and given up some; but Ms. V must take the brunt of that learning.
         But it is give and take: when we do evolve into a "proper" family, I will be distracted by a husband (!), a potentially unruly adolescent, and other Life things; my future child will not get the benefit (?) of the intense and sacred study I give to Vannesa. I know her; I know her by a twitch of her shapely eyebrows, a hand movement, a pull of her mouth that even she doesn't know is happening, a change in her voice. And I usually know what's causing the shift (physical, emotional, circumstantial) and in which direction (negative/positive). Of course I encourage her, sometimes push her to articulate her needs and feelings for herself. Sometimes I let her in on my knowing-power and she looks at me like I'm magical. That's a special thing, to be known so intimately; being the third child, I can attest to an awareness of the absence of such Knowing in my upbringing; I still long for my mother to know me and I am perplexed by how much she does not.  But that's just it: I was the third child and Life's distractions were a bit more....demanding during my childhood.


        People always mention how I was my mothers "purse" because I was always attached to her (I like to joke I now live in her purse, and then I cry inside) but my memories of her are of absence and longing. I clung to her because she was always disappearing; I still do; she still does.
         People also remember me as the epitome of the incorrigible, in-suppressible, fully expressed, egocentric monster: "I want what I want when I want it"; I threw horrifying tantrums of such grandiose proportions, I would have undoubtedly been severely medicated had I been raised in today's America.  My sister is the first born and I think she took the brunt of my unimaginably young mother's parental learning, much like the Little One (except my sister had the benefit of a sibling who came just after her and was the obedient and willing follower to her adventures). She resents me terribly for my insisted recognition of Self. She doesn't get that it's give and take:
         When my siblings were younger they lived in a country and culture they knew and felt safe in; they had two mostly functioning parents, friends that looked like them and thought they were normal, RELATIVES, activities....they had a family.  By the time I was old enough to remember we lived in isolated seclusion within and without our home; our house was a place of fear and loneliness and absence (Lord, it would be terribly pathetic to try and paint my childhood so mono-chromatically, but I'm try to make a point, there was a very real distinction from before and after the big move) There was a suppressed and congested dysfunction (confusion? trauma?) that filled our home like a cloud; everything I saw was perceived through that thick and weightless presence (that part is true, totally true, that's what so pathetic about all the good memories).
          I think of my mother choosing my father though the implication of darkness was present even before her first child; I think how she would do it again, and again, and again....But of course it was not as she intended; she did not intend on a family broken and shut down, on moments and memories of having to escape in bare feet and having to choose between younger and youngest who would escape with her (I was younger, and so it goes....), and of all the effects and results (there are good and bad damn it, this is a story NOT a fairy tale) of that family we had.


           I think of my future children, of my future adolescent, and I wonder how long it will take before she realizes that whatever place we are in, it will not have been by intention- well, certainly not mine. If she questions-if there are uncomfortable repercussions and she demands to know what I was thinking taking this on, cleaving her into my life, I will answer: It was not a thought or conception of the future, I just chose you because, in that moment, it made sense....


           And I would do it again, and again, and again.....

Is it A Cycle or A Spiral?

I know something about myself that I haven't always known.  I have a rough time with transitions. Any transition, no matter how small, throws me for a loop, or into a loop as it were.  I knew this week would be tough. The Little One and I are on or own for the second time ever, and this time for much longer than two days.  Added to this, she has begun her lessons this week.  One would think this was cause for a celebration, but instead her increasingly familiar mood shifts, coupled with my own withdrawal into quiet has left us both in a funk that seems to feed off each other. I know what's going on with me, but am at loss to see why it should result in such exacting expression from someone else.

         For me, what I've come to call it is Cycling.  I have this theory I'm working on about my biorhythms-my physical, emotional, and mental states of being. I wrote about it last month, in a post I never posted, because then the cycle continued and it didn't seem so relevant anymore-life went on; things were fun, crazy, but mostly manageable.  And now when I know I'm just coming out of yet another of my...introversions, I still don't have much to say, I'm just remembering I have words. But I do want to write about it at some point-maybe a lot-until I get it right.  I think it's an amazing thing to witness about myself, though harassing to go through.  The threat to slip into psychobabble and very really psych-fears is... restraining, but who gives a shit.

          For the past few years I've witnessed an increasingly palpable wave my moods shift through, a cycle that begins say at the end of the month. I love the start of the month; I am always so ON IT, so AWARE, so high with connection and comprehension.  No matter what is going on in my life, these first two or three weeks (if you count from the last week of the previous month) find me in my most creative and initiating mood.  Even if I'm not doing anything new, I am usually remembering what I'd thought to do before but just never got around to it.

          Then it all goes to pot around the middle of the month-I say around because if I am being very careful and aware I can note a few days of.....frantic feeling where I'm still doing, still being thoroughly extroverted and functional, but it's like I'm Wile E. Coyote just after he dashes over the ledge, just after he realizes he is over a ledge, just before that realization leads to his downfall...literally.  Those are those few days-say the 13th to the 15th; it's where I'm already over the ledge, but now it's dawned on me, and peeeewww, splat, there it is.  

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              I stay in an introverted funk, having nothing to say, no thoughts come to mind that I can lucidly follow let alone share.  [This is where we bring up interesting little words like depression and seek help. Yeah, you would say that, I would too unless I was me-which I am.]

           The thing about these cycles is they are not pathological though they are organic and natural; I don't feel bad at these times, I just go still and quiet, which only feels bad when I feel like I'm supposed to be the extroverted doer-maker-organizer I am at the other side of the cycle (like when it's the Little One's first week alone with me, and she's got lessons and tutors, and outings Oh My!)

            Without fail, no matter what is going on around the 23 of the month, I snap out of it-well NO-I slip back into the other side of the cycle.  Suddenly words, thoughts, and connections are alive in my brain again-like WOW (ha! can you tell I'm not quite there yet?) And that's it; the cycle starts all over again.

            There's another thing I've noted about this cycle thing but with less definition, it is that I think it happens throughout the year as well, but that may just be residual effects of living in a cold climate.  I am high as hell in February, my life just feels tremendously filled with activity even when it's just in my mind; in March things are okay, but in April and May I get that funky over the ledge feeling again-I'm usually working out like crazy, working, seeing someone new, but it's all starting to slip away for some reason. New guy disappears or turns into a sociopath in human clothing; working out hits a standstill, usually related to some such illness; and so on, and so forth.

         There, I've written it all out for once, not that it makes me sound at all normal or healthy, and worse, not that I have even begun to explain the nuances of this revolution-like those time-lapse photography videos of a carcass being devoured by insects in the forest-this is a messy, but beautiful thing. I just don't really know what it is yet.

          I began this post discussing transitions-this is a whole new layer of dealing with my tiresome self. You would never know it to look at me, unless you really knew me, and even then only if you were especially brave and curious.  Life continues as before-food is made, jobs are done, people are called. There may be only like 3 days of the 10 day downturn where I seem off or tired, but I know when it is there with some inexplicably exact timing.

           This last time it happened on...Friday, the day I went to the gym at 6am, the day I came back and did 3 loads of wash (by HAND-ahem-Africa), the day I took the Little One to the eye doctor, and sat there waiting to be called on a lovely, sunny afternoon, scratching at the crease in my arm, even though it didn't itch.  And my Logic mind thought-ah shit-what IS that itch?

            And Saturday we made a morning trip to the market and continued on to a lovely day at the beach-except that I was exhausted from too much gym time and I was expecting some-ka-guy (that's Ugandan for bloke, or mic, or homie) to maybe show up, though I didn't really want him too, and night came and all had gone well-it had been lovely, lovely, lovely...and I thought-fuck me, what IS that itch?

            Sunday I let myself read in bed thinking, let me just breathe and take my vitamins.

            And Monday she began her lessons but missed one because the driver forgot to show up and I thought-fuck me-I can't FIX this (nor do I even want to care)!

             And suddenly it just seemed all so tiresome. Meals were cooked, lessons were had, laundry was folded-but all the while, I was just so tired, each thought seemed to way down on me with its emptiness; like I just had nothing to say, nothing to give; like I just wanted to crawl into a simple grey space (not black, not dark, but the white was a bit too bright for me) and sit and lose myself.  This time around it was in SAG Award clips on youtube which led to any and all interviews of Ricky Gervais (who is beyond brilliant-I didn't know); followed by Adele songs on repeat (who is soooo talented-I didn't know) all things I never do and were utterly unimportant.

          Normally this is all okay for my life, not doing, not thinking, not being so damn...out there for a few days, can make me feel reborn (and yes, even in the biblical sense). But now I have this child who is perplexing to us-my mother and I-in her refusal to initiate anything with her imagination.  No matter how much attention I give her, she starves for more; like she can only participate in her life when I am right there next to her participating in the exact same thing-and It. Is. Never. Enough.  Her startling slip into apathy just because I have nothing to say to her in the 20 times a morning she comes and sits with me on my few days of introversion (I mean, feel free to watch the SAG Awards with me dear, but I am SORRY, I have no comments-especially not based on what an 8 year old, who has no idea what an awards show is, would notice or think about.) disturbs me as it strikes a very different cord than my own reclusion: I am not apathetic when I am quiet; I am biding my time, like a butterfly in a cocoon; I am doing what I gotsta to do, before I can fly free again. 

              

           Now she has storybooks, but won't so much as read them without me there; we've done calendars and paintings and shell decorations-even fucking papier-mâché- but when I leave my computer (where I admit I've thoroughly lost myself this week) to check on her in the 3 hours since she woke up to a prepared breakfast as usual, I find her lying on her bed sucking a finger and looking like some traumatized individual. I wake up at 6am to give her eye drops (she is not a morning person and this latest ritual may be contributing to her listlessness) then lie back in bed in an anxious panic trying to think of what in the world I'm going to say to her when she wakes up; literally willing the morning not to come. Not because I don't want to talk to her but because, just now, I can't think of a word to say to anybody; I just want to absorb and let my mind rest a bit.  

             My continued anemia may only exacerbate this situation, but that's why I mentioned the cycles; this is how my mind does; this is my cycle. I once read that though Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible; Bean Trees) one of my all time favorite authors is happily married with two daughters, when she is ready to write she actually moves out of her home and lives in a one room shack.  The PoisionWood Bible this is NOT, and perhaps will never be, but I've always had an affinity for that ritual of withdrawal.  

           It's times like this I wish we still kept to the ritual of oral tradition; I have a strong feeling that not too far back in my ancestral history, there is a woman who could tell me exactly what this was all about, and she would have a name for it, and a reason about it and it would NOT include the words depression and seek help (it's amazing how much conditioning can be blamed for our individual suffering; believing something is that when all along it is this, and instinctively knowing that difference exists but having no proof is enough to drive a person mad)

            The thing about transitions is they tend to make an already daunting task of inner harmony a bit...ungraceful for me; I get there, I almost always get there; but it's not always so pretty.  Well the Little One and I do share the same blood. Perhaps that's why her behavior frightens me so; I used to watch her mother do the same thing when she would visit us-she would lie under the dining table and mumble to herself-but again, she wasn't actually pathological, she had just shut off somehow because of a lack of stimulus.

          But how much can I stimulate another person, when I myself am watching award show clips just to give my head something to think about?  If I take her to the pool, she looks longingly at me waiting for me to come and play, ignoring all the other children around her. If I take her to the beach and after playing around for awhile, I try and just drift off in watching the light fall on the waves, she loses interest in her singing and dancing and sits next to me, not enjoying the view, just depressed that I don't want to sing and dance all the time.  I can barely find the words to articulate my own journey, how can I be expected to change all of who I am in order to keep this person happy? Is that an expectation-did I just make that up?  Is it okay for me to cycle down and just read quietly, is it ALLOWED? Is a mother really expected to lose herself in her child's needs just because that mother’s needs don't seem so especially critical? (meals are made, floors are swept, medicine and home remedies are given with sincere care and love)  I just don't know what to do with this little girl who has some of my weaknesses but very different strengths; how do I get her to snap out it, so I can be left in peace to snap in?

     

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.

EATING THE BAD AND GETTING A STOMACH ACHE

            I had to have a talk with the little one about the silent tornado that’s been blowing through the house the past few days, destroying all the rhythm, routine, and joyful structure we’ve created.  It’s called cycling: the hormonal brewing that happens with women that leads to a bubbling over of nasty emotions-like pus from a popped zit-nasty because they are unnecessary and not having much to do with our True Selves.

            In the fourth and fifth grade I was in a program called T.A.G, it was a state run program in the American public school system that stood for “Talented and Gifted”.  Children were chosen by falling into a certain percentile of test scores, but then the chosen were further divided into the full-time and half-time versions of the program, apparently by names being drawn from a hat.  What is so inexplicable about this arbitrary distribution is there was a startling difference from the two, namely, full time TAG had a special bus and were given sex education-with condom demonstrations and all.  I was in half-time TAG, spending the morning with the regular kids then heading of to Mrs. Norris’ class for math and English. 

            There were many wonderful things about our little clan, but the best treat (also inexplicably unfair) for being in the half-time version was we got to put on school plays.  These were huge productions that took months to prepare and permitted us to be pulled out of class at the impulsive whim of the director. I always got the “extras” parts because I was years away from knowing I had a Light and my Light had a Voice; but no matter how small the role you played, being a part of these plays was an undeniably epic part of each of our childhoods.

            In fifth grade, one of our plays was a musical mishmash of the Greek myths; I will never forget the rendition of the Andromeda, the daughter of Casseoipia, who was punished for her mother's vanity by being trapped on an island in the middle of the sea. The theme song was as explicitly simplistic as a song could be; the chorus, in loud, whining proclamations:

It’s All My Mother’s Fault!

It’s All My Mother’s Fault!

What-EVER Happ-ens in My

LIIIFE,

It’s All My Mother’s Fault!

            So a few days ago I ask the Little One, “Do you think I’m mad at you?” She shakes her head no, which throws me for a loop; I had imagined that’s what all these puppy-dog, “why me?” looks she’d been throwing at me had been about; but I got no further explanations from my prodding. So I say, “I love you very much, more than I can even say; I love you as if you were my very own baby”, I cuddle her close to me in our living room couch, pressing her back into my beating heart [Given what will follow I feel a bit…nauseated that this was the first time I mentioned such a love……but such is Life]. “Can I tell you?, I continue, “And it’s OKAY to tell Mukaka; this is NOT a secret…but being around Mukaka-I’m not saying she is a bad person-but she behaves in ways that are not so nice…to me, that make it very hard to…take care of you and her the way I want to.” (I have contemplated this confession for days following up to this moment, and YES, there are a million alarm bells going off in my head telling me I could be making things worse, fucking things up, but I just cannot STAND the silent tornado that may very well destroy us all; whatever was going on, growing up, there was always silence, especially from my father-and it was Pure Poison; it’s no good, the silence.) “I think sometimes you copy her, and treat me in ways that aren’t so…respectful, you know?” she nods, “and it’s hard if it’s both of you; it’s hard enough when it’s just her, but when it’s both of you, it’s like two against one, you know?” more nodding, “so I just wish you could find a way to not act like that so much, to not copy that not so nice behavior…” (here it seems like I switch gears, but really I’m just so desperate to use this opportunity to say what’s been on my mind and heart for awhile now, both the pain and the pleasure…)

            “But you know, underneath it all, you are just SO amazing.  No matter how many mistakes you make in life, no matter how many good things you do, underneath it all, You. Are. Amazing. Do you think so?” “She gives a HARD shake no (from a girl who mostly communicates with her eyelashes, be it yes, no, or go f*ck yourself, this was tragically enthusiastic) I pull her close to me again, “I know you don’t but you have to learn. You have to learn because when people hurt you, you will think they are right to hurt you, and you well then hurt yourself by not being all the things you can be or doing all the things you can do, just because you do not realize how Great you are......maybe that’s what happened to me, and that is why I can get so easily upset with Mukaka; I’m still having to learn that I am amazing. SO, you have to learn to believe it so nobody, even me, can hurt you.” She got it, not completely yet, but more than one would expect of a child (most of her life has necessitated an acceptance and comprehension that is far more than one would expect of a child) I was thus not surprised that despite her hearing me out, she was not exactly sympathetic to my position…

"Competition Coming Out Now. Load. Up. Aim. Fire, Fire Pop!" (part 1)

[Title Credit: Fire, Fire by MIA]

             You know that movie with Cher as the mother, Winona Ryder as the troubled adolescent, and Christina Ricci as the adorable youngster? It was one of my favorite movies growing up, I must have watched it a million, gazillion times (and I still can't think of the title, which i'm refusing to google on principle-old age here I come!).  So the story goes (Once upon a time...):

              (Told from the point of view of the adolescent) A young single mother is living in 60's American suburbia with her two daughters. She is self-involved, superficially neglectful, and careless, but sincerely loves her kids.  She moves them from town to town with each cessation of her numerous love affairs, until they come to a town where circumstances, timing, and auxiliary characters force them to grow up.

possessive-adjectives.html 

               Lately it has become a household topic (joke) of sorts, that it's time for me to find a husband. It comes from the sincere desire I have to find "true love", but curiously enough, the discussions have also developed in response to having to find a relaxed way to talk to Vannesa about men.  The thing is, she is only eight years old but she is...stunning.  Both my mother and I were also Pretty Little Girls (very pretty) and we know from personal experience that the world will make a Pretty Little Girl an object (of beauty, innocence, sex, power) no matter how young she is.  It is with these wise eyes that we quickly noted the compulsive way in which men gravitate towards the Little One-old, young, professional, hired hands-they actually reach out and GRAB her, not  sexually, but possessively, right in front of us.

               I walk with her around the supermarket, she insists on pushing the cart, and will try to maneuver this enormous thing in exact accordance with every step I take; this is cumbersome, to say the least, and after awhile, I cannot help but tell her to "Just. Sit. Tight!" I round the corner to grab a bag of her favorite pasta; in the time it takes to find it, stop to check the price of sesame oil (shit!) and double back, a man has materialized out of thin air to pester her , entice her, cajole her, trying to satisfy some inexplicable (even to him), instinctual need.  She is always doing her best to scrounge up her face in disgust and confusion, in a futile attempt to repel him the way one would swat at mosquitoes on a hot, humid, night by the lake; but the men are just as determined to seek out her light, as mosquitoes seeking out sustenance...

               I remember these interactions well as a little girl and as an adolescent (somewhere after 25, when I have finally owned my identity and my sexuality, I have become the seeker, not the sought-Bah!). But I have never had the chance to experience such an interlude as a third party observer-let alone as the designated protector.  So I round the corner, see the man, and come barreling down on him-realizing shrieking "rape" and hitting him about with my purse may only exacerbate the trauma of the situation, so instead I give my best scowl and throw WTF glares at him. Guess what happens? (And yes, in the two weeks we've been here this has happened enough times for me to standardize the behavior) Invariably, the man will simply wheel away from Vannesa, glide past me, and NEVER, ONCE, make eye contact with me.  Like I'm not even there, or more aptly, like he has just snapped out of his predator's dementia and continues shopping treating us like the random strangers that we are.

              In the times when this happens with my mother also there as a witness we cluck to ourselves about the creepiness of this phenomenon, speculating on what we can do to protect her-we've actually considered the merits of converting to Islam simply for the dress code as a solution to our problem.  Perhaps it is not wise to let the Little One hear us hemming and hawing over this problem, but in any case, she has begun voicing her own disgust at the male population, both child and adult, who all seem recklessly addicted to her against all her wishes; hence the need to discuss.

              In her more frustrated moments, (Ugh- just one memory of walking around a children's store with my best friend and the salesman sliding up to me, running his finger lightly down the length of my arm, and slithering "I liiiikke youuurrr colorrrr" still brings up sparks of anger and revulsion that could ignite a forest fire), I tell it to her straight-there is NO romancing the woes of the Pretty Little Girl. So I tells her, I says:

              "Men EVERYWHERE, no matter their age, profession, or race, men have something weird in them where they have to..."have" a pretty girl: talk to her, befriend her, seduce her, condemn her, demand of her, "master" her...no one knows why.  If you have 100 men in front of you, including uncles, brothers, pastors, teachers, doctors-all the kinds of men in your life, about 30 of them will be men you can be friends with, but they are also a bit "weird", as in they may not hurt YOU, but they may hurt other women or girls or at least not understand how difficult it can be for women and girls.  Then there is another 15, okay well, let's say 20 men who will be men you can really trust, like Uncle G, or Jaja, or a teacher, or a doctor, or some friends who will never ever hurt you AND who understand that it is NOT a figment of your imagination that there are those other men who are out to...own you; these men will protect you no matter what, even against their own kind.  And lastly, out of these 15-20 men there will be 1, 2, maybe 3 men who you will love in a way that is different from the rest, and it is out of these 3 that you will find your husband.

alicexz.deviantart.com

 
The rest of the 100, well the rest are freakin weird, and       sometimes downright bad. In bookstores, at the clinic, in the supermarket, at school (here it has been the security guy on our compound who assaults her with friendliness whenever she takes out the trash) they are always around and they will always try to take some of your light.  But the trick me and Mukaka have learned (in this moment of frustration she was discussing reasons she was not happy) is to NOT stop SHINING just because of them. Don't try to hide your light, don't let them make you unhappy, because then... they win."

               Okay, perhaps most of this speech was said in my head as she had already drifted off into what we were going to have for dinner while we washed up the lunch dishes, but it was a good speech to make, even if it was just to myself...

                                                                                                                         

A Day of Reckoning (Part 3)

Looking at the past is a whole lot uglier than the movies would suggest.  The day after Christmas, my parents got into a heated argument on the inane topic of who would ride in what car when they went to visit relatives the following day.  The power was out; it was late, coming to 10 o’clock and the house was half-lit by the erratically placed solar panels.  They sat in the darkened living room carelessly raising their voices into the shadowed halls switching seamlessly from English to vernacular, as they tend to do when excited.  And the Little One and I both wandered in and out of rooms running from the voices, or the shadows, or both.  She had her Big-Hungry-Eyes on, and persistently chanted ‘Mukaka said she was going to make me matoke and groundnuts’ though it was I who was doing the peeling, and the determination of her finger sucking made it clear, she and I both knew the plan had been diverted.  And somewhere in the midst of my fury and-shall I say it??? Okay then-FEAR, from my memories slipped out my own silent story; now I will give it voice (But DON’T tell Vannesa!):

“Once upon a time…time, time, time”, I think to myself.  I am probably about 3 years old. If this did happen, and I’m not saying it did, I’m just saying I remember it, and it would be my first memory. It is in the middle of the night, we are all dressed for sleep, and my father is chasing my mother around a small neat living room with a 3 piece sofa set, t.v, coffee table, and white carpeting.  She is screaming and beautiful in a long silk nightdress.  I am scared and confused, but determined to act like nothing untoward is happening.  So I shout like a small, spoilt child “I NEED TO WEE-WEE!!” And they are running around this loveseat sofa like fucking Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd (I mean, how ridiculous can you be?!? But that thought had no voice at the time.) My mother shouts down at me, ‘JUST DO IT!’ So I lift up my white nightdress, squat down on the white rug and urinate as they continue to playing out this mad melodrama. And I think-I mean, I remember, feeling relieved, like ‘yes, of course, that was what was bothering me.’

  Cellular Memory- that was what the Snake Priestess called it. She told me that my hatred and revulsion of snakes was born of the memories of my ancestors that very literally existed in my cells.  She explained, ‘being from East Africa means you come from the home of some of the most poisonous snakes in the world. For your ancestors, the feeling of a snake slithering across their feet in the middle of the night, for example, would rightly be cause for great alarm. That instinct of fear still resides in your body, but now you have the chance to heal it, not just for you, but on their behalves as well.  By the second day I was making out with the damn thing. She touched a nerve, and it happened to be the right one. 

A Day of Reckoning (Part 2)

At my father’s house, which we have invaded with Christmas spirit, there are 3 dogs, two of whom we gave him when his older ones died.  Having just lost my two dogs from unexpected illness, it is hard to be around them; but for the most part they are reticent of us since they don’t see as too often.  There is only one who has insisted on befriending me; he finds me alone writing or lighting the charcoal grill to save gas, and cautiously and with great deference approaches me with wagging tail. He reminds me of Vannesa (but DON’T tell her I said that!). They are both so emotionally naïve and thus able to love with unabashed intuition; she and he, both have the ability and willingness to invoke restraint in their affection the minute they feel their “caretakers” demand it.  I think this is okay for a puppy, but it frightens me with Vannesa.

            If Vannesa isn’t telling one of her usual stories (Once upon a time…) she will indulge in a quick gossip session with the equally ritualistic words of “Can I tell you?”, often followed by the command: “But DON’T tell [so-and-so]!”.  This command is a habit I hope to break her of as I prove my trustworthiness, while teaching her the difference between stories and secrets (a difference I have faith in but have never thought to articulate).

            Yesterday, she gave me a mixed dose. What began as a story: “Once upon a time…”, “time, time, time”, I eagerly replied (I’m adoring the depth that this ritual gives these moments), also contained the distinction of secrecy: “But DON’T tell Mukaka!” (grandmother-my mother).  And then in her stunted, halting, lyrical tone-often stopping to correct her English she told me of a memory; this is the edited version:

           

            One day, when I was 5 or 6 years old, mummy was sick-but not sick like…like when she went to die, eh? She was sick with flu-okay, not flu, but also cough and when her legs were paining so she almost couldn’t walk.  So mummy told me to go and make porridge. And I was sooo happy; (in song) ‘I’m going to cook por-ridge, I’m going to cook por-ridge…’ And while I was cooking a man, who was NOT family (you know, mummy showed me ALL of our family, so that I know who we are).  So that man came into the house and mummy was shouting, so I came in and said ‘eh! Who do you think you are? You’re not my family, who are you?!?’ And he said, ‘MOVE!’ And mummy said, ‘SHUT UP!!’ And I laughed and laughed-I like that word, ‘shuttup’.  And mummy took me into another room and told me to abuse this man and tell him to go and that he was not welcome.  Then there were visitors arriving, my two uncles.  Mummy said, ‘you see this man, he is coming into our house even though he is not our family!’ And my uncles shouted at the man and started beating him. One uncle was even about to cut his legs, and I said, ‘Nooooo!’ Then I pushed him like this...like this, out of the door and took his shoes and threw them.  Then mummy said to my uncles (in whispers) ‘thank you, he was about to kill me.’  And I tell you? The porridge got burnt and I had to make another one-hahaha.

            I feel guilty telling this story-someone else’s story-with such ease, when I cannot seem to find the words to tell my own.  Why is it so much easier to write of my life through my relationship with the Little One, as it happens right now, but I cannot find the language to write of my life as it happened 20 years ago; to write of things I swear I healed long ago? But I have insisted this post be used for weighing up; calculating the different stories; putting them in their rightful places; demanding they add up to something that makes sense. And this blog has insisted it is to be ruthless in its mission, ‘I must write it plainly and thoroughly-poetically or not’; there is a message I am seeking, there is a message I need to be found…

Was this story told to me before or after the shouting in the living room?