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".  

rasello.com

          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."......

  

           
        

Gone Screaming

       My daughter has decided I will be the new servant for her new family when the current one goes to give birth, and I'm about to lose the job I just got, because they want my fucking transcript.....in fucking AMERICA. Ha!

Did I mention I tend to realize my circumstantial/emotional/FUCKING LIFE wounds in delayed release?  


       Last week a very obese, bronze, colourfully attired American consulate officer asked me less than five questions, typed straight-faced for five minutes then informed me that I was a filthy dirty nigger liar and my application was denied (and thus access to a large part of my identity).  She didn't actually use those words (though I wish she had) in fact the only time she showed the slightest emotion was when she told me I had misused my visa in the past, I said I had not, and she let out a sharp, deep, groaning "WRONG!" that was filled with a viscous disdain equal to every bit of her large mass.  And I felt like a filthy dirty nigger beggar, but had no choice but to walk out with my head held high, wander down the road with a dignified stride, look both ways, cross the street and make my way to a bourgeois coffee shop, in an Expat shopping area named Le Petit Village, where I sipped a cappuccino while a German man watched me with a wounded confusion as I had denied his open, warm smile, and an older, stately black woman at a business meeting stared at me with fascination; what could be so fascinating about a filthy dirty nigger failure blinking away her tears while dunking her complimentary pastry? 


       That was a monday; my male friends were out of town, and my female friends are bitches so I held my breath (and my tears) till Wednesday.  Instead, I wandered through the hectic city in a silent haze. I made it to the mall, bought a movie ticket, had a beer at sunset, ate chocolate.  

       By Wednesday my breath (and tears) were long forgotten.  Instead I joined the boyz and we partied hard with a town that was busting with all the fresh meat in for the summer.  Old and new pretty faces beamed with happiness to hear I was here for a month and I beamed back and screamed "FUCK America!".  I fell sick before the weekend and stayed in, ignored my relatives, shut myself in my bed, allowed my child to get lost in the feeling of family and not needing me so much. It was only yesterday that I remembered I've been choking on a scream that holds so much lust and hunger in it and there is not a single thing to say because everyone has moved on and who would I say it to anyhow?  My lungs and dreams are fucking bursting with images and tears and filthy dirty nigger rage.

       Do you know how many times this has happened before? To so many thousands of people over the decades of global civilization as we know it? How many times a person has been told, fuck what you know, you are nothing? Often it is in ways just as simple as mine; a letter; a word; a "no"; but just as often, of course, are the more graphic ways we all know from history class. Is it easier when it is just a letter?

Mississippi Masala was a great movie-well actually it was okay and I don't believe it is even considered a stand out in Denzel Washington's career, but it was great to me because I remember seeing it for the first time when I was but a young, naive girl.  We gathered in my uncle's stifling hot apartment (the very same uncle whose home we now occupy, but long before he built the current mansion and even before his wife had to be watched over for fear she would kill her babies).  Back then the crowded apartment was filled with relatives whose faces are a blur, but who exuded warmth and safety, all sitting in eager anticipation to see this long awaited film.  I barely could understand it, save for the fact that it had to do with Uganda....and Denzel Washington; thus, of course, I felt only pride.

hartnursery.co.za

       I've watched the film again only in the last 10 years and at the time I think I was hungry for my home and those memories of exotic, safe, adventures with blurred faces and rituals.  I commiserated with the father in the film, an Indian motel owner, as he read the last rejection of his appeal to the Ugandan government, then gazed at an old, faded photograph of a large compound, much like one I currently am hiding out in, similarly filled with bougainvillea bushes the likes of which I have only ever seen in Uganda. The scene is touching: such romance; such poignancy; such bullshit.


       Who gives a shit about a fucking old house and a bush that is long overgrown?!  When that man looks at the photograph he is quietly feeling like a filthy dirty nothing and beginning to hate the people who have made him feel this way (at least if you believe the claims that current racism from returnee Indian generations is a simmering response to how their parents and grandparents were treated).  Maybe yes, maybe no, but for sure he is fucking screaming; I am fucking screaming, because actually it really is about an old house, a scent of flowers, a place I once stood and the deep hunger to stand there again and say "this was me". It is that fucking simple and being refused that is poignantly brutal indeed.

        And it is about all the people I hoped to look in the eye again, who would see me in a way that just can't happen here; whose ears might hear my voice in a way that just can't happen here; 


        But now my lungs are choking with screams of lust and hunger, and they are too far away to listen....


        Photographs don't look back; fuck what you know; to them, you are nothing....
       

Is That The Planets Shifting, Then?

        Last night was my first night ALONE since moving to Dar.  The Little One accompanied my mother on a trip out of town; I had to stay behind for rehearsals for the play.  I thought I would be anxious about it, but for the first time in forever, I feel safe....safe, for the first time in too long.  It's sad though, in her absence, my heart can only now feel the full expression of my love for my daughter.  


        They say time flies when you're having fun, I would argue the opposite and say time slips through your fingers when your struggling to hold on to your sanity.  When everything's falling apart, the clock seems to tick faster and faster, like sand through an hourglass. Joy actually freezes time, in my experience.  When I am so content with the moment that nothing else matters, no future, no past, no wants, no unfulfilled needs, in those moments time does not exist.


         March came and went like a roller coaster ride through anxiety and tension, with brief moments of holding it together.  There was too little joy in March, and the struggle to figure out what the fuck was going wrong sucked all the grains of time down until, suddenly, the month was over.  It is now April, my birthday month.


         I find myself here, now, as if finally coming out of a really bad hangover.  I am still amazed at the loss of time, still confused by how it happened, but feeling, at least, like I can breath.  The air is different, infused with a cleansing agent; the light is clearer, showing me things I did not see before. Is that the planets talking, then? Can this be explained with by a shift in the Cosmos, a change in the weather? Or is it just my Faith in these things that somehow survived the pressure of melancholy and the onslaught of worry so that with the shift in time and a new rising sun, like magic, the curse seems lifted? Is it so simple, then? Planets move and shift, time slips by, and suddenly even my trivial mortal circumstances have shed the weight of futility and regained the lightness of hope.


         My breath is slow and steady. And the small achievements that did occur now rise up into my consciousnesses having previously been suppressed and drowned in such heavy, damning, despair.  I have my health back, a good 20 lbs heavier unfortunately, but strong and vital and myself again.  


         My blood work confirmed no more anemia and all other organs are functioning (at least organically speaking) with full vitality.  While doing my check up, I managed to finally find a proficient dentist and go through the first of several stages of treatment to my damaged mouth. Having done it and survived, having found a doctor who actually understood how terrifying these procedures have become for me, and having had my mother go full on warrior by my side through the whole affair-all of this is still hard to believe, to internalize.  It has been this running commentary between my mother and I, "what are we going to do about your teeth??"; the frequent days of pulsing pain and the inability to chew properly have just become a part of my life. Now, just like that, it is all gone; I am healed.  


         A small, physical example symbolizing a much, much larger affair: The Stumble Out of the Path of Light and Peace. It always begins with a simple slip and fall, a wrong turn, a misplaced move; then the initial denial of trauma or danger, the attempt to ignore and the hope if you just keep moving all will be well; finally the awareness that you are in fact wounded, you are limping and scared that you have forever lost your way. And then one day, you are safe; you are healed; the process is over; those scary moments are gone. You will only ever understand only parts and pieces of how you were healed.  Some things you remember, others you will never know. Like did the planets quietly shift in your favor? Did the moon tilt to help you see a way you hadn't seen before?


         I shouldn't regret the loss of time, when so much of it was filled with hurt and worry; I am glad for the speed with which it seeped through me, though there are still residual aches.  I am not even looking forward yet.  I am here, now, on this day, and it feels safe.  Let the planets move me at their will, let the moments settle down and take on new shapes. I think I see my Path up ahead; it is there still, waiting for me.

        I will not look for the bliss and joy just yet, but I will not stop them from coming either. This is my silent day. I am alone (but full of love); I am MINDFUL; I am healing.  


        My breath is slow and steady.

The Significance of Insignificance

       


          It isn't the air, or the wind, or the moisture;  It is the damage it causes when it strikes.  That is what makes this "most photogenic natural disaster" so hard to explain.  
   

http://geographyblog.eu/wp/?p=3895

   

           There are no devious, diabolical elements in her. My mother is beautiful.  But when she strikes, I feel destroyed.

"Mother Ship" by Carston Peter for National Geographic

 I do not feel safe with my mother, though I cannot seem to stop needing her.

             She wakes in the morning and her life begins again; I lie in bed listening; What form, what shape, what unexpected circumstances will this day take? 

            Don't lift me up and carry me away. I like this ground I walk on. I think you are very beautiful, but in your arms: I disappear; I lose my breath; I feel so damn insignificant.

                        
             I cannot do that anymore. I have something I have planted; 




             I must stay and watch it grow....

Enchantment is a state of Mind and Love is a feeling....

But when Pesky thoughts prove Troublesome, both lose all meaning [RIP Mama Bear]

        The Editor has confirmed he is (of course) in love (with an idea of me), though it doesn't seem he will make it out here after all.  At most this is a lovely distraction and I will take it just as that.  Though he does have the habit of writing the most intimately reassuring things to me-honestly he knows me not one bit, yet is somehow finding the things to say that I would most want to hear.  I can't imagine how or where he is getting these lovely thoughts about me.


       I came across an old email thread from a past lover.  The love affair was nonsense-really immature and pathetic (on his part, of course). But the email and phone exchanges kept me sane during a really traumatizing 30 days in an immigration nightmare that would very likely have killed me if it weren't for him-in the end said nightmare ended up affirming my need to move to Africa, so it did kill a version of me after all.  Reading the messages again, I was not reminded of his immature, pathetic behavior, but instead was struck by all the lovely things he thought about me, and said to me.


     There have been many lovely things thought about me, and written, and said to me.  Many lovely thoughts.


     Right now there is an overwhelming thought I have been avoiding, but feel it is time to look at it head on.  This thought, a concept really, may do much to explain so many of my thoughts of late-some lovely, and some, not so much.


     I am still struck by all the wonderful people out there in the blogosphere-I'm still so new at exploring this world. I cannot believe some of the exposing things people write about their lives, in such excruciating detail.  I just read one blog of a girl who is in the very active throes of a very dangerous depression. How can one write about such things? Reveal such scary, crazy, crazy-scary things? I thought you were supposed to run and hide and bury yourself until you were presentable again.  She is in the black, in the deep, deep black, but her honest reflection makes me feel I can be more honest about my grey.  I found that blog by stalking trolling perusing another blog by a woman whose life makes my life look like the duller than dull doldrums of existence.  And again she tells her story with such raw, authenticity, but by the Grace of God has found enough light within the ups and downs to not fall into that scary, crazy, crazy-scary way of looking at things.   Her daughter, who also blogs about her struggles and triumphs, wrote my favorite thought for the day: "I'm feeling better".


       I sent the Editor some very badly written abstracts of three lovely little story ideas that could become a few wonderful and unique children's book novels.....in the right hands, with the right thoughts, strung together just so.


      The play I will audition for at the end of the week is "An Ideal Husband". I am panicked by my overwhelming thought and by how all this....exposure, when I've been quiet for so long, will sit with me. But then I check my email and the Editor has sent something sweet and gentle and simple, a side note that makes not feel so worried about what he will say when he reads the abstracts.  I am taking shallow breaths* (I think I might suffocate if I breathed too deeply) and cautious steps, because I think that's what Mama Bear would say is the best way to keep Pesky Thoughts at bay.


     


       Just a thought....

Is It a Cycle or A Spiral...or just another piece of His Puzzle? (WARNING: pic of copulating snakes below)

        The other thing about transitions and the other thing I've learnt about myself: a transition is a gateway, when you go through something, it tends to lead somewhere.  I am never where I was before, which contradicts the concept of a cycle, but lends a beautiful, and again organic, confirmation to the feeling of a spiral (an "up" spiral, if there is such a thing, not the downturn leading to rock bottom kind).  And now look where I am? Debating my child's own cycles and how they mimic or differ from mine.  This spot, it may feel familiar-the same need for quiet, the same soothing grey; but just here-no, I've never been here before...  

        In writing the last post, I looked up Barbara Kingsolver to make sure my remark was not just something I pulled out of my.....I tend to do that. The first thing I noticed is Bean Trees, a book I first read in high school and has been one of my favorites ever since, is a book about a young woman who accidentally adopts a child! How did I forget that? It's sad how many of my possessions I've lost in my more dramatic transitions, especially the clothes books.  Other things I saw about her in links that for some reason will not properly load, but include her official website: she moved to Africa as a child-I thought that was just part of her novel The Posionwood Bible; she considers herself a "scientist who writes"-I consider myself a Philosopher who thinks too much, and activist who thinks too much, a writer who thinks too much, you get?; she believes "the writing of fiction is a dance between truth and invention"-I would agree and add the Living of Life is a copulation between thinking and doing. 

           I think I wouldn't ask so many questions on life, if I'd been allowed to keep some of the answers I collected along the way.  Now it's sort of like my conversations with God (haven't read the real book): God shows me a piece of the puzzle and I say-meh? and he replies, "what do you see?" And I look, and I look, and then suddenly I see, "Oh! There you are!" Then he gently (or not so gently) turns me in another direction, and asks, "What do you see?" And I look, and I look, and the same frustration and longing exists, but it's always a different version of Him; and so, the spiral continues.

      

  COPULATION: I always think of snakes when I use that word, and I love using that word.   Big Gianormous snakes LOVE to copulate!

http://nanopatentsandinnovations.blogspot.com/2011/12/pythons-and-people-take-turns-as.html

       Do you know what horrors I had to look at to find this picture that was supposed to represent all the cool Nature shows I watched as a child? The internet is one sick place, I tells ya. What large snakes.....ahem....mating has to do with nano technology, the reader can find out.... maybe it's porn....kidding, but really I doubt I will sleep well tonight-grrrroooossss!

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.  

http://www.louisville.com/tags/wile-e-coyote 

              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?

     

Swallowing a Chicken and Choking on a few Bones: The highs and Lows of this Weekend (2)

           Yeah, I can be a cool caretaker sometimes, and I'm pretty hip to the whole yoga = bonding, discipline, rhythm, and fitness thing.  Namaste and whatnot. Which works out oooookkkay, except for the fact that Vannesa is convinvced everyone but she is "very, verrrry FAT." See, she thinks this of everyone, get it? So clearly, you know, she is not an objective, you know, person to ask about whether or not I am FAT. Cause. I. Am. Not.  I'm just rocking the whole sloppy mummy look right now, getting into character and whatnot.  ANNNND, I gotta feed this child 3 freakin square meals a day, and unlike my recent previous existence, a bag of crisps and 6 beers does not count as 2 of those meals. ANNNND, I watch cartoons and fall asleep at 930, instead of going out dancing till 6. ANNNND, I maybe sneak a few extra chocolate bars just because I am sick and tired of having to share everything I eat or justify why I should get more. IT'S A LOOK, you get? 


            Wait......right, right,cool caretaker/yoga mom thing. So sometimes the Little One can get a little distracted staring at all my various body parts, in my half dressed, suedo-yoga-no I'm not wearing a bra or underwear-outfits, as it contorts and gracefully flops into various asanas (I am NOT doing one of those mommy blogger things where they use motherhood as a reason to feel insecure about things they were probably always insecure about-my shit's tight.....wow-fine, not tight, but I've always been stretchy and soft and obvi kids have nothing to do with it, so I'm just saying this is different).  This is not helped by the 3 emmaciated mzungu chics that are on the video we follow (again I have always thought they looked emmaciated, but defintely living in Africa highlights the differences between our bodies and mzungu (white) women's bodies) and apparently when living with an 8year old, we lose, they win.  
             So Friday's yoga was going great, GREAT, like Zen-I think I see God-were soooo in tune-great, when the Little One starts in:
             
            "Eh! But when you a do-ing (bridge pose) it's as if you are plegnant (no american r's yet, too cute.....punk). Your stomach is like this.....your bleasts a like....."(whatevs, not so cute now)
            "Yeah...that's the way it's supposed to look" Okay, yes, zen, breathing, releasing-
            "But why when you a do-ing...(bridge pose) and you come out, yo buttocks a like wata (water) like......and mine a like, mmhmm, like just normal?"
            "Whatever, just do your breathing and leave my body alone. I don't even know what that means." (Like what does that mean? Like water?? Are they??? Grrr....)
            We are now just coming out of Savasana, into "blissful" awareness:
            "But you, you're like fat. You are sooo fat. Your like, I think it's time you had a babbyyyyy. You're fat like for having a babbbyyy. Becuase you have bleasts like what, you have butttooocks. I think you are ready, not so? You better find a husband before you get tooooooo OLD." (Did she need to add the sing-song to get her point across? I think not.)


              But that's okay...I bid my time, and later that day I got that little chicken-eater good. 


              After we left the clinic, it was late and we were all grumpy with hunger so we dashed off to an idyllic seaside restaurant that is so breathtaking and magical, one shouldn't really be able to "dash off" there on the whim; one should have to solve a riddle from a troll, give an ugly hag a pedicure, at the very least sit in traffic for a good hour. But not these Goddesses, it took us longer to grumble about where to go, than it took to get there and be seated by the water, just in time to see the moon rise and the tide come in.  I enjoyed it but was a bit perturbed about how matter fact Ms. V is about this treat (my mother has broken all semblance of her self-imposed, one big outing per month, rule to take the Little One here willy-nilly, whenever she is too lazy to think of something else.)  So the two of them even know by heart what they are going to order.  For the Little One, this can only mean one thing: CHICKEN.  Lord Almighty, this girl o' mine may seem like a little Owl, but when it comes to food, she is all Chicken Hawk. 

adarkwingedangel.deviantart.com

          
            It must be noted that when the Little One first found herself in our home she had the same big spirit I've grown to know and love but in a body that had not seen brighter days; it had seen days of enjoying a cup of tea for dinner; enjoying white porridge for breakfast and lunch both; enjoying the smallest sweet like it was a feast; always enjoying, always appreciating what she had, but never getting much, and most definitely not enough chicken.  So when we first met her, her tiny little tummy could hardly eat a whole leg and thigh before becoming stuffed.  But in just a few months of over-indulgence, our girl has expanded, mostly in height and bright skin, but has also developed an enormous capacity to consume her favorite foods.  She actually gets drunk on them. 
           As I witnessed this 8 year old polish off an entire 1/2 of a rotisserie chicken plus 3 serving of fries in about 40 minutes give or take, before getting up and staggering-and I mean staggering-off to wash her hands, I thought, 'I think we've created a monster'. She would have kept going, but my horror was hard to contain, and I begged to her to cease and desist. Well-actually-I regaled her with horror stories of snotty skinny girls who thought they could eat that way forever until they hit puberty and became obese beyond even..... ME . Ahahaha-I mean, of course, this was all out of concern, you know, for her well-being and whatnot.....hmph.


          We only managed to take some leftovers home because my mother saved hers for me (I'd had the seafood pizza and Ms. V is seriously freaked out by seafood).  Throughout the next day, as we walked around looking for bodas, Ms. V, with eyes glazed over in withdrawal, had to waddle from side to side with her belly pushing out in front of her and her hand on her lower back for support.  She looked like she would give birth any minute to something with feathers and beady eyes; this thought must have occurred to her as well, because at dinner, when I pulled the leftover chicken out and cut it in half, immediately serving a piece to Vannesa, her eyes got large with trepidation and she could all but murmur, "no thank you, I don't eat the bleast, hehe." (yeah right, I thought, I've seen her eat everything but the beak and feet in one sitting) But it looked like someone had choked on her words and was swallowing her fears-hehehe.


         The chicken incident had lead to a very serious discussion with my mother about the need for restraint in the amount of her "favorite foods" we allow her to consume at once; thus far we've been riding on the "she needs to catch up" theory, but seeing the emotional pleasure and compulsive behavior developing in her eating habits led me to offer the contrary theory that we could just be developing a fatty-muck-fat-fat eater who she will be skinny forever (this has often been seen with previously stunted or malnourished children who then get the benefits of unlimited eating). This discussion led to a screaming match after for some inexplicable, irrational, completely unnecessary...okay, anyhow, one thing led to another and my mother reneged her previous rule that the Little One was never to eat ice cream in Dar, leading the Little One to waddle her drooling self over into the ice cream store-which I cancelled at once.  The screaming match was held off until at home, in the car, with Vannesa in the house getting ready for bed. Perhaps my anemia and my mother's high blood pressure caused us both to go for blood-it was messy and may have very likely led to the Pretty. Shitty. Sunday.....


         But what I learnt, as I sobbed and typed and tried to grapple with the enormous DRAMA of my woes, what I learnt as I read another bloggers light words of a dark pain so much more unbearable than anything I was trying to contrive, is that not everything has to be so serious-even when it is;  not everything has to be so real, just because it happened.  


          As for my liquid ass and her chicken fetish, we were both forced into humility by that harshness of anothers perspective.  The truth hurts, but only if you choke on it, so just swallow, breath, and move on.... 


           

Awww-k-Word

         The last few days have been a marathon of bonding, blog reading, and stifled panicking-fine then, we'll call it a triathlon.  When last we spoke things seemed to be coming to a head-

[ugh I know writing this will feel good, it will stretch out my voice muscles, get me all warmed up again, but I've just spent the last few hours reading other peoples blogs.  I don't know if this happens to everyone, but when I read a certain kind of voice, Victorian, Australian, any kind of unique accent or writing style, all my thoughts take on that voice.  So now I'm trying to write my blog with like 50 different mom voices floating in my head-it's pissing me off-disclaimer]

        As I was saying, things were getting pretty ugly there for a bit.  Actually the beach thing was only the eye of the storm, a relative calm before more energetic chaos in the house.  No matter what I tried to do, I couldn't seem to hit the right note to end the nasty, putrid, thoughts whirling in my head and heart.  I couldn't help whining, demanding; taking everything the wrong way and feeling like it was them against me.  Ooff, I shudder at the memory of how ampt up I felt, how tired and tiresome.  

        The Little One showed me no mercy. Yes, I have confessed, for the most part, it was I who had hit an emotional whirlpool, but I still cooked, cleaned and played housewife, and she would sit staring off into space-going completely mute the minute Mukaka was not in the room-like I just didn't exist.  And all I could remember is how many times I pulled the same shit with my mother; I distinctly remember the purposefulness of it, the cold, empowered feeling of knowing how much I could hurt her just by voiding her existence.  She was getting off on watching my nerves get all the more raw-but only when she knew I wasn't looking.

        So Thursday evening I sit in my room and contemplate walking away.  It was a breaking point.  I had done what I said I would come to do; the transition was over and now it was as if my role had played itself out...

        Vannesa is one of the most adept survivors I have ever known.  My mother had to leave the city for the weekend, and just like that Vannesa was suddenly in love with me again, knowing very well she had no one else to interact with.  I didn't know what was more astounding, how ruthless she was in her cruelty, or how endearing she was in her need.  But whatever the rhetorical conclusion, this did not stop my hurt from soaking up that affection and need, a slave on my raw nerves. So we went swimming and she clung to me like a brand new baby, even though the pool was full of her age mates.  I took a chance and told her that I liked her so much better when she wasn't being mean to me like when Mukaka was around, she was so quick to agree-even though I'd known her behavior had been somehow conscious-I was still surprised how readily she understood exactly what I was talking about. And she vowed to stop.

          That night we sat down to dinner, just the two of us, and I don't know how it all came up. It was all very casual, like she mentioned my sister having volunteered to adopt her, so I ask her, I says, "well, what if I told you that I wanted to be your mother?"  It's weird to even bring all this up, since I'm in such a crabby mood and all, and since I have never been more desperate to get away from her as I am today...haha.  Well, but that's the point, that's how I know it's real. Anyway she was so quick to agree, but with the disclaimer that we would all have to have a family meeting with Jaja, and Mukaka, and my sister, and everyone to make the announcement (where does she learn to be so formal and proper?!?)  And I let her know that she could take her time before calling me mother-ugh-weiiirrrd.  

         Like I said, I hadn't expected this conversation to happen for a few months at least, though it's helped that my mother has already known and she thought the sooner the announcement the better.  The next morning, the last two days, in fact, of unabridged, uninterrupted bonding time has been overwhelming to say the least.  She sits across for me with the exact same intensity as when she ignored me, but she now watches my every move-my EVERY breath, her big eyes pouring "need" into me and soaking up all the thoughts and wants and desires I used to have as my own, my. very. own. MINE.  

          I wish this post flowed better, but I gotta just get it out, editing be damned.  The thing is, this is all double sided. I mean...I was already freaking out when all this happened, remember?  Like there's other shit that's being taken into consideration-for one, I have not had a single conversation with someone my age in I don't know how long, 28 days, that's how long. And I've never had a conversation with someone going through anything like this.  So it's like I'm starving, yeah, and then all this with Vannesa was like a thirst on top of the hunger.  So now I'm quenched, well at least for now, but other needs, other fears are still gnawing in my gut.  And then there is this little girl with her big, big eyes, demanding ME to fulfill HER?!?  I've seen other mothers get that look on their faces (did I just say "other"??) that quiet panic.  And you always think, c'mon what's the big idea? babies are soooo cute. Yes they are. And so is the Little One; she is absolutely gorgeous; It is just kinda crazy to go from zero to sixty with no seat belt on.  And it doesn't help that my baby is too old for naps, cannot be comforted by nursing, and is not yet in school (urgggh) and-continuing the analogy-just became MINE point two seconds ago.  

              Maybe all this is obvious to anyone reading this, but honestly the fact that I would yearn for parenting help did NOT occur to me.  Ha! Seriously, the only people I know who have kids have them by default and as a matter of fact.  I've never known anyone to have to "date" their child; to go through the very same ups and downs that happen when embarking on any other new and serious relationship.  And anyone who does know me knows, I don't know shit about relationships.  My point is there must be a method to this madness, no? There must be a way to navigate through my own life's turmoil while still managing the Little One's passing storms with minimal damage to us both.  OMG, I sound typically naive don't I?  Like a 400 lbs person saying their New Year's Resolution is to lose weight. No really, best of luck, but REALLY. By "typically naive" I mean, typical for me: the grandest adventures always strike me as no-brainers; it's the everyday that fills me with panic.  So what to do?  Does anyone want to judge me for taking hold of this little girl's life when I don't have a very good grasp on my own? Would it have been any better if I'd gotten knocked up by some Indian dude cheating with me on his German girlfriend? (wonder who would have the prettier baby, but I digress)  

           Are we only supposed to be courageous when the risks are pre-designed?  Did I just stumble into this life or did I create it?  Would I change it if I could?  The other day, at the beach, as the sun set on yet another of our bachelorette weekend outings, my mother said, "ughhh, I wish I didn't have to work tomorrow!", and I replied, "I wish I had a job. We can't always get what we want when we want it."  

           I was thirsty and now she loves me, and it's awkward and it's good.  Can I be happy with what I have even though this isn't what I had in mind, when I asked for it? 

...Can you?

"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...