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.

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       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....
       

Racial Profiling

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          This weekend we went to a barbecue hosted by a colleague of my mothers.  It was a far better experience than I had expected.  I had expected a bunch of development people throwing acronyms about project plans involving players, all of which in no way clarify what it is they actually do.  Since this was a family dinner, I also expected children playing and significant partners chatting about.....partnering, or parenting, or some such things, which are subjects that, though I find much more interesting,  I have not much credibility in and therefore nothing to contribute.  Instead, I imagined I would have no choice but to awkwardly answer uncomfortable questions which would expose me as a fraudulent grown-up deserving judgment, condescension, and dismissal (it may be I have a skewed perception, but I have found myself in such scenarios enough to know that I am an annoying anomaly in the networking landscape).  

           It is true the small gathering did consist of five couples; my mother and I were the only singles, but as she is older than everyone, she rocks that whole token African grandmother shtick pretty well.  Almost everyone worked in the same field, and all, but I, had direct and mostly current experience parenting small children; I was an anomaly.  But none of my prophesied humiliations came to pass; instead I was fully and wholeheartedly accepted as: 1.) My mother's daughter 2.) My daughter's mother 3.) A grown up.  Huzzah! Individuals felt free to share intimate anecdotes about their lives as if we were......equals.     Having understood that I was jobless, everyone assumed this was a temporary and expected glitch in my transition, showed curiosity in my interests, and gave sincere advice to push me forward.  Similar things have happened while doing the play, but with the much more familiar tinge of judgment or at least.....wariness and disconnection (they are all British).

            It was only when we were leaving that my mother commented on the common thread amongst all those present, which I had overlooked: all the foreigners (except us) were Canadian, the host was Tanzanian but has been working with Canadians for many years (and has family there).   

            Canadians (even the French ones.....in small doses) are so very nice, it can leave one confused.  I was confused: "wow! I had.....fun!!"  They possess quiet amiability, humble pride, sincere curiosity, and a genuine receptivity to others.  Canadians are unabashedly unaffected.

            It is a pity they are generally lumped in with American and European whites (who make it a point to distinguish themselves from each other).  They are actually very unique in the white population; I don't think they know how nice they are; I don't think it's ever occurred to them.... (Oops, did my own ignorance just show? I guess this whole time I was referring to White Canadians-though one of the women at the party was Mexican Canadian-anyhow, the disclaimer is in the title, so pffft.)  

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            It has come to my attention that there are certain organizations in Africa that are owned and operated by Black Americans who use their race as a badge of expertise and empathetic fraternity when bidding for money for humanitarian projects in Africa.  This is a load of shit.  Black Americans are invariably explicitly derogatory and condescending towards Africans (even worse than Jamaicans).   

            My sister always said, she never knew she was black until we moved to America. Guess who told her?  I was only five when we moved.  School, for me, was simply about survival, about adaptation.  I was willing to be accepted by anyone who would take me.  It was white people who accepted me (well at the time I thought they were white, it wasn't until I got to college that I realized was taught New Yorkers make a firm distinction between Jewish New Yorkers, and White New Yorkers; it was the Jewish children who were always the kindest).  It was almost as if they, the Jewish whites, already expected my "otherness", while the blacks took offence to it. They readily shamed me for not having personal awareness of their history and the intimacies of slavery.  Even what I did know was not enough, because I wasn't angry enough, I wasn't.....wounded; I acted like that history was not mine (which it wasn't).  


           The American slavery system and decades of systematic racism were known to me in the same way I came to know of the Holocaust, the Apartheid System, Australia's history of native decimation, and so forth.  This was very confusing and unacceptable to them (right through to university this caused a lot of tension with my black classmates; despite the fact that we otherwise had similar socioeconomic and education backgrounds, the absence of a chip on my shoulder meant I was a sell out-an Oreo. Sorry dears, I'm just AFRICAN). Perhaps they had been taught to think of themselves as related to Africans-a historical fact, but a cultural misnomer.


            When Black Americans talk about Africa, or visit the developing world (including the West Indies), they are far more disgusted by the inconveniences of daily life than any other visitors: the heat, the lack of certain modern appliances, the animals, all the dark-skinned people.....and so forth.  No, really! They make a very big point of these things and do so loudly, almost as if (psychobabble in 4, 3, 2......) they are instinctively trying to distinguish themselves for that which they've been conditioned to hate......in themselves.  Growing up in America, for sure the cruelest most disgusting jokes about dark skin came to me from the black children.  I would go so far as to argue that most middle class white youths (at least in New York) who become prejudice or racist as young adults, learn their hate-filled humor from their black classmates.

          I've been feeling romantic 
again lately.  This is a very romantic time of year for me, that's for sure.  And it helps that I am becoming more social in Dar, though everyone here seems to come in couples only form-minus that douche from awhile back.  Due to the supposed "threat" I pose as a single mother in her thirties, I have decided to create a boyfriend I've left back in Uganda.  Since we began dating before I moved or decided to become a mother, the relationship is fragile enough to leave room should something better turn up, but hopefully reassuring to the women I meet that I do not want to steal their husbands (the feminist adage of my generation still sticks: chicks before dicks, simple and catchy).


             There is something wonderfully fantastical about thinking about romance when you are in no position to have any of the real thing.  It really stimulates the imagination, brings one back to the "when I grow up" days of promise and unyielding faith;  It keeps one from going insane and/or humping the gatekeeper.  

              As it is finally clear to me that I will never be satisfied with dating someone who looks just like me (apparently I have been this way since I was child), I have been musing on what race I would like my fantasy guy to be, like in the Sims, or some other such online world (I am such a nerd I don't even need the Internet to live an alternate life). 

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             Last week I apparently missed a Dutch throw down that had everyone but everyone there (thanks for telling me cast members).  I came home and lamented, "Damn! I missed my chance to make out with a Dutchie and find a husband!!"  My mother and Ms V were both sympathetic.  But I did the Dutch thing back in Uganda, and two years later I still can't get that man out of my system.  Dutch men are so casually complex and tiresomely enigmatic.  I don't think I'm up for it.


              American, British, (Canadians are too nice?) men would make sense, except, unless they are 60 plus, I would bet any man from those areas who relocates here would come with wife in hand.  Those men would be way too afraid to begin alone here.  Dar is a place to import a family; coming alone would be......uncivilized.


              The question then becomes, who would be likely to show up untethered and within an appealing age range?  Indians, for sure; South Africans, for similar managerial networking positions.  Both groups can be utterly racist, derogatory and oversexed, and hedonistically fun-I am interested in none of those situations.


               Then it hit me:  I want a man who is not bothered, nor even aware of societal conscripts about age and lifestyle; a man who easily immerses in other cultures without feeling an ounce of threat towards his own; a man who does much, thinks less, and knows everything worth knowing; a man who would find the intensity that I present an amusing challenge, and thus challenged by me, would feel committed by his own sense of loyalty; a man who believes in character not circumstance because that is how his mother raised him; a man who believes everything his mother ever told him.  He sounds deliciously fantastical, yes?  Well, it IS my fantasy! But the truth is, I have caught a glimpse of a more realistic version of this man a few times in my life, and he was always Irish.  


         I have never dated an Irish guy, these glimpses always happened at inopportune times when the subject could not be pursued, but this cowboy image has lingered in my memory.  I know little about Ireland, and obviously I don't want someone straight off the boat (though Irish men tend to get around anyhow).  Yeah, in my ideal fantasy world, I'd have to say, I want me an Irish bloke.  

          It's not like I'm losing my mind per se (my therapist is on holiday, but I'm sure she'd agree) but transitions, like grief, go in stages:  First there is the overwhelming physical stimulus of a new place-the way the light falls, the night sounds, the air smells, etc.  Then there is the nesting, the withdrawal into yourself, your home, your sanctuary, to clean, prepare, and make pretty.  And now I find myself in the level of emergence; I am not yet a part of this new world, I have not yet found my niche, but I have rested and rearranged myself for my big debut; the necessary step in finding where my prepared Self shall fit in-my niche-is to categorize this new environment in schemas based on past experience; it is with these schemas as my weapons tools that I shall brave this foreign jungle and conquer it as men women Expat Warriors have done time and again.  Thus Canadians: may seem bland, very nourishing, easy to find and cultivate; Pretentious NGOS: predatory, toxic, to be avoided at all costs.  Irish Single Men: potent, deliciously satisfying, though elusive, would be worth the hunt.

The question is, what is in season?

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The Expat Bourgeoisie

            

Main Entry:	expatriate  [v. eks-pey-tree-eyt or, especially Brit., -pa-tree-; adj., n. eks-pey-tree-it, -eyt or, especially Brit., -pa-tree-]  Show IPA
Part of Speech:	noun
Definition:	person thrown out of a country
Synonyms:	departer, deportee, displaced person, emigrant,evacuee, exile, expellee, migrant, outcast,refugee, émigré (courtesy of thesaurus.com)

            
              
              I am stuck, uninvited, in someones home as the rain pours down in lightweight sheets and I wait for my mother to make her way to us, already 20 minutes late.  I have been in close quarters with this woman over the last six weeks, during rehearsals, but that is not the same as being "welcomed" in her home. Uganda has taught me to be weary of such boundaries of intimacy, so tricky to navigate since they are never mentioned, but so very apparent when you feel you've crossed one.


            This is one of the few expat homes I've been in, and my eyes paw through the things trying to asses if we measure up, making note of where we fall short.  Well, of course there is the location-it is always about location, but we know this is a temporary miscue on our part; we will fix that.  


            The forested garden outside must be almost an acre; the grill on the deck alongside cushioned, hand crafted lounge chairs, mock our isolated existence (a remnant of Ugandan life that we must lose if we mean to survive here). The children play on the computer, the parents sort through old photo albums, a task they have "been meaning to get to for ages".  


             Out of the corner of my eye, a woman rushes by the window, ducking the rain, clinging to clothes picked off the line.  My mother was right to hire a housekeeper; I breath a sigh of relief; we are not so badly off; we belong.


             Being in the play has given me a taste of the Dar Expat community.  Anyone who doesn't understand the homogenized nature of expatriate communities in third world countries, should just wait for the reality t.v series (they call 'em documentaries in the U.K innit); I'm sure there'll be one along shortly.  It is a fascinating community: people whose lives would look very different were they in their "home" countries (some expats live abroad for 20 years or more so this term gets.....tricky) all adopt the same laissez faire, privileged/humble, sheltered/exposed, paradoxical lifestyle that comes with the expatriate position.  It is a class that is at once peripheral to and the apex of mainstream society; the former being in regards to responsibility (and vulnerability), the latter in regards to privilege (and security).  Sort of like celebrities (this analogy can also help describe the difference between immigrant or Diaspora populations and expats; there are actors and then there are celebrities).


               It isn't really about the help:  the drivers, cooks, baby-raisers, always in the background, always an assumed aspect of life, even in speech: I get offered rides from rehearsal only to find they have to call up the driver and wait for him to come (though they live, "just around the corner").  During the tsunami scare my mother's colleague was also out of town at the conference; her husband was in town in a meeting, and didn't not make it home until 10 p.m.  The children were with their caretakers, the oldest is five.


              Though western (white) expats do it on a grander scale, having help is ironically common in developing countries.  Much of the population, across income levels, relies on some form of hired hands (even if it is more of an exchange for room and board, a barter, as opposed to a direct salary) to assist in daily living.  To me, the irony is the casual, easy way that those who were raised in societies were this is a privilege for the absurdly rich, adapt to this type of lifestyle.  Expats are experts when it comes to living the good life.


             In Uganda, I was trying so hard to claim my identity that I was willing to part with large part of my Self for the chance to be accepted as a Ugandan.  I spent three years proclaiming I was, for the first time in my life, a local.  I lived my life ignoring all that exists in Kampala in terms of expatriate life-and it, in turn, ignored me. But in many ways, so did the locals; they rejected my application to the fraternity. In my attempts to assimilate,  I failed wholeheartedly. At times I have thought I was ruthlessly punished for my false claim, but maybe it was more of tough love; maybe it was meant as an encouragement to really embrace who I am.  I was not born in Uganda; I was not raised in Uganda; why did I feel I should be a local? I am, born and raised, an outsider; I am an Expat.  I used to say I was a retired expat, well, I've come out of retirement.  I am me again.  It's funny how quickly you revert to those forgotten habits of comfortable disconnection, luxury, ease, and humble exclusivity:


             The door bell rings; I wrap my exposed legs and run to let Ana in.  She comes here three times a week, just enough for me to not feel invaded.  She can barely speak English.  I know where she lives, not far.  My mother tells me she has a child; I have not asked her its name; and I will not make a point of it.   I don't know her mother-tongue, or where her village is.  I have never met her parents; I do not know if she has siblings, how many, what they are doing.  She knows nothing about me except that I like to eat chocolate and stuff the wrappers under my bed.  She cannot claim a part of my history; she cannot claim to know my grandparents and their home better than I do. I am a stranger to her and she to me; both of us like it this way; it makes more sense this way. 

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.  

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.

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!

Brigit Has Her Say

Brigit is said to have been born at the exact moment of day break, she rose with the sun, her head radiant with rays of luminous light, associating her with ascended awareness, enlightenment, new beginnings, sun beams and warmth. She is celebrated on Imbolc, falling on February 1 or 2, celebrating the return of the light and the coming of the spring.  Thus her solar aspects may also represent Brigit as the Promise of Spring, the Bringer of Light after the dark months of winter. This energy brings with it HOPE, renewed enthusiasm, renewal, and new beginnings.

Brigit is considered a Triple Goddess, yet many references distinguish Brigit differently than the traditional Triple Goddess aspects of Maiden, Mother and Crone.  Rather Brigit is frequently referenced having three sister selves with three distinct roles, Lady of Healing Waters, Goddess of the Sacred Flame and Goddess of the Fertile Earth.  These roles are then multiplied through Brigit’s vast and varied responsibilities . . .

Who is Goddess Brigit

             Today began on an ascending note.  One second there was come quiet grayness: I did not know who I was or what I felt for the future.  I was in a pre-dawn limbo, clinging to the dreams of the night before, shying from the nightmares.  

             My mother and I were both pulled to convene, but I'm not sure we knew about what or why. It felt like a ritual we had not meant to take part in, but that may be just the retrospective knowledge that a Goddess had arisen to claim her Authority and Bless us with her healing.

            Our communion began with an ironic discussion on the subject of communication. It didn't go well, and "we are NOT communicating" became the pat phrase to explain why we were getting heated as we tried to analyze how better to communicate, especially vis a vis disagreements had in front of the Little One and especially those that are about her.  I would have thought all this pathetic and never dared to mention it, except somehow during it, something happened.  The sun rose and so did Vannesa, and the exchange shifted to one of personal revelation.  "I am afraid," I blurted through unexpected tears, "that no one will allow me to express negative emotion."  I had become so raw seeing how the slightest scolding from me would shut Vannesa down into a frighted, trapped, broken animal-whereas the same. exact. words, from my mother would inspire an assertive, receptive, good-natured response.  And there was that same look...in my mother's eyes and body, during what I believed to be a simple, mildly uncomfortable exchange.  "I don't know how to be heard" I groaned, "without having to make a big deal of it."

        The way it goes, the way it's always gone, no matter the form-letters, jokes, broken dishes-I use to express negative emotions, is that people scrunch up and pull away.  And that is, in and of itself, So. Very...lonesome; but it gets traumatically worse that the very same people, the very same ones, yearn, demand, and nurture all that is healing and nurturing in me, never understanding, never accepting that the latter comes from the same source as the former.  I am one being, yin/yang, positive and negative. And my passionate expression of one  is the very same flame I use to fuel the other.  That is the conflict I bare; my confession to share.  I am revered and rebuked, nurtured and negated for things that come from the very same place deep within me.  The conflict is in the reception (expression); I feel faithful in the belief that the source is one whole...holistic being.  

      My confession left a feeling quite different from resolution, there was none of that. There was a gentle meditation on the Truth behind my revelation.  It was sacred, even if we didn't know we knew it.

     Somehow this bright sunshine day led us to take charge, the Little One was strangely drawn to me-well strange as there is usually a balance or her affection slightly favors Mukaka when Mukaka is around (but this isn't so terrible: I'm understandably more childish around my mother, and anyhow they hardly get to see each other, and lastly I would do the same if my grandmother were around).  But today her beaming eyes shined directly on me, like I was...well...a Goddess; and she was beautiful for her attention, though it frightened me to think how I would...manage such fierce light for the next 9 hours or so...

            We went back to the school that has given us our last hope for getting her placed; we went determined to communicate our position: "yes, you do want her, forget what the papers say, she is a light and we need a fireplace to nurture her; here, she. will. thrive". Brigit had spoken for us, it had already been decided, "yes, we do want her, we know she can thrive; we just may have to wait..."  It was good, it was very good.

           Today was a day were the sunshine seemed to burn our fears up, then bathe us in healing light of faith and inspiration.  I gave Vannesa "work" to do, "we all have to work don't we?"  and so forth, she tried to shrink in; she tried to not believe in herself-but the light was too strong for her to hide.  When she was finished she sighhhed, "I could have never believed I could do so much, Ahhh God."  I laughed, "I always knew it," I replied, "Ehhh? Since you met me?" she questioned. "Since I've gotten to know you, more and more I think, look how much she can do when she just tries!"...

             The Malaria kicked in around 5, I had to give in and lay down.  When my mother came I hadn't started dinner, she went right to it, and it was only hours later that she realized I was ill.  She had a huge report she swore she would do, and she never even mentioned it once.  The flow by evening was as if we were all one; there was no longer a need to speak. 

            Three Goddesses are we still searching for the right, the authority, to be in our power, but today we were Brigit in her 3 potent Selves; she didn't ask us to be bright, or cool, or nurturing, she just rose with the sun and in her light, we thrived.

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...