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

http://thequeenofheaven.files.wordpress.com

   


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


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


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

A Run For The Hills (2)

            You know that scene in disaster movies, when everyone is trapped in traffic trying to calmly save themselves, while being thoroughly perplexed by the fact that everyone else is doing the exact same thing, thus making all attempts futile?  Well, it turns out, that is EXACTLY what happens in real life as well.  

latimesblogs.latimes.com

chrisrrau.wordpress.com

           Had the Tsunami actually 

hit, we would have been like panicking, flailing, cannibalistic ducks, sitting in a barrel filled with petrol. 

            We'd a been fucked, and looked damn stupid on top.


             Gotta support the local press, but what I hate about the above link (and really all post-tsunami scare journalistic rhetoric) is the blahblahblah, "our government isn't doing enough to prepare for a safe evacuation."  WTF?? The above pictures are from disaster movies, but try googling "disaster movie traffic jam scene" like I first did, and you will be overwhelmed by the pictures of REAL LIFE TRAFFIC JAMS, on an ordinary day, taken in cities all over the world.  Dar-ahem-is a city.  And BY DEFINITION (especially in this day and age) a city is an overcrowded, condensed locale, usually daily inundated with a large mass of migrating persons from nearby towns and suburbs.  Exactly what is the government-ANY government- supposed to do, call Batman? And why are we so surprised that a set of emergency only highways did not pop out of the ground and form into evacuating bridges over our swarming selves to lead us into safety (where OF COURSE there would be jack-in-the-box like five star hotels ready to pop up and receive the masses with free complimentary drinks and extra towels)?

                 I did what everybody else did; I tried to get out and protect my baby; but if shit had gone down, I damn sure wouldn't have wasted what little breath I had trying to blame someone else for it (hence Natural Disaster).  Then again, I'm the protagonist in this fairytale so we all know I would have made it out alive and heroically saved all sorts of people along the way (bumping into my True Love who was is also a hero-like super hot b-.....but I digress).

         
                So-well-I mean-maybe I did indulge a TAD in some melodramatics when my mother initially called me with the news that we were on alert for a possible Tsunami as a result of the recent Earthquake off the coast of Indonesia, but nothing compares to my Little One's propensity for hysterics:  I once misplaced one of my favorite rings; upon mentioning this and starting to casually look for it, Ms V began hysterically crying out to the Lord: "Oh Jesus! Sweet Jesus help!! Help, where is the RING?? Where is it? Oh God, oh Jesus, you LOST your RING!!" and so forth.  To her (and the Lord's) credit, she found it some five minutes later.


        
               We spent about an hour flitting around the house, straining our eyes in the dying light trying to pack, "anything you feel is important to you" in the off chance that we would come home to....well.....no home.  The Little One did not go into hysterics exactly, but her voice did get really high, and soft, and fragile; her eyes, which are already as large as my Owl gizomo-thingy, managed to grow even larger, and she kept apologizing for the oddest things, "I'm sorry I startled you just now; I'm really, really sorry you were startled." and such.  I kept my Zen cool thing and, in the end, she was freakin AMAZING; she even reminded me to close all the windows (wait, when was the last time she was in a Tsunami???) 


             It wasn't until we emerged outside to grab a taxi, that I begun realizing the enormity of what was going on.  It was bright out, but with a consistent rain falling; it was about 6-ish so naturally people were trying to go home anyway.  Swarms of people chose to march down the road to get home on foot, while the rest of us sat in traffic with a barely constrained panic; some poor souls (many hugely pregnant) stood waiting for the public bus-like there was a chance in hell they be home before midnight if they even had the luck of catching one.  Much like my earlier greeting when my daughter arrived, we were all trying to be very adult about the whole thing, and secretly hating it.

THAILAND- novinite.com

             The epiphany of the anticlimactic great escape is finding yourself, after two hours in traffic, some 700 feet away from your house.  And to add insult to injury, while sitting in traffic, all our prized possessions safely stowed in the back of the ghetto van turned taxi we have heroically secured, we watched the rain stop and the streets lights and power come back on.  

INDIA- cdn-wac.emirates247.com

              








               All the while, we'd been communicating with my mother who had (after much scolding mind you) dutifully turned around and was now waiting for us just outside of town to continue the trip with her.    I found myself thinking (.....hoping? I know, terrible) that this was just the calm before the storm and shit was about to get crazzzzy any minute now, but eventually even I had to beg the driver to turn around. Luckily Unfortunately, he didn't speak any English and was stoically determined to complete his drop-off.


              All in all, the hectic frenzy of the failed escape was the final deciding factor.  After all that panic, we needed a little R&R. So to the hills we went.

morogorofamily.blogspot.com

              
              Though her workshop ended Friday, we decided to stick around and go exploring.  My mother and I are kindred spirits in our LOVE for a NATURAL

BEWARE, BEWARE, 

THE CLOUDS ARE FALLING;

ADVENTURE.  








           The Little One is a big sissy spoil-sport......but we tried to not let it get on our nerves too much.  She has a lot to learn.

BE AWARE

              Most notably, on that note, her willful rejection of studying English is still in full effect! I decided, despite my upcoming birthday, the next week would have to begin Operation Boarding School Boot camp!! Spell DISCIPLINE!  

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....

Is this Matha Nay-Cha?

   
        It actually began two Sunday's back when Z had a lovely, magical post that led me to have a magical date with the Little One. She had triumphed over her new Lego-like building set to create these gorgeous little boxes we turned into secret gift boxes, a nice little arts and crafts project, no? 


           We decided to exchange our gifts at bedtime and dashed off to the pier for one of the best sunsets in paradise I've had yet. Vannesa played in a supervised play ground with the most attentive clowns I had ever seen on the job and a scattering of children in all the shades of the rainbow conversing through merriment in lieu of language.  I didn't mind that, as I am an anomaly of sorts, I sat singularly excluded among the couples and sisterhoods of nursing mothers with infants, a stones throw away from singletons enjoying stimulating cocktails and romantic tête-à-têtes. No, I didn't mind at all, because Z's post hand left a feeling of fantastical possibility in me and I smirked as if I knew something no one around me knew, as if all of them were living ordinary lives and I was dancing with fairies they couldn't see (maybe it was the lamppost or her partnership with the Sage). 
           The sun drooped down lower and lower, it's light having a romantic tête-à-tête with the Ocean and the dhows, and sailboats, and fishermen canoes scattered in the water like the multi-colored children, floating with merriment.   I thought of Z's friend Kenny and wondered if he might soon have a chance to meet my grandparents since passed and if they would have a laugh at the oddity of how he has come to be connected to my spirit (because in that moment it strangely felt he was.....connected) and I sent a prayer that they may comfort him for they know the pain of transitioning without your dear Beloved by your side.  Then the sun set and I made a secret wish....

           It was not until the next night, at bedtime, when I was stressed and tired and desperate to put Ms. V to bed (now I know the cause of my stress-it was after all a Monday!!!) that she found one last way to stay up just a little longer, having made a repeat performance of our gift boxes; though this time I did not participate, she still wanted to give me what she had made. I barked something about "for God's sake we'll do it tomorrow!" and immediately felt like SUCH a tool and called her back. 
           She knelt at my feet while I sat on the edge of my bed (kneeling is a sign of respect for elders in my culture but I have never expected it of the Little One, and she has never attempted it before. This seemed a subconscious act) there in the box was a small square children's drawing, with the word MOTHER scrawled across the top.  And I did that thing where you say you're going to cry just to show how touched you are, but don't really mean to: "Awwwww, this is going to make me cryyyyy" and promptly started bawling uncontrollably with heaving and hawing. I could see her big eyes staring up at me with a blank look of....shock? Pleasure? Fear??? I don't know, but I do know that only with the thought that this could very well be utterly traumatizing to her, was I able to pull my sobbing self together.  

MOTHER 

           Since then, the notes have continued (so I guess it wasn't traumatizing after all) as have the unexpected, and frank discussions on which version of the word to use for me.  Since she already had a Mummy, I have proposed Mama (which is what I'd always wanted to be called anyhow).  I never mentioned it here, but the words "I love you" have also, up to this momentous occasion, been used rarely and with great trepidation and only by myself; they often elicited that same blank stare, and I couldn't figure out if it was triggering a past memory, pressuring her to respond with something she didn't feel herself, or scaring her because she didn't believe it was true.  It has quietly weighed on my heart, not being able to freely express this phrase, but I've felt determined to be patient and gentle about it, to not over think it.  Well among the notes, this phrase has taken on official proclamation status and is now being tossed with such frequency (and SUCH sincerity) between us that I wonder how she has held back using it for so long (She is a sentimental wonder that One, and I feel like an awkward doff to her explicit and often public outpouring of affection). All this while, she remained mostly silent, still, and loaded with unspoken thoughts and feelings; it seems, my Little One is fluent in the language of Love.

           If the same can be said for E-N-G-L-I-S-H, that remains to be seen......