Delicious treats dreamed up by my love, fabulous gifts, and the comfort of family makes Mother's Day special or at least appropriately celebrated in the eyes of our everyday-is-a-party culture. I don't need pomp and circumstance and surely don't stand on ceremony, not for this made up day. Mother's Day is always a strange one for me. My husband, who is a private chef, almost always works so that the lady of the house can celebrate with her family in grand fashion. THAT is her Mother's Day.
Mine, at least for the past few years, looks more like this: my husband leaves for a beautiful destination of the rich and famous by private jet or souped up, tinted-window SUV to prepare luxury meals and treats for his clients, and I finish out the week of school, activities, play dates, grocery shopping, story reading (now listening since the 6 year old is thrilled to show off her reading), and socializing on my own. It's our rhythm and save the early school drop off on Friday when both girls need to be ready early enough to drop by 8 am, I can and do handle it.
I am too keenly aware of how quickly my children are growing up. Little chubby hands and fat, yummy fingers have become strong and elegant, rolly-poly bodies have elongated into graceful torsos, arms and legs for days, and beautiful faces resting on long necks. I measure time by these changes, recall real life events by growing and falling teeth, short or long hair, training wheels or riding free. In a mother's calendar there are also injuries and ailments as mile markers, moments that stop one's heart, and shore up strengths one did not know were there.
I remember when Lily broke her finger one summer when her cousin was visiting and recall her saying with pride after she'd been X-rayed and splinted, "I can't believe I broke a bone!" She was beaming and proud of her ability to hurt, to suffer, and to endure. She was so human in that moment and she brought my fantasy of being able to protect them, live the hurts for them, take the force of the blow, crashing to the ground. And months later when Virginie, walking with some friends along the creek that either trickles or rages through our town depending on the season, tripped and cut her chin requiring three stitches, I regretted the choice I made to allow her the opportunity to explore and court danger.
It's the delusion I have of shielding my children from life's pains and ills and woes, and physical safety seems a good place to practice. How many times a day do I say, "Be careful! Watch out! Don't touch that! Don't slip! Don't fall! Look out! Why would you do that? You are going to hurt yourself!" And hurt sucks. The iconic images of motherhood show women cuddling and comforting their children, holding them close, wiping tears and touching boo-boo's. The urban mythology of mothers lifting cars, running into burning buildings, staring down wild animals or humans to keep their babes safe only emphasizes this expectation.
When I arrived to a screaming Virginie, hurt on an after-school play date, her middle toe on her left foot smashed by a falling board, I immediately knew it was bad. She was screaming bloody murder. There was blood everywhere. Her tears were fat, her fear palpable, and I needed to make it right. Though I hate driving, especially on any road with more than 2 cars, I packed up my peanut in the car with her favorite things and some warm clothes and raced her to the ER. I carried her in and though I did not scream like Shirley MacLaine in "Terms of Endearment", I would have if the staff wasn't so efficient. I hadn't taken the time to truly look at her little toe because I'd gone into autopilot, but now we had time to be together...and I peeked.
She looked at me with those longing, big, brown eyes, eyelashes glued together with tears, and asked, "Is it bad? Is it bad, Mama?"
"It's alright, Peanut. We are going to get you better. These people here are going to help us. Just hold onto Mommy if you feel scared." And she squeezed. And I squeezed back. Also the tears. Her toe looked so, so terrible and it was. I wondered how this tiny thing had suffered, what she must have felt and thought, when pain, pain like that is still relatively new. I thought about all the hurts I'd ever had, all the hurts from which I will need to shield her, all the shoring up, all the armor, and I wished that I could take the hit. I silently prayed, "Why didn't you let it happen to me? Why did it have to be her?" And I became steely because we had hours to go and I was angry and hurt for her and I could only be by her side and bombard her with love and comfort. (Broken)
She was wheeled into a room for an X-ray to make sure that her toe wasn't broken. It was cold in the room and made heavy by the lead aprons we wore to shield our organs from the radiation. Hers was a ladybug. Mine was blue. She lay there on that table, following directions and holding still, tiny tears falling to her ears, balling her hands into fists. She was pulling it together. She looked at me and I smiled and she at me. She got to wheel herself back in a wheelchair (a wheelchair!) to our triage curtain and she beamed. Though she could "feel her heartbeat in her toe" we were coming to the other side of this ordeal. When she was back on her bed, I got on with her and we cuddled. She asked me if it was okay for me to be on the bed with her to which I replied, "Mommy makes her own rules when it comes to her babies. If you need me here, then YES, it's more than okay."
After a long afternoon into evening, Virginie ended up losing her toenail and getting five stitches to close her toe. A piece of antibiotic gauze was put in place to hopefully facilitate regrowth of her nail. She will have to get a boot to walk and is taking antibiotics to protect against infection. Sutures, rather than stitches, were used to close her toe because, as the doctor said, "This is not like the stitches in her chin that we put in to allow minimal scarring. This is her toe and it needs more time to heal. If it scars, it's in a place where no one can see it...unless she is wearing sandals." She'll have her tiny scars tucked on her foot, shared only with those she allows close.
And so will I. Teeny, tiny little scars made each time I see them hurt, whether on accident or on purpose, lacerate my heart. I will see the stitching, the jagged lines where the skin came back together. Those are for the physical ouches. And of the psychological tears? The emotional punctures? Hidden wounds? As she lay on the suturing table, wrapped in the cocoon to prevent her from moving, fear, frustration, pain on her face, I put my nose to hers, felt her eyelashes on my cheek, and whispered to her about the unicorns and sweets we think about before we dream. We talked about how we were together and how I would never leave her, would always be nose to nose, eyelashes to cheek, butterfly kisses, even when I wasn't really there. She quieted herself, went inside, and she believed me. She trusted me. Even in her hurt she believed that I would give her everything I had, that I was somehow feeling her pain or that I would at least walk with her through it. Comfort.
My husband is not here and we are not having a crazy display of elegant foods. I won't drink a mimosa in bed, nor will I sit with my feet up or even sleep past 6:45 am. I won't play queen for a day or do "something special for myself," at least not the kind of special that many believe moms are looking for. I am relieved that my girl is alright. I am proud of myself for getting in the car and driving her to the hospital and keeping a cool head. I am grateful for the people in my life who know what an accomplishment that is for me.
While sitting in the emergency room before Virginie was seen by a doctor I thought, "My baby will be scarred. She's only six years old and something is already broken. Her perfect little feet, her tiny toenails are gone." Yes, I know it's ridiculous. When they are those cute, little cherubs, smooth-skinned and innocent, we try so desperately to keep them clean of wounds, bruises, hurts. They are the best of us, the good in us, the pure. Each fall, scrape, tumble left me holding my breath, hoping it wouldn't be too bad, that it would heal quickly and leave no trace on their bodies or in their hearts.
Two days after she was hurt, Virginie is hopping on one foot through the house, laughing and smiling and chatting as she always has. Her foot is wrapped and the gauze is looking worse for the wear even after just two days. She's been fixed, is on the mend, will come out unscathed if not unscarred. But it's me, Mommy, who is taking a little longer to heal. Being a mom (for me) means going all the way in. Into the pain, into the hurt, into the past, into the joy, into a depth of love that frankly, nothing in my life before ever prepared me for. It's breaking and putting myself back together all the time. Its carrying the hurt with them and for them. It is doing my best to keep them from being broken.
We're together this morning and we are whole.
Happy Mother's Day.
(c) 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Monday, November 25, 2013
Gone for the holidays
I haven't allowed my husband to see me cry in that ugly, snot-dripping, hyperventilating way since we left Barbados, where that sight was a common occurrence. As in most relationships I have had throughout my life, I am cautious and read the other person's reactions before I go on willy-nilly just expressing the hell out of myself. That's part of my raisin'. I know that my real feelings, the true strength of them, can blow the roof off the house and that, generally speaking, "nobody got time fuh dat." When I am all love and light, when I cannot give enough of myself, when I pour in and cannot see the space between myself and another person (most often my children, sometimes my husband), it is so good to be around me. I am mistaken for easy-going and good-natured and happy go lucky to those who have only experienced me this way. Oh, how I wish that I were.
When my husband told me last night that he would be leaving to work during the Thanksgiving holiday not on Wednesday as expected, but today, Monday, immediately, I just went silent. I wasn't even holding it in. I was stunned. I just slipped back behind myself, behind the knot in my heart, in my stomach, the knot that ran the cord of all my chakras from my coccyx to the crown of my head, and I disintegrated. I could not look him in the eye. Did not say a word to him. Suddenly, I was very, very busy. There was laundry to be done, knapsacks to be packed, lists to make and double check. I got to yelling at the girls to clean their playroom and mumbled on about how they would all be sorry if Mommy was not able to take care of everything like she does. But I did not cry.
I didn't cry because I always tell myself, as I have even written here many times, that so many others have it worse--soldiers' families, police officers, essential emergency personnel. They do not get to spend holidays together. They find ways to endure. But our situation is not like theirs. Because we, WE, we? chose this. Because he is a private chef, my husband makes much more money working the holidays than he does during his regular schedule. This is because I know, we know, everyone knows that taking a man away from his family during this time is a huge sacrifice and that he must be well compensated. For years I have accepted, even preached, the value of this package on our family's financial situation, have asked friends and neighbors to help me give the girls the best Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's possible, have sat up, without tears, putting toys together, writing notes from Santa, eating the cookies and carrots, then gone quietly to bed next to the girls hoping I've pulled it off again.
Without tears because if I let myself feel what I am really missing, I may never stop crying. I have spent the better part of our relationship longing for him, wanting him closer, wanting him to be with me. Long before there were children, the game of cat and mouse was being played. I chase and he runs or at least hides. He might hide behind work or his culture, his language or his accent. Before we were 'we' he hid behind his bad marriage, a miserable divorce, financial and professional fears, it doesn't matter. He is hiding. He does not want to be seen all the way and certainly does not want to see me for much the same reason as I cannot cry in front of him. And so I hide too. Hide behind the busy work, the busy-ness of being a mother and a wife, of hosting holidays without him, don't dare tell him I'd rather have him than the income, too afraid he will say "but we need it" which will make me second guess how important I am, we are, anyone is to anyone. And that is not the way I think. It cannot be.
When you have chased for love your entire life and it sits down in front of you to catch its breath and then runs off again, it is so easy to take up that game. I am playing again. It is so familiar. My experience of love in my youth is the reason I try so hard to show my children how to give it and receive it. I don't want them on the prowl for anything that looks like it, seems like it, but just isn't. I don't want them to suffer more than they have to for love and a peaceful heart. When they cry for their father, express how much they miss him, need him, want him, I support them but have not shown them how it hurts to be apart. I don't want to blow their minds. I don't want to blow my own. But if they never see how to love from us, if they learn only to hide, to camouflage, keep stony-faced when they are full to bursting, they will be doomed. They will disengage from their families, disconnect, and forget to tell the people they love just how much so and forget to beg them to stay.
Today was a bad day because Didier left this morning, a busy Monday morning that required too much attention to too much else, so I kissed him quickly and said goodbye. It is the first of too many goodbye kisses that signify he is gone for the holidays. We have done this for years and it never gets easier, but it looks the same every time. A fairly innocuous kiss goodbye and then days or weeks of separation where we pretend that being apart like this is normal. We ask how the other is doing without really wanting the answer, without really answering. The ugly, twisted face came hours later after school drop off and three stops at three different grocery stores. What I don't know, what I wonder, what I hope, is that somewhere he is making the ugly-crying face for me. That sometimes he is the cat and I am the mouse and that somewhere in the middle we can meet, hold on, and stop this vicious cycle.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
When my husband told me last night that he would be leaving to work during the Thanksgiving holiday not on Wednesday as expected, but today, Monday, immediately, I just went silent. I wasn't even holding it in. I was stunned. I just slipped back behind myself, behind the knot in my heart, in my stomach, the knot that ran the cord of all my chakras from my coccyx to the crown of my head, and I disintegrated. I could not look him in the eye. Did not say a word to him. Suddenly, I was very, very busy. There was laundry to be done, knapsacks to be packed, lists to make and double check. I got to yelling at the girls to clean their playroom and mumbled on about how they would all be sorry if Mommy was not able to take care of everything like she does. But I did not cry.
I didn't cry because I always tell myself, as I have even written here many times, that so many others have it worse--soldiers' families, police officers, essential emergency personnel. They do not get to spend holidays together. They find ways to endure. But our situation is not like theirs. Because we, WE, we? chose this. Because he is a private chef, my husband makes much more money working the holidays than he does during his regular schedule. This is because I know, we know, everyone knows that taking a man away from his family during this time is a huge sacrifice and that he must be well compensated. For years I have accepted, even preached, the value of this package on our family's financial situation, have asked friends and neighbors to help me give the girls the best Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's possible, have sat up, without tears, putting toys together, writing notes from Santa, eating the cookies and carrots, then gone quietly to bed next to the girls hoping I've pulled it off again.
Without tears because if I let myself feel what I am really missing, I may never stop crying. I have spent the better part of our relationship longing for him, wanting him closer, wanting him to be with me. Long before there were children, the game of cat and mouse was being played. I chase and he runs or at least hides. He might hide behind work or his culture, his language or his accent. Before we were 'we' he hid behind his bad marriage, a miserable divorce, financial and professional fears, it doesn't matter. He is hiding. He does not want to be seen all the way and certainly does not want to see me for much the same reason as I cannot cry in front of him. And so I hide too. Hide behind the busy work, the busy-ness of being a mother and a wife, of hosting holidays without him, don't dare tell him I'd rather have him than the income, too afraid he will say "but we need it" which will make me second guess how important I am, we are, anyone is to anyone. And that is not the way I think. It cannot be.
When you have chased for love your entire life and it sits down in front of you to catch its breath and then runs off again, it is so easy to take up that game. I am playing again. It is so familiar. My experience of love in my youth is the reason I try so hard to show my children how to give it and receive it. I don't want them on the prowl for anything that looks like it, seems like it, but just isn't. I don't want them to suffer more than they have to for love and a peaceful heart. When they cry for their father, express how much they miss him, need him, want him, I support them but have not shown them how it hurts to be apart. I don't want to blow their minds. I don't want to blow my own. But if they never see how to love from us, if they learn only to hide, to camouflage, keep stony-faced when they are full to bursting, they will be doomed. They will disengage from their families, disconnect, and forget to tell the people they love just how much so and forget to beg them to stay.
Today was a bad day because Didier left this morning, a busy Monday morning that required too much attention to too much else, so I kissed him quickly and said goodbye. It is the first of too many goodbye kisses that signify he is gone for the holidays. We have done this for years and it never gets easier, but it looks the same every time. A fairly innocuous kiss goodbye and then days or weeks of separation where we pretend that being apart like this is normal. We ask how the other is doing without really wanting the answer, without really answering. The ugly, twisted face came hours later after school drop off and three stops at three different grocery stores. What I don't know, what I wonder, what I hope, is that somewhere he is making the ugly-crying face for me. That sometimes he is the cat and I am the mouse and that somewhere in the middle we can meet, hold on, and stop this vicious cycle.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Lady Bits: Bounce your boobies, Part 2.
Please. Take your time. I am just waiting on this news feeling like hearing it out loud could pull down the poll of the circus tent of my life and cause everything to collapse, hurting, maiming, maybe even killing some of the performers. Was it two to three business days you told me? Was Monday a holiday? I checked the cell every few minutes thinking maybe the phone was still on vibrate. Answered lots of solicitations on the home phone just in case, somehow, the call from Arizona was the lab, knowing full well that the lab was up the street and that it would, in fact, be from my doctor's office that the call came. But it didn't come. Not for two, three, four, five, or six days. I waited and let myself be convinced and reassured by friends that no news was good news. "They would want you to know right away if it was indeed C," still no one wanted to say it and I surely did not want to hear the letters that follow 'c' in that word.
My dear husband, seven plus years older than I am, always (so sweetly) reminds me that I am young. "You are still young and beautiful." And this not only when he is feeling frisky. Nowadays when we say things like this, it is often in relation to how much more of life there is to live, that yes I CAN still wear a short skirt if I like, do something crazy to my hair, start a new career, try new things. But when it comes to health issues--aches, pains, pinches, twists, tears, and pulls, age has slowly crept up with us. When I see pictures of some of my childhood mates, I see their parents' faces staring back at me. I read posts about injuries from doing things that were once facile, part of every day movement until just the wrong thing slipped or "went." We laugh about those pains. "Getting old," we say. But aging also brings more serious health concerns and a need to make at least annual trips to a physician. The laissez-faire attitude of our youth has given way to consideration of each new freckle, rising cholesterol, too much sugar in the blood, lack of time for exercise or sleep, lack of time for anything really as a sign that we are creeping over that hill. We feel young inside but our bodies demand us to acknowledge that time has passed and that we need to be tender with them.
My dance classes and my meditation practice, my family and my love for them gave me the physical and psychic strength to prepare for the worst news but really expect the best. I, full to the brim with anxiety and too much nervous energy, found ways to distract myself from the waiting for results. My house is now spotless and that includes all closets, drawers, cabinets, and the attic. I danced my brains out and allowed people to love me, care for me, bring me food, invite me to parties, looked them back in their eyes to thank them, and just breathed in and out every single day. I breathed to the top of my head and down to my toes.
On the fifth day I started calling and leaving messages. I felt embarrassed to be calling as though it was expected that I'd wait patiently for the news. I wondered, in all the prep I was given for the biopsy, had anyone in the medical profession thought about my feelings, fears, hopes, anxiety. While I'd been warned not to take aspirin 48 hours prior, and been told how the procedure would happen (ultrasound, cleaning of the breast, numbing local anesthetic followed by a tugging or pulling sensation that would collect the cells to be examined, then days of soreness, bruising, swelling, a little pain, and a tiny scar underneath), very little was said about the shallow breaths I was taking, the tears that came to my eyes when I thought of having to tell the girls that something was wrong with Mommy. When they kicked or pulled or tugged at me and accidentally hit my ailing breast, I'd wince and then smile. I didn't want to give them anything to worry about. I was reminded only once to go back to my life as usual. I felt, and I could be wrong about it but it felt this way, that no one wanted to say what it was they knew I was afraid of. One does not go in for a biopsy the way one might for a new retinol cream for wrinkles. The biopsy signifies there is something in there that is unknown and the big unknown, the one that sets most of us on edge, is fucking cancer. I was scared shitless that I might have breast cancer.
For every day that I waited and meditated and danced and wore a brave face, I was scared, humbled, awed by the life I'd managed to make for myself. For people who loved me, for a community I belonged to, for friends, family, strangers, humankind that had the urge to live, to be part of this carnival called life. It had never been called into question for me in such high resolution. Yes, I was full of anxiety in Barbados and did fear losing it there and once there was some crazy turbulence on a plane where we dropped a few feet and I grabbed the girls and cried my face off, telling them how much I loved them over and over again until we steadied, but I never put myself, allowed myself to see myself as old enough, ready spiritually, to imagine the end of my life. Breathe in. Breathe out. This I would tell myself every moment that I drifted to those thoughts. Because that was what scared me the most. I went all the way there every time.
A rogue nurse in the office sent me a secret text to tell me that the results of my biopsy were negative two days before my doctor's office gave me the official word. I want to say that I danced on the ceiling, but I instead sat quietly on the floor, complete silence all around me, save the ticking of the clock in another room and the hum from the fridge. I felt relief for myself and compassion for those, many of whom are my friends or family or acquaintances, whose tales don't or have not ended on this note. I can still not touch the bullet resting on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. The bruising and soreness has proven a longer healing period than expected, but I know my little lump is there. I want to remove it. It is no talisman and I am not brave enough to carry it. Even knowing that it is benign, it presses at everything dear to me and threatens to pull the tent down. I'd prefer a scar where it once made itself cozy, an 'X' to mark the spot where my fears were released and my dreams held tight in a deep inhale were released.
Do your self exams and get a mammogram, ultrasound, MRI, or thermal scan if you are over 40 or have a history of breast cancer.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
My dear husband, seven plus years older than I am, always (so sweetly) reminds me that I am young. "You are still young and beautiful." And this not only when he is feeling frisky. Nowadays when we say things like this, it is often in relation to how much more of life there is to live, that yes I CAN still wear a short skirt if I like, do something crazy to my hair, start a new career, try new things. But when it comes to health issues--aches, pains, pinches, twists, tears, and pulls, age has slowly crept up with us. When I see pictures of some of my childhood mates, I see their parents' faces staring back at me. I read posts about injuries from doing things that were once facile, part of every day movement until just the wrong thing slipped or "went." We laugh about those pains. "Getting old," we say. But aging also brings more serious health concerns and a need to make at least annual trips to a physician. The laissez-faire attitude of our youth has given way to consideration of each new freckle, rising cholesterol, too much sugar in the blood, lack of time for exercise or sleep, lack of time for anything really as a sign that we are creeping over that hill. We feel young inside but our bodies demand us to acknowledge that time has passed and that we need to be tender with them.
My dance classes and my meditation practice, my family and my love for them gave me the physical and psychic strength to prepare for the worst news but really expect the best. I, full to the brim with anxiety and too much nervous energy, found ways to distract myself from the waiting for results. My house is now spotless and that includes all closets, drawers, cabinets, and the attic. I danced my brains out and allowed people to love me, care for me, bring me food, invite me to parties, looked them back in their eyes to thank them, and just breathed in and out every single day. I breathed to the top of my head and down to my toes.
On the fifth day I started calling and leaving messages. I felt embarrassed to be calling as though it was expected that I'd wait patiently for the news. I wondered, in all the prep I was given for the biopsy, had anyone in the medical profession thought about my feelings, fears, hopes, anxiety. While I'd been warned not to take aspirin 48 hours prior, and been told how the procedure would happen (ultrasound, cleaning of the breast, numbing local anesthetic followed by a tugging or pulling sensation that would collect the cells to be examined, then days of soreness, bruising, swelling, a little pain, and a tiny scar underneath), very little was said about the shallow breaths I was taking, the tears that came to my eyes when I thought of having to tell the girls that something was wrong with Mommy. When they kicked or pulled or tugged at me and accidentally hit my ailing breast, I'd wince and then smile. I didn't want to give them anything to worry about. I was reminded only once to go back to my life as usual. I felt, and I could be wrong about it but it felt this way, that no one wanted to say what it was they knew I was afraid of. One does not go in for a biopsy the way one might for a new retinol cream for wrinkles. The biopsy signifies there is something in there that is unknown and the big unknown, the one that sets most of us on edge, is fucking cancer. I was scared shitless that I might have breast cancer.
For every day that I waited and meditated and danced and wore a brave face, I was scared, humbled, awed by the life I'd managed to make for myself. For people who loved me, for a community I belonged to, for friends, family, strangers, humankind that had the urge to live, to be part of this carnival called life. It had never been called into question for me in such high resolution. Yes, I was full of anxiety in Barbados and did fear losing it there and once there was some crazy turbulence on a plane where we dropped a few feet and I grabbed the girls and cried my face off, telling them how much I loved them over and over again until we steadied, but I never put myself, allowed myself to see myself as old enough, ready spiritually, to imagine the end of my life. Breathe in. Breathe out. This I would tell myself every moment that I drifted to those thoughts. Because that was what scared me the most. I went all the way there every time.
A rogue nurse in the office sent me a secret text to tell me that the results of my biopsy were negative two days before my doctor's office gave me the official word. I want to say that I danced on the ceiling, but I instead sat quietly on the floor, complete silence all around me, save the ticking of the clock in another room and the hum from the fridge. I felt relief for myself and compassion for those, many of whom are my friends or family or acquaintances, whose tales don't or have not ended on this note. I can still not touch the bullet resting on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. The bruising and soreness has proven a longer healing period than expected, but I know my little lump is there. I want to remove it. It is no talisman and I am not brave enough to carry it. Even knowing that it is benign, it presses at everything dear to me and threatens to pull the tent down. I'd prefer a scar where it once made itself cozy, an 'X' to mark the spot where my fears were released and my dreams held tight in a deep inhale were released.
Do your self exams and get a mammogram, ultrasound, MRI, or thermal scan if you are over 40 or have a history of breast cancer.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Lady Bits: Bounce your boobies, Part 1.
There is a lump. Well, I like to call it a marble on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. It is close to the sternum, so close that it was missed in the mammogram. But I can feel it. Rub it, move it around. Sometimes I lose it, but then it reappears, especially when I am lying flat and my once perky breasts drift to the sides of my body like loose bags of Jell-o, no longer resting on top of my chest, but on the sides like bat wings. I called my doctor and asked for further testing. My breasts are dense, lots of tissue and mass and weird stuff that I somehow never chose to use as a selling point once upon a way-back-when when I just wanted boys and men to touch them and was not feeling around for an exam. Go figure.
The exam is important. The mammogram is important and what came next for me is also important. After the mammogram did not detect my marble, I followed up with an ultrasound. Fortunately for me, my health insurance covered the follow up because it was requested by my doctor (thank you), after it was requested by me. Lying flat on my back in the exam room, breasts to the side, my nurse chit chatted with me about the usual subjects--my kids, my work, my voice, how it wouldn't take long and then I could get back to my life--while moving the roller-ball all over my right breast, not even stopping at the speed bump of my cold nipple, rubbing ultrasound goo all over the place and typing frantically like a science fiction space crew member who was soon to be ambushed and killed in the first ten minutes. At least the gel had been warmed up, something almost never done when, years earlier a similar roller ball was checking in on the babies growing in my belly. When she got to my left breast her voice began to trail off. She asked me about nipple discharge and breast pain. Huh? Then she said she was all done and left me to wipe off the goo. I was told to wait in case the doctor wanted to see me and was not allowed to get dressed. (Not that fitting my clothes over my slimed body seemed appealing at that moment.) When she returned, she told me the doctor did not need to see me and that my results would come in a few days. The call would come from my doctor and not their office.
I knew I felt a lump, so I was certain they were going to tell me something about it. I was just hoping for something more reassuring, a "this is just a precaution/I wouldn't worry too much/Let me put you at ease," but nothing like that came. I went home and waited. Waited with high levels of anxiety and a nervousness about the threat to my peace, to the sanctity of my family, about the break in my good fortune on the health front.
Two days later I was called by my doctor and the imaging office. Both left messages. Both wanted to talk to me. Not quite reassuring. I called my doctor's office first. She told me there had indeed been some abnormality that needed to be further investigated with an ultrasound guided biopsy. They wanted to do an ultrasound to see the marble and then lance it with a needle and vacuum some of the tissue to examine it and determine its nature. They wanted to find out what it was, what it was made of, and was it malignant or benign, cancer or...something else. I spoke with ease, professionalism, and calm. I told all parties that I understood what was happening. I tried not to expire on the floor when the earliest date to perform the biopsy was more than 2 weeks from the moment of the phone call when inside I was screaming, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I will come in tomorrow. How about today? How about right now?" But the truth is, I was and am scared to death and cannot stand that I don't know. All sorts of apocalyptic, end-of-days images flashed before my eyes, and my anxiety which usually rides pretty high at an 8 out of 10 on normal days was nearing infinity.
There is no history of breast cancer in my family and while that makes me feel good, from what I learned all those afternoons in the imaging center, 80% of breast cancer patients have no history. So there is that. The doctors and nurses were kind as I would expect them to be. Somber faces and head shaking would not really have been apropos. I thanked everyone for everything in the hopes that my kindness could have something, anything to do with my results. And then I walked out of the office into the light of day and matriculated back into the suburban stream.
It was a secret. I blended right back in, going with the flow, talking about homework and after school activities and the struggle to get the girls down for bed time. I greeted friends on the street, chatted with my cashier at the grocery store, let the girls snuggle with me at night though their kicks to the now sore breast were excruciating. Suddenly the marble felt like a ticking bomb sitting right in the middle of my chest, at the center of my heart chakra. I told myself, this is a metaphor, this is a lump of coal in your house of love. You need to open your heart and find a way to love greater. I sat with this. Called my Buddhists and meditators, walked in nature, danced my brains out in class. Never one to share news, good or bad, for fear of being consoled or seen or loved or cared for in such a visible way (see Childhood traumas), I told very few. The first were told the day of the biopsy because one hour after my scheduled appointment time, I still had not been seen and my husband, who'd taken the day off to be with me, had to go pick up Virginie. I sent out cryptic notes to two of my closest friends asking if they'd be able to pick me up. When they fully understood the gravity of my bizarro texts, they immediately offered to help and pulled the heart strings and loved me. Ow. I mean, yay.
I write this now to share because I need to, because I want to be close, make connections, but also to say, "Touch your lady bits. Rub your boobs. Do your self exams." Sitting in the waiting area/recovery after the biopsy before heading in for a second mammogram, I found myself next to a woman from Jamaica. I cannot tell you her age because she looked as young and clear-skinned and vibrant as she could, but she mentioned her family, children who insisted she come in for an exam. She'd not seen a doctor in twelve years. Needing to gab, feeling quite nervous in her surgical gown with strange ties and loose strings, she turned to me and asked, "How do you tie this thing anyway?" I showed her the inside ties and the outside snap and she finally felt OK. In those few moments we were community, family, support, mirrors.
Talking about our breasts, our bodies, women's bodies is still so awkward and uncomfortable, even amongst ourselves. So many of us joke about the manhandling that goes on during a mammogram, feeling your breasts pressed together like between two large-volume books, some even avoid it all together. But it is certainly no more painful than having a nursing baby bite your nipples or some of the pulling and tugging they experience at other times (name yours). An exam takes just minutes. Many are unsure if they are doing the self-exam correctly, so they just don't do it at all. It feels silly. There's so much going on in there, who knows what you are feeling--a muscle, a knot, a mammary gland, a fibroid, but you should still do it. Touch them, feel them, get to know them. In our youth we asked our lovers to do it. Caress them, be kind to them, love them. We must do the same.
And now I wait. The bruising is clearing up. A small purplish, black and blue mark slowly fades on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. There is a tiny little pin prick mark underneath where the boobs were once ripe and delicious before the girls nursed them all away. Immediately following the procedure the poor thing was sore and tender and my core was wounded but I could go on about my business. After forty-eight hours I was allowed to dance again. Last night I took a hip hop class and laughed and smiled with friends and dancers. As I sit in anticipation of my results I implore you to get examined, ask your friends, lovers, wives, girlfriends, mothers, and daughters to check.
To be continued...
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
The exam is important. The mammogram is important and what came next for me is also important. After the mammogram did not detect my marble, I followed up with an ultrasound. Fortunately for me, my health insurance covered the follow up because it was requested by my doctor (thank you), after it was requested by me. Lying flat on my back in the exam room, breasts to the side, my nurse chit chatted with me about the usual subjects--my kids, my work, my voice, how it wouldn't take long and then I could get back to my life--while moving the roller-ball all over my right breast, not even stopping at the speed bump of my cold nipple, rubbing ultrasound goo all over the place and typing frantically like a science fiction space crew member who was soon to be ambushed and killed in the first ten minutes. At least the gel had been warmed up, something almost never done when, years earlier a similar roller ball was checking in on the babies growing in my belly. When she got to my left breast her voice began to trail off. She asked me about nipple discharge and breast pain. Huh? Then she said she was all done and left me to wipe off the goo. I was told to wait in case the doctor wanted to see me and was not allowed to get dressed. (Not that fitting my clothes over my slimed body seemed appealing at that moment.) When she returned, she told me the doctor did not need to see me and that my results would come in a few days. The call would come from my doctor and not their office.
I knew I felt a lump, so I was certain they were going to tell me something about it. I was just hoping for something more reassuring, a "this is just a precaution/I wouldn't worry too much/Let me put you at ease," but nothing like that came. I went home and waited. Waited with high levels of anxiety and a nervousness about the threat to my peace, to the sanctity of my family, about the break in my good fortune on the health front.
Two days later I was called by my doctor and the imaging office. Both left messages. Both wanted to talk to me. Not quite reassuring. I called my doctor's office first. She told me there had indeed been some abnormality that needed to be further investigated with an ultrasound guided biopsy. They wanted to do an ultrasound to see the marble and then lance it with a needle and vacuum some of the tissue to examine it and determine its nature. They wanted to find out what it was, what it was made of, and was it malignant or benign, cancer or...something else. I spoke with ease, professionalism, and calm. I told all parties that I understood what was happening. I tried not to expire on the floor when the earliest date to perform the biopsy was more than 2 weeks from the moment of the phone call when inside I was screaming, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I will come in tomorrow. How about today? How about right now?" But the truth is, I was and am scared to death and cannot stand that I don't know. All sorts of apocalyptic, end-of-days images flashed before my eyes, and my anxiety which usually rides pretty high at an 8 out of 10 on normal days was nearing infinity.
There is no history of breast cancer in my family and while that makes me feel good, from what I learned all those afternoons in the imaging center, 80% of breast cancer patients have no history. So there is that. The doctors and nurses were kind as I would expect them to be. Somber faces and head shaking would not really have been apropos. I thanked everyone for everything in the hopes that my kindness could have something, anything to do with my results. And then I walked out of the office into the light of day and matriculated back into the suburban stream.
It was a secret. I blended right back in, going with the flow, talking about homework and after school activities and the struggle to get the girls down for bed time. I greeted friends on the street, chatted with my cashier at the grocery store, let the girls snuggle with me at night though their kicks to the now sore breast were excruciating. Suddenly the marble felt like a ticking bomb sitting right in the middle of my chest, at the center of my heart chakra. I told myself, this is a metaphor, this is a lump of coal in your house of love. You need to open your heart and find a way to love greater. I sat with this. Called my Buddhists and meditators, walked in nature, danced my brains out in class. Never one to share news, good or bad, for fear of being consoled or seen or loved or cared for in such a visible way (see Childhood traumas), I told very few. The first were told the day of the biopsy because one hour after my scheduled appointment time, I still had not been seen and my husband, who'd taken the day off to be with me, had to go pick up Virginie. I sent out cryptic notes to two of my closest friends asking if they'd be able to pick me up. When they fully understood the gravity of my bizarro texts, they immediately offered to help and pulled the heart strings and loved me. Ow. I mean, yay.
I write this now to share because I need to, because I want to be close, make connections, but also to say, "Touch your lady bits. Rub your boobs. Do your self exams." Sitting in the waiting area/recovery after the biopsy before heading in for a second mammogram, I found myself next to a woman from Jamaica. I cannot tell you her age because she looked as young and clear-skinned and vibrant as she could, but she mentioned her family, children who insisted she come in for an exam. She'd not seen a doctor in twelve years. Needing to gab, feeling quite nervous in her surgical gown with strange ties and loose strings, she turned to me and asked, "How do you tie this thing anyway?" I showed her the inside ties and the outside snap and she finally felt OK. In those few moments we were community, family, support, mirrors.
Talking about our breasts, our bodies, women's bodies is still so awkward and uncomfortable, even amongst ourselves. So many of us joke about the manhandling that goes on during a mammogram, feeling your breasts pressed together like between two large-volume books, some even avoid it all together. But it is certainly no more painful than having a nursing baby bite your nipples or some of the pulling and tugging they experience at other times (name yours). An exam takes just minutes. Many are unsure if they are doing the self-exam correctly, so they just don't do it at all. It feels silly. There's so much going on in there, who knows what you are feeling--a muscle, a knot, a mammary gland, a fibroid, but you should still do it. Touch them, feel them, get to know them. In our youth we asked our lovers to do it. Caress them, be kind to them, love them. We must do the same.
And now I wait. The bruising is clearing up. A small purplish, black and blue mark slowly fades on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. There is a tiny little pin prick mark underneath where the boobs were once ripe and delicious before the girls nursed them all away. Immediately following the procedure the poor thing was sore and tender and my core was wounded but I could go on about my business. After forty-eight hours I was allowed to dance again. Last night I took a hip hop class and laughed and smiled with friends and dancers. As I sit in anticipation of my results I implore you to get examined, ask your friends, lovers, wives, girlfriends, mothers, and daughters to check.
To be continued...
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
It Takes a Village
Lily woke up in the middle of the night with a fever boiling through her bloodstream. I knew because she was snuggled up next to me and I felt my own blood start to simmer until I realized that she was tucked in the crook of my arm. I touched her head, put my hand on her rising belly and she was on fire. I reached for her little sister on the other side of me and she, thankfully, did not feel the same. She turned over to avoid my handling of her little body and I tended to her big sister. That was the first night.
The next evening, antibiotics in hand for the raging ear infection that was plaguing my girl, we tried again. Lily on my right and Virginie on my left. Everyone tucked in and medicated or whatever was needed to allow a comfortable night's sleep and healing. We made it to 3 AM. At 3 AM, Virginie started wheezing as if she'd swallowed a balloon. She could not seem to take a full breath without this full, croupy cough taking over her tiny body. She would cough and tremble and cry, all while trying to fall back to sleep. I offered her inhaler every fifteen minutes until she could breath easier. Unfortunately, her coughing woke Lily who began pulling at one of her ears, coughing herself, and complaining of pain. For her there were pain killers and a back rub. In fact, with each one sandwiching me into the middle of the bed, I rubbed and patted them, arms outstretched, until 5 AM when I heard the last labored breath subside to soft, even whistles. Then I slept.
I've spent countless nights alone with the girls and most nights they are well, though often chatty and wake in the night. When they are sick or scared or in need, I am available for them too, will take care of what needs caring for until it is right. The good days greatly surpass the bad, but the bad ones fuel the fuzzy-brained, rain-clouded, barbed-wire pressured, and angst-filled stories of parenthood. Those nights leave me feeling so low and lonely, mostly because I am sleep deprived and insane (JEG, you know who you are), like I don't have a prayer or a hand or a friend.
This morning, my neighbor offered to take the girls for a while to play with her children. She and her husband had run their errands and handled their business and knew that I was alone for the long, holiday weekend with the girls. I tried to bow out, excuse myself, convince her that it wasn't necessary, that the girls were fine with crazy me. Though I have longed for a community, a tribe, a village to help me raise my children, I don't think I ever considered what I was really asking for. It wasn't something mythic, epic, poetic, romantic. It wasn't only a dream or an expression used in speeches when children had again been marginalized or ignored. For me, it was having someone that I trusted and that I knew cared for me and my children, take them for a bit. Nurture them. Feed them. Play with them. Entertain them. So that I might have a moment to regenerate, take a shower without a guest lecturer present, hell use the bathroom without having a conversation about only God knows what with a person sitting one foot in front of me. On the floor.
I let the girls go for a bit when a friend called requesting Virginie, the four year old. My friend's four year old was down for a full afternoon of play that involved multiple costume changes, a bath, coloring, a trip to the pool, all the cool stuff the pre-K set is into. She went. She stayed. I saw her at 6 pm. Lily, too, stayed out and I did things. Fun things, housework things, banking things, lying down things, standing up things, alone things. I later sat in the yard having an afternoon drink with my neighbor while we watched our children ride bikes and scooters up and down the drive. A family of friends who were walking by on their way to the train station, continuing on to the airport and a European vacation, stopped for a quick beer. I promised to check in on their house and their visitors. (They were doing a house trade with a family in France.)
I felt the village forming around me. I always see in my mind a Native American or African tribe of my imagining with huts configured in a circle, women working and tending to their children, men hunting and gathering, doing what they do. It is an image that comforts me, though it lives in my fantasy and is not drawn from any particular group or tribe. It's just what I want. The houses in my neighborhood are close enough for my children, young as they are, to walk from our home to a friend's without my being nervous. In the nearly two years we have lived here, we have amassed a small tribe of families to whom I would entrust my children, my home, our pet (Baby Dragon, the newt). There is a wonderful exchange of childcare, babysitting, dinners, evening cocktails, and conversations that gives me peace. The girls have learned to respect and consider other adults (and children too) and other ways in which families live and households are run. But as important, I have learned to trust, to fall into the arms of people who want to love and support me, who would allow me to love and support them, who have helped me give and receive in equal measure despite myself.
The village that we have chosen to call home has given me a place in the circle. The people we have added to our circle have given me no corners to be pushed into and no walls to hide behind. I am grateful for the connections and the community. When the nights are insufferable and days or weeks alone threaten my sanity, my village comes to my aid. It takes a village to raise a child. This one has raised up my family too.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
The next evening, antibiotics in hand for the raging ear infection that was plaguing my girl, we tried again. Lily on my right and Virginie on my left. Everyone tucked in and medicated or whatever was needed to allow a comfortable night's sleep and healing. We made it to 3 AM. At 3 AM, Virginie started wheezing as if she'd swallowed a balloon. She could not seem to take a full breath without this full, croupy cough taking over her tiny body. She would cough and tremble and cry, all while trying to fall back to sleep. I offered her inhaler every fifteen minutes until she could breath easier. Unfortunately, her coughing woke Lily who began pulling at one of her ears, coughing herself, and complaining of pain. For her there were pain killers and a back rub. In fact, with each one sandwiching me into the middle of the bed, I rubbed and patted them, arms outstretched, until 5 AM when I heard the last labored breath subside to soft, even whistles. Then I slept.
I've spent countless nights alone with the girls and most nights they are well, though often chatty and wake in the night. When they are sick or scared or in need, I am available for them too, will take care of what needs caring for until it is right. The good days greatly surpass the bad, but the bad ones fuel the fuzzy-brained, rain-clouded, barbed-wire pressured, and angst-filled stories of parenthood. Those nights leave me feeling so low and lonely, mostly because I am sleep deprived and insane (JEG, you know who you are), like I don't have a prayer or a hand or a friend.
This morning, my neighbor offered to take the girls for a while to play with her children. She and her husband had run their errands and handled their business and knew that I was alone for the long, holiday weekend with the girls. I tried to bow out, excuse myself, convince her that it wasn't necessary, that the girls were fine with crazy me. Though I have longed for a community, a tribe, a village to help me raise my children, I don't think I ever considered what I was really asking for. It wasn't something mythic, epic, poetic, romantic. It wasn't only a dream or an expression used in speeches when children had again been marginalized or ignored. For me, it was having someone that I trusted and that I knew cared for me and my children, take them for a bit. Nurture them. Feed them. Play with them. Entertain them. So that I might have a moment to regenerate, take a shower without a guest lecturer present, hell use the bathroom without having a conversation about only God knows what with a person sitting one foot in front of me. On the floor.
I let the girls go for a bit when a friend called requesting Virginie, the four year old. My friend's four year old was down for a full afternoon of play that involved multiple costume changes, a bath, coloring, a trip to the pool, all the cool stuff the pre-K set is into. She went. She stayed. I saw her at 6 pm. Lily, too, stayed out and I did things. Fun things, housework things, banking things, lying down things, standing up things, alone things. I later sat in the yard having an afternoon drink with my neighbor while we watched our children ride bikes and scooters up and down the drive. A family of friends who were walking by on their way to the train station, continuing on to the airport and a European vacation, stopped for a quick beer. I promised to check in on their house and their visitors. (They were doing a house trade with a family in France.)
I felt the village forming around me. I always see in my mind a Native American or African tribe of my imagining with huts configured in a circle, women working and tending to their children, men hunting and gathering, doing what they do. It is an image that comforts me, though it lives in my fantasy and is not drawn from any particular group or tribe. It's just what I want. The houses in my neighborhood are close enough for my children, young as they are, to walk from our home to a friend's without my being nervous. In the nearly two years we have lived here, we have amassed a small tribe of families to whom I would entrust my children, my home, our pet (Baby Dragon, the newt). There is a wonderful exchange of childcare, babysitting, dinners, evening cocktails, and conversations that gives me peace. The girls have learned to respect and consider other adults (and children too) and other ways in which families live and households are run. But as important, I have learned to trust, to fall into the arms of people who want to love and support me, who would allow me to love and support them, who have helped me give and receive in equal measure despite myself.
The village that we have chosen to call home has given me a place in the circle. The people we have added to our circle have given me no corners to be pushed into and no walls to hide behind. I am grateful for the connections and the community. When the nights are insufferable and days or weeks alone threaten my sanity, my village comes to my aid. It takes a village to raise a child. This one has raised up my family too.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Sweet, sweet flying fish, sea turtles, and whales! Yes, whales!
The flying fish, a symbol of Barbados as popular as the trident and national colors of blue and gold, is loved and revered on the island nation. Fishermen cast their nets for the catch and holiday shoppers open their purses for aprons, drinking glasses, tea kettles, and t-shirts with its image. During the two years I lived in Barbados with my family, I only once saw a flying fish as I tread water on the glorious beach at Sandy Lane. I was so shocked and startled to see it pass overhead that I quite believed it was a mirage. The flying fish population was dwindling due to overfishing and the slow destruction of the coral reef around Barbados in which they dwelled. I'd heard rumor that the fish were moving to different waters closer to Trinidad and Tobago, causing greater tension and unease between the two nations, never great bedfellows to begin with. Having only witnessed one in flight without really knowing if I'd actually seen it, I wasn't moved by the tall tales and kind of giggled at the overabundance of imagery in the souvenir shops much like I laughed at all the Big Apples in New York City.
And then, on our return to Bim, a vacation designed to heal old wounds and change my perspective and perception of the tiny island nation and our years there as expatriates, years I consider some of the darkest of my life, I saw schools of flying fish leap from the sea, fleeing the catamaran on which I danced and drank and seized life with our dear friends. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with the urge to purchase as many pot holders, fridge magnets, and key chains with images of flying fish as I could. I shouted out every single time I saw them leap out of the water. Every single time. They were marvelous simply. We'd run into them after a delightful swim with the sea turtles and a chase that ended with a jaw-dropping sighting of a whale. A whale! Just when I thought I couldn't be any happier, our race to shore produced the schools of flying fish soaring and darting along in front of us, to the side, all around, using their wing-like fins to glide in the air, catching the light and leaving glitter trails on the water.
The flying fish had been gone and then returned. Just as I had. When I left Barbados, I was so angry with this place, so hurt, so destroyed and everything that was wrong in my life was connected to the bad years spent here. My husband's job, culture shock, severe post-partum depression and anxiety, made the landscape of Barbados haunt my nightmares and stand in for absolute horror in my life. Many wondered if I'd ever set foot again in Bim but any who know of my loyalty and love of friends had to have known that I could not be kept away forever. My friends here are some of the best in my life and as they love their home, I knew I'd have to find a place in my heart for Barbados. The return to Barbados as a vacationing family and not as expatriates has not only changed my perspective and perception of the place, but has given us all, collectively, an insanely incredible trove of memories.
There is nothing we set out to do here that we have not done. We have snorkeled, swum with turtles, relaxed seaside, eaten and drunk with abandon, seen friends, made peace with monkeys and even the white lizards (yuck), gone to little beach bars never visited and toured places never seen. We've gone back to old haunts, our old home even, and released the hold of bad juju and bad vibes. Even the dreaded hotel where my husband once worked lost some of its sway in its miserable, drab sameness, and tales of its continued troubles.
I knew all along that there was no way around this mess. That I had to go through it to break its spell (years of self-discovery and therapy had taught me that). That I could never free myself from the quicksand that those years of depression and hurt and sadness and fear brought about if I could not return and see that the quicksand was just muck and that it was never meant to hold me down. Those sweet, sweet flying fish soaring over the aqua blue waves with white crests sped up my heart, invited me to the chase, lead me back to a place where all the journeys are valuable, even the dark and scary ones, even the ones that seem to take it all away from us, even the ones that lead us right to the belly of the whale. When I saw that whale breaching, turning, showing itself to us out in the calm, blue waters of the Caribbean Sea, when I glanced around the catamaran to see the faces of people I love, my family--my husband, my girls, my life--and my friends, witnessing the awe and beauty of that moment, of that step on our paths crossing and converging, my quest for closure and peace was met.
I returned to Barbados hoping for an apology, offering a white flag, agreeing that we have differences, different wants and needs, but prepared to acknowledge and respect that we once shared time and space. We are still quiet frenemies, Barbados and I, hurting each other sometimes on purpose and mostly on accident. But when we see each other from far away, I will remember that she showed me the turtles and the whales and the flying fish and her beauty. I will remember that she made my skin glow and gave me pride in my womanly curves (at least when with her). She made my hair grow long and strong and taught my children to love nature and the water and sun and sea. She allowed my hubby to swim to her depths with fish and reefs and turtles and gave us a test that finally strengthened more than it broke us. I hope that she will remember that I gave fully and tried and tried and tried though I was scared shitless. That I traveled all around this island in search. Sometimes I found what I was looking for in the enormous waves of the Soup Bowl and quiet dignity of the East Coast. Sometimes it was watching the setting sun while liming with friends and kids. Sometimes it was in the music, in the dances that I'd never have known had she not shown me. Sometimes she frustrated me to no end like an annoying sibling, but I still rooted for her to win.
The flying fish have returned to Barbados and who knows how long they will stay. How long does not matter. They are already a part of this place and it a part of their glory. I'll go back home, settle back into the life I've dreamed for myself, continue searching and seeking but now, my time in Barbados will stand as a moment where I triumphed, having feared and felt encroaching darkness and turned it to light.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
And then, on our return to Bim, a vacation designed to heal old wounds and change my perspective and perception of the tiny island nation and our years there as expatriates, years I consider some of the darkest of my life, I saw schools of flying fish leap from the sea, fleeing the catamaran on which I danced and drank and seized life with our dear friends. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with the urge to purchase as many pot holders, fridge magnets, and key chains with images of flying fish as I could. I shouted out every single time I saw them leap out of the water. Every single time. They were marvelous simply. We'd run into them after a delightful swim with the sea turtles and a chase that ended with a jaw-dropping sighting of a whale. A whale! Just when I thought I couldn't be any happier, our race to shore produced the schools of flying fish soaring and darting along in front of us, to the side, all around, using their wing-like fins to glide in the air, catching the light and leaving glitter trails on the water.
The flying fish had been gone and then returned. Just as I had. When I left Barbados, I was so angry with this place, so hurt, so destroyed and everything that was wrong in my life was connected to the bad years spent here. My husband's job, culture shock, severe post-partum depression and anxiety, made the landscape of Barbados haunt my nightmares and stand in for absolute horror in my life. Many wondered if I'd ever set foot again in Bim but any who know of my loyalty and love of friends had to have known that I could not be kept away forever. My friends here are some of the best in my life and as they love their home, I knew I'd have to find a place in my heart for Barbados. The return to Barbados as a vacationing family and not as expatriates has not only changed my perspective and perception of the place, but has given us all, collectively, an insanely incredible trove of memories.
There is nothing we set out to do here that we have not done. We have snorkeled, swum with turtles, relaxed seaside, eaten and drunk with abandon, seen friends, made peace with monkeys and even the white lizards (yuck), gone to little beach bars never visited and toured places never seen. We've gone back to old haunts, our old home even, and released the hold of bad juju and bad vibes. Even the dreaded hotel where my husband once worked lost some of its sway in its miserable, drab sameness, and tales of its continued troubles.
I knew all along that there was no way around this mess. That I had to go through it to break its spell (years of self-discovery and therapy had taught me that). That I could never free myself from the quicksand that those years of depression and hurt and sadness and fear brought about if I could not return and see that the quicksand was just muck and that it was never meant to hold me down. Those sweet, sweet flying fish soaring over the aqua blue waves with white crests sped up my heart, invited me to the chase, lead me back to a place where all the journeys are valuable, even the dark and scary ones, even the ones that seem to take it all away from us, even the ones that lead us right to the belly of the whale. When I saw that whale breaching, turning, showing itself to us out in the calm, blue waters of the Caribbean Sea, when I glanced around the catamaran to see the faces of people I love, my family--my husband, my girls, my life--and my friends, witnessing the awe and beauty of that moment, of that step on our paths crossing and converging, my quest for closure and peace was met.
I returned to Barbados hoping for an apology, offering a white flag, agreeing that we have differences, different wants and needs, but prepared to acknowledge and respect that we once shared time and space. We are still quiet frenemies, Barbados and I, hurting each other sometimes on purpose and mostly on accident. But when we see each other from far away, I will remember that she showed me the turtles and the whales and the flying fish and her beauty. I will remember that she made my skin glow and gave me pride in my womanly curves (at least when with her). She made my hair grow long and strong and taught my children to love nature and the water and sun and sea. She allowed my hubby to swim to her depths with fish and reefs and turtles and gave us a test that finally strengthened more than it broke us. I hope that she will remember that I gave fully and tried and tried and tried though I was scared shitless. That I traveled all around this island in search. Sometimes I found what I was looking for in the enormous waves of the Soup Bowl and quiet dignity of the East Coast. Sometimes it was watching the setting sun while liming with friends and kids. Sometimes it was in the music, in the dances that I'd never have known had she not shown me. Sometimes she frustrated me to no end like an annoying sibling, but I still rooted for her to win.
The flying fish have returned to Barbados and who knows how long they will stay. How long does not matter. They are already a part of this place and it a part of their glory. I'll go back home, settle back into the life I've dreamed for myself, continue searching and seeking but now, my time in Barbados will stand as a moment where I triumphed, having feared and felt encroaching darkness and turned it to light.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Mommy, party of one
One is the loneliest number. But it's been a long time since I felt all alone. Sometimes in raising chidlren, navigating the waters of marriage, relationships, and friendships, one feels that he or she is up against the world. But that feeling is fleeting and often tied to a very specific moment of tension, stress, and fatigue. I write this blog because I know I am not the only one who has stared into the eyes of a three year old in a stand off and wondered how the heck did I get here?!? I know that I am not the first to feel lost and confused as I transitioned from hot, young thing to Mummy in Mom jeans. I am not the first to fly two hours with two little ones, their car seats, almost all the toys from the toy box, snacks, DVD player, and coats tied on my head only to arrive at an overheated airport with one who has to use the toilet immediately. Or had vomit in my hair, my mouth, on the new carpet. I am not the first to have a bullied child or a baby who calls me countless times in the middle of the night. I would surely be incredibly narcissistic and self-involved if it were my intention to imply that no one has suffered as I. I write this to share, to commiserate, to have a laugh, and let off steam.
Talking with other parents and caregivers, I am mesmerized by our ability to rear these people, keep them safe, polite, kind, well-fed, dressed, well-kept, while kissing them, loving them, smiling at them, being all for them. I am often knocked senseless in shock and awe at just what it is that parents are called on to do. Had I received some kind of manual I would certainly not have believed what it was preparing me for. I would have said, no way is this going to happen, probably just minutes or seconds before said disaster came to pass. I like to talk about it, to recount the stories. Sometimes because what one of the girls has said is so funny or so profound, I want a witness to their genius. Sometimes because the conflict is so tight, the battle so heated, the fog of war so thick, I need a second mate or possibly a guide to tell me how to get through it. It is not complaining. It is pleading, it is longing for guidance and reassurance. It is questioning.
Much like we all feel original in high school, are sure no one but we have gone through the woes of heartbreak or heartache, the alienation of finding one's own way, or the wrenching panic and anxiety of not fitting in, parents often blanch at each new milestone or dilemma and shine at each new achievement or success, asserting that no one else could ever feel this proud, this hurt, this excited. It feels like the very first time, though it is not. The comfort and safety of other parents' experiences similar to my own or better, that prepare me for moments to come, give me peace. A pat on the back, a squeeze of the hand, a knowing glance can mean so much when one is in the thick of it.
In this, I call on community. This is family created from like souls in a like experience. Their love, their guidance, their support, without "I told you so's" and "buck up and get it together's"has strengthened me and made me a better mom and a better person. I am not a party of one, though mothering is often a very isolating experience for me, because I have held out my hand and others have taken it at just the right time.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Talking with other parents and caregivers, I am mesmerized by our ability to rear these people, keep them safe, polite, kind, well-fed, dressed, well-kept, while kissing them, loving them, smiling at them, being all for them. I am often knocked senseless in shock and awe at just what it is that parents are called on to do. Had I received some kind of manual I would certainly not have believed what it was preparing me for. I would have said, no way is this going to happen, probably just minutes or seconds before said disaster came to pass. I like to talk about it, to recount the stories. Sometimes because what one of the girls has said is so funny or so profound, I want a witness to their genius. Sometimes because the conflict is so tight, the battle so heated, the fog of war so thick, I need a second mate or possibly a guide to tell me how to get through it. It is not complaining. It is pleading, it is longing for guidance and reassurance. It is questioning.
Much like we all feel original in high school, are sure no one but we have gone through the woes of heartbreak or heartache, the alienation of finding one's own way, or the wrenching panic and anxiety of not fitting in, parents often blanch at each new milestone or dilemma and shine at each new achievement or success, asserting that no one else could ever feel this proud, this hurt, this excited. It feels like the very first time, though it is not. The comfort and safety of other parents' experiences similar to my own or better, that prepare me for moments to come, give me peace. A pat on the back, a squeeze of the hand, a knowing glance can mean so much when one is in the thick of it.
In this, I call on community. This is family created from like souls in a like experience. Their love, their guidance, their support, without "I told you so's" and "buck up and get it together's"has strengthened me and made me a better mom and a better person. I am not a party of one, though mothering is often a very isolating experience for me, because I have held out my hand and others have taken it at just the right time.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Things I love, I am thankful
I am thankful for Lily's shy smile, Virginie's eyelashes, watching Lily dance when she thinks I cannot see her, Virginie's inquisitive mind, both girls' constant conversation, Didier's eyes darting from one place to the next while he thinks. I love to watch my husband walking to the train from our window, his bouncy gait as enthusiastic and energetic as the little boy I imagine him to have been. I am thankful that each day, whether we drive each other mad or not, Didier and I have something more to discover about one another and thus far, still think that's pretty freakin' cool. That we adore and admire and support our children with the same intensity and joy. I love the curiosity, the drive, the charisma, and character of my children. I love that my people trust me when they look in my eyes and know that I'll always have their backs even if just moments before, I was yelling. I love that we come back to center after every argument, every tussle, every misunderstanding and love it out. We are a family and as it is the first bond, the first experience of community and strength, I want to give that to them hard, drill it in so they never forget and wander off or get lost.
I am thankful for the families that came together to produce me. Two incredibly strong, motivated, devoted, exceptional families that valued honesty, truth, love, wisdom, service, community, and compassion over the superficial and shallow. Two families whose matriarchs and patriarchs were willing to endure and suffer setbacks and slights so that their families, their progeny could go forward and soar. I am so grateful for this blessing and so often let myself forget the strength and guidance given to me by all these people, all these folks, both when they were with me and in spirit. I am thankful for my connection to the spirit, to the universe, to God without which I would surely have given up. I am thankful that even when things are difficult, exhausting, terrifying, I want to live and live long. I accept the responsibility of my lineage and feel blessed that it is mine. I am thankful that I get to pass this on to my children.
I am thankful for my education, for all that I have learned in school and in life, even when the lessons were damned hard and I thought they might kill me. I am blessed that the value of a good, proper education was given to me by my parents, their parents, and their parents' parents. I know that being able to learn, to think for myself, to consider has provided me with many incredible opportunities and allowed me to see the world through eager, inquisitive eyes. I am so happy to be able to share these wonders with the girls. I am happy that close-mindedness, shallow thinking, hate, and disdain have not been allowed to take root in my heart or my mind.
I am thankful that as I age it is still hard to tell just exactly how old I am (for others) and that my body continues to serve me well and that I am in good health. I pray that I am able to be with the girls and my husband for a long time, a long, healthy life. I am blessed that the early signs of middle age are creeping slowly and not coming quickly (though I'd love to spend a tiny bit more time in the gym working it all out.) I have my mother to thank for that, at least her incredible genes, because she looks about fifteen to twenty years younger than she is and has stayed as youthful in spirit (or maybe it's the early onset of the "whatevs.")
My friends and family who have supported me, cared for me, loved me, given to me when I didn't dare ask but certainly needed it have my thanks and gratitude forever. These gems have shaped my life, changed me and challenged me, begged me to get my lessons when I was violently opposed, blinded by my ego, hurt feelings, and fear. There are hardly words to describe how that invisible safety net of souls feels when it lifts me up and stands me back on my feet. Through the trials and tribulations of a life lived seeking the truth, these people are invaluable. Accepting their guidance and spirit has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. I am truly thankful.
The Thanksgiving brawls, physical, psychological, and emotional that must certainly attack more than just me, often try to steal my heart and turn it to coal, may try to threaten my sense of gratitude, may try to break my heart and render me thankless. But even that won't do. My life is blessed. My heart is still open. And I am thankful, thankful, thankful that I am able to continue to love.
Happy Thanksgiving.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
I am thankful for the families that came together to produce me. Two incredibly strong, motivated, devoted, exceptional families that valued honesty, truth, love, wisdom, service, community, and compassion over the superficial and shallow. Two families whose matriarchs and patriarchs were willing to endure and suffer setbacks and slights so that their families, their progeny could go forward and soar. I am so grateful for this blessing and so often let myself forget the strength and guidance given to me by all these people, all these folks, both when they were with me and in spirit. I am thankful for my connection to the spirit, to the universe, to God without which I would surely have given up. I am thankful that even when things are difficult, exhausting, terrifying, I want to live and live long. I accept the responsibility of my lineage and feel blessed that it is mine. I am thankful that I get to pass this on to my children.
I am thankful for my education, for all that I have learned in school and in life, even when the lessons were damned hard and I thought they might kill me. I am blessed that the value of a good, proper education was given to me by my parents, their parents, and their parents' parents. I know that being able to learn, to think for myself, to consider has provided me with many incredible opportunities and allowed me to see the world through eager, inquisitive eyes. I am so happy to be able to share these wonders with the girls. I am happy that close-mindedness, shallow thinking, hate, and disdain have not been allowed to take root in my heart or my mind.
I am thankful that as I age it is still hard to tell just exactly how old I am (for others) and that my body continues to serve me well and that I am in good health. I pray that I am able to be with the girls and my husband for a long time, a long, healthy life. I am blessed that the early signs of middle age are creeping slowly and not coming quickly (though I'd love to spend a tiny bit more time in the gym working it all out.) I have my mother to thank for that, at least her incredible genes, because she looks about fifteen to twenty years younger than she is and has stayed as youthful in spirit (or maybe it's the early onset of the "whatevs.")
My friends and family who have supported me, cared for me, loved me, given to me when I didn't dare ask but certainly needed it have my thanks and gratitude forever. These gems have shaped my life, changed me and challenged me, begged me to get my lessons when I was violently opposed, blinded by my ego, hurt feelings, and fear. There are hardly words to describe how that invisible safety net of souls feels when it lifts me up and stands me back on my feet. Through the trials and tribulations of a life lived seeking the truth, these people are invaluable. Accepting their guidance and spirit has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. I am truly thankful.
The Thanksgiving brawls, physical, psychological, and emotional that must certainly attack more than just me, often try to steal my heart and turn it to coal, may try to threaten my sense of gratitude, may try to break my heart and render me thankless. But even that won't do. My life is blessed. My heart is still open. And I am thankful, thankful, thankful that I am able to continue to love.
Happy Thanksgiving.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Playing the "we"
When I was younger, I had a few boyfriends that just didn't make the grade with my friends. They always invited "us" but then would find a moment to corner "me" and mention that our "we" was kinda getting on their nerves. There were all kinds of different reasons why my beau just didn't cut it, often reasons that I, blinded by love and secret schmoopy-doop whisperings, just couldn't see. Either he was stand-offish, selfish, self-involved, boring, judgmental, smothering, cruel, belligerent, exhausting, needy, whatever and just made the people in my life wonder how and when I would come to my senses and release the fool from my team. Before I settled down with the Frenchy who is charming and funny and a little arrogant but also self-depreciating and of course, French and adorable, I really had no idea how putting together a good "we" could allow "me" to have and keep good friends and relations close.
I have witnessed more than a few relationships fall apart because of this situation, but wondered, what happens when the partner in question is not a boyfriend, girlfriend, lover, or pal who can be cut from the squad without legal strings, but is a husband, wife, or business partner? Can a friendship survive if the number 2 always has to tag along? Can you tell your friend that you just can't get down with her man? Out here in the suburbs, people tend to travel in clans. It's not like my former life in the city where packs of roving artists, actors, writers, and single types, often without children could move in and out of circles, trying on different personas, ideas, and accents. In the burbs, you and your partner and sometimes your kiddles move as a subset and merge with other subsets. It's awesome when the wives, the husbands, and the children get along on their own accord, when you don't have to remind someone to be on their best behavior, give them pointers on good conversation, worry that while you are having the time of your life, your partner or your kids are picking lint out of their belly buttons or worse, starting a war.
Political blowhards, lecherous Lotharios, Snoopy marshmallows (as my Frenchy calls the less interesting), inappropriate jokers, and flirty kittens can ruin any night out, dinner, or mixed family gathering. I often wonder, if before heading out the couples have a chat about how to behave. "Please honey, don't tell so and so how gorgeous you thought she was last time. I think it made her uncomfortable." or "Can you just try to add something to the conversation, babe? You have lots to talk about when we are together." I love my Frenchy and I must tell you he is damned funny in French and in English! But truth be told, sometimes I ask him if he wouldn't mind chiming in, sharing a little bit of himself, letting people see how good, funny, intelligent he is. I know that often, we fall for our friends and are so excited by them that we don't imagine that their partners will wilt our flowers, bore us to tears, piss us off to raging blindness. Maybe we don't have to always come as a package. Perhaps it's best to define that role before we force our others on the group and find the space between us grow. Perhaps "we" is too much when all we want is "you" and "me."
If someone told me that they loved hanging with me, but would I mind leaving my Gaul at home, I think I would take that as an assault on my taste and style. Really? You don't want the good stuff? Or worse, you think I don't have the good stuff? Sometimes, it's true, husbands dampen the conversation. Especially when that convo is meant to be about them individually or collectively or about sex or about running away with the trainer (even in jest) or something so private you only want to share it with a good girlfriend, not her husband. But other times, a lively repartee between couples, discourse, new ideas, funny tales can solidify a friendship, make scheduling and entertaining that much easier. And when time is limited, babysitters are scarce, and a good get-together is just what you are looking for, it's nice to know that we can all get along.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
I have witnessed more than a few relationships fall apart because of this situation, but wondered, what happens when the partner in question is not a boyfriend, girlfriend, lover, or pal who can be cut from the squad without legal strings, but is a husband, wife, or business partner? Can a friendship survive if the number 2 always has to tag along? Can you tell your friend that you just can't get down with her man? Out here in the suburbs, people tend to travel in clans. It's not like my former life in the city where packs of roving artists, actors, writers, and single types, often without children could move in and out of circles, trying on different personas, ideas, and accents. In the burbs, you and your partner and sometimes your kiddles move as a subset and merge with other subsets. It's awesome when the wives, the husbands, and the children get along on their own accord, when you don't have to remind someone to be on their best behavior, give them pointers on good conversation, worry that while you are having the time of your life, your partner or your kids are picking lint out of their belly buttons or worse, starting a war.
Political blowhards, lecherous Lotharios, Snoopy marshmallows (as my Frenchy calls the less interesting), inappropriate jokers, and flirty kittens can ruin any night out, dinner, or mixed family gathering. I often wonder, if before heading out the couples have a chat about how to behave. "Please honey, don't tell so and so how gorgeous you thought she was last time. I think it made her uncomfortable." or "Can you just try to add something to the conversation, babe? You have lots to talk about when we are together." I love my Frenchy and I must tell you he is damned funny in French and in English! But truth be told, sometimes I ask him if he wouldn't mind chiming in, sharing a little bit of himself, letting people see how good, funny, intelligent he is. I know that often, we fall for our friends and are so excited by them that we don't imagine that their partners will wilt our flowers, bore us to tears, piss us off to raging blindness. Maybe we don't have to always come as a package. Perhaps it's best to define that role before we force our others on the group and find the space between us grow. Perhaps "we" is too much when all we want is "you" and "me."
If someone told me that they loved hanging with me, but would I mind leaving my Gaul at home, I think I would take that as an assault on my taste and style. Really? You don't want the good stuff? Or worse, you think I don't have the good stuff? Sometimes, it's true, husbands dampen the conversation. Especially when that convo is meant to be about them individually or collectively or about sex or about running away with the trainer (even in jest) or something so private you only want to share it with a good girlfriend, not her husband. But other times, a lively repartee between couples, discourse, new ideas, funny tales can solidify a friendship, make scheduling and entertaining that much easier. And when time is limited, babysitters are scarce, and a good get-together is just what you are looking for, it's nice to know that we can all get along.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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