WARNING: Some graphic imagery of the experience of a miscarriage.
Miscarriage: failure to attain the just, right, or desired result/end; he expulsion of a fetus before it is viable, especially between the third and seventh months of pregnancy
Miscarriage of justice:
primarily is the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. "Miscarriage of justice" is sometimes synonymous with wrongful conviction, referring to a conviction reached in an unfair or disputed trial.
Before I was pregnant with my second child, I'd suffered two miscarriages. Just weeks into each pregnancy (the first at five weeks, the second at ten) seemingly no different than the one that had delivered its promise of a baby, my body, ripe and pumping with hormones and an increased blood supply, began to tear the walls down. My heart skipped a beat and then a small cramp. I felt nervous and my palms began to sweat. I believe I was holding my breath. I didn't want to look, to check. A small cramp was not entirely uncommon or unexpected. My body was trying to tell me something I did not want to know. I knew it and still didn't want to listen.
The cramping began to increase and I was hot. My skin, plump and swollen, got cold and clammy. My breasts and nipples already longing to nurture that baby were so sensitive to the touch that it seemed just my clothes were too much. I felt the longing, the begging, and the pleading. "Please don't let this be." And then the resolve. There was blood. Blood everywhere and I was alone and even when people came to my call, I was alone. The first time in France in my in-laws' upstairs bathroom on New Year's Eve. The second time in the apartment I shared with my soon-to-be husband and our first child just weeks shy of the end of the first trimester. I was at a loss for words. Everything everyone said to comfort me sounded muffled. I didn't want them to talk to me. I wanted them to listen. To listen to the sound of the moment and it was deafeningly quiet. It was so real that try as I might to escape in my mind, I was pulled back into the present with each tiny contraction. A friend of mine, one of my very best, who is also a healer had once said to me, 'we cannot expand and grow all the time. Sometimes we have to contract.' That thought kept coming to mind. I can't say why, but it somehow gave me comfort and the space to accept what was to be.
We wanted another child, a partner and friend for our first, and after meeting with my doctor and receiving the appropriate shots (I have Rh negative (Rhesus negative) blood which means that my blood is most likely not compatible with the blood of the baby and certain precautions have to be taken), we decided to try again. My husband was hopeful and to some degree disconnected from the emotional and spiritual effort it was going to take to get back out there. Encouraged by the all clear from my doctor, he was eager to start the baby-making! I was more apprehensive. The losses had been traumatic, terrifying, and exhaustively lonely. I did indeed want to have another baby but was so scared to lose another. The sense memories, smells, tingles, ringing in my ears, the muscle memory of loss pulled tightly at my core. My heart and gut wrenched, my palms became sweaty, I was nervous and easily agitated and very short tempered.
I didn't watch either of the videos. We came home from the day-late Independence Day fireworks to our cable, phone, and internet service not working. It turned out to be a blessing. As I did a quick review of the latest on social media on my phone I saw the first hashtag: #ripaltonsterling. It wasn't difficult to put the pieces together to see what had happened. I knew better than to even try to watch the video on my phone. Already I was shaking. My heart and gut wrenched and my palms were sweaty. I looked to posts from my 'woke' friends. I was in a panic. Piecing together small details--selling CDs, concealed carry state, gun in his pocket, point blank range, black, black, black, black, black. I knew guys who sold CDs on the street. Hell, I'd bought some back in the day when I didn't know better and could scarcely afford a good meal let alone my favorite music.
Like with the first cramp suffered in the upstairs bathroom, I stood alone. I didn't even want to say the words out loud. I looked down. Blood. Real, thick, dark. Pulled into the present. This is happening. From the bathroom, "Honey, something is wrong." And now from the bedroom, barely whispered, "They killed another black man on the street." The depth of our disconnect even more expanded, there was no answer. "A man. Selling CDs. Pinned down and shot at point blank range." My husband looked up. "No. Can't be. How they can do that?" Nervous, easily agitated, short tempered. I had to move, walk around. I knew not to try to watch the video, the video! I knew that I was suddenly very alone.
Retreating to my bed, to sleep, seemed the best option and I took some melatonin to disappear and went in. When I woke up to the news of the murder of Philando Castile, a young, black man who'd been shot and killed in the driver seat of his car as he'd reached for his permit to show the officer who'd demanded it, I blanched. That his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and his child had also been in the car and that his girlfriend had live streamed his death, dropped me to the floor. Again, I did not watch the video but saw a still. The blood. The thick, dark blood on a white t-shirt on a man sitting in the driver's seat of his car. The scene was haunting, surreal.
I looked down and took stock of my surroundings. That hyper-awareness that trauma brings. I see the floor, the walls, my feet. There is so much blood. I smell the food cooking downstairs. I see the whites of my eyes gleaming with tears and fear. I see blood. A miscarriage. A failure to achieve a desired end. I'm still standing. I sit and try to breathe deeper breaths than the shallow, panicked wisps that are leaking out of me like cold winter smoke rings. All the moments I've ever looked at my feet, my hands, my face, the floor, the wall come rushing to me. I am pulled back to the present.
They have killed another black man in the street. There was no trial, no accusation (none formal at least). This was not justice. It is not just. There has been a rush to find fault in these two men as has been done countless times before. I have taken stock of my surroundings. I stare down at my hands and at my feet. I see the walls, the floor. This has all happened before and before me and before them and before all of us. That in a public court of opinion these men cannot be found innocent of a crime they did not commit because by being black they are guilty. There is a lot of talk about it. Too much for me right now because I need the sound of the moment in its deafening quiet. I need there to be listening.
When we'd passed fifteen weeks during my pregnancy with the little one I felt safe enough to tell people that we were pregnant, but the panic never stopped. I checked between my legs daily. I responded to gas, fullness, fatigue with worry and panic. I prayed and chanted and mantra-d from point to point. I was afraid and I was hopeful. We can do this, I thought. We have before. She wants to stay with us. She wants to be our baby. The gods are shining on us. They want her to be ours too. But until she was in my arms, peering up at me with those shiny, black eyes, I was prepared for the worst. Prepared to lose her, prepared to suffer and hurt and feel anguish in silence. Silence because looking at me in my hurt was too much for most to bear.
It is hard to watch someone in excruciating pain. It is hard to watch them writhe and twist and ache so deeply internally that their body contorts, the way they appear on the outside is hideous to behold, their faces change, their destinies are missed, their paths misdirected. We fear pain like the dark hand of misfortune. We don't want it to touch us too so we turn from it, intellectualize it, talk and talk and talk about it, analyze it, describe it, try to work around it but it can only be confronted deep inside. It is bloody and dark and thick. It is slow and gruesome and sudden. It throbs and burns and pulls. And then gives release.
The tiny space within me that I keep my deepest fears and secrets burst at the seams and I cried for days, endlessly. I'd heard that the little four year in the car, in the back seat, where I now strapped my two children, tried to comfort her mother as her father lay dying in the driver's seat. I'd heard that Diamond Reynolds was taken into custody and I wondered where her tiny girl was taken. I wept at the thought of the rushing, the fast moving, the approach with with Alton Sterling was met in those last moments. Wondered if he said to himself, 'this is just like that guy...' before someone put a gun to his chest. I could not stop crying as I thought about all the blood and its metallic smell, its dankness, its thick, tacky swell as it flowed from the body. I would wipe my eyes and more tears would come thinking of the moments in stillness when even though there was sound and screaming and fury, for a split second the dead silence of that present moment froze the world. *gasp* And then it was done.
I remember the heaviness of the blood, the weight on my shoulders, the pulling in my heart, believing I could never recover from a loss like this. One that had been a secret, one that was private, one that was mine to mull and cultivate. And I came to see, I have to tell you. I have to tell you that these are not just stories on white paper. They are not clean or neat or easily filed. They are real life. The just, right, desired end was that I would bear another child and bring her into this world and love her and have every right to share with her and show her and celebrate with her the beauty of this human experience. I hope I can. The just, right, desired end would be that two men, black men, who had every right, so it is said, to share and celebrate the beauty of our shared human experience would not be dead because they'd been unfairly tried and convicted because they were black.
It's incredible this life. And heartbreaking. Black lives matter. Too.
(c) Copyright 2016. Repatriated Mama in the Jungle: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Showing posts with label healing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healing. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Monday, June 2, 2014
Black Magic Woman
A friend of mine shared a post on the Book of a video of Carlos Santana's "Black Magic Woman". As I sat in front of my computer listening, taking myself back to my childhood, I recalled how I loved that song. Loved that song because I believed that he was singing, "black, magic woman." When I listened carefully to the words, I felt stirring inside myself a truth, a truth because I heard it sung, called out, pleaded on the radio. It was the promise, the proof that there was such a thing as a "BLACK, MAGIC WOMAN" and that maybe, as I suspected, I might be magic too.
When I discovered the black, female writers--Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni, Jamaica Kincaid, Maya Angelou--to start, I discovered a world that for me had been just a secret. I heard and saw and read things about myself that I'd never heard or seen. I did not grow up in the company of black folks. Yes, we had family and many close friends, but our community, what surrounded was white. I read these books with a longing, a desire, but also a realization of a hidden truth about me. These authors, along with many other artists (of music, visual art, dance, poetry, fiction writing) from all different backgrounds taught me the power of myself and that in the face of my every day loneliness, deep down there was magic.
I was loved by my grandmothers and my aunties, was held in their care. But it was the arts, from the creative spirits, seekers, seers, and black magic women and men that I first heard the call. My ballet teacher gave me the techniques, but when she asked me to feel it, to dance it with passion, I'd close my eyes and trust my magic to lead my body. When Marvin Gaye sang, "What's going on?" I heard something I'd never considered before and heard it like a rush of adrenaline in my veins. I saw Judith Jamison with Alvin Ailey as a girl because she'd to college with my mother and invited us to watch her and meet the dancers. She is a presence to anyone, but to a small girl chasing the muse, she was a giant in every sense of the word. I sat at the knee of any performer on television and closed my eyes listening to orchestration, composition, lyricists who said what my heart believed it was dreaming all on its own.
What I loved as a child was that though I found all of these people beautiful, otherworldly, and "gifted by God" (an expression I heard so often with the church ladies and aunties) they were not all traditionally beautiful; they were more. Their beauty came from another world. They were not charmed as much as possessed. Possessed of spirit, talent, direction, and passion. The light and energy radiated. Navigating the mainstream and the shadow world was done in secret and done every day. I could not articulate the how and the why, I just felt it.
When Maya Angelou passed this week, I was left with a sensation similar to the moments I'd learned of my grandmothers' passings. Maya Angelou I'd come upon quietly. No one handed me a book and told me there were secrets in there. But I'd heard her speak with that deep, knowing drawl resonating and vibrating with the power of a lion's roar but as direct and sharp as a crossbow, as humble and loving as a whisper that tickles the tiny hairs on one's ear, and as sure a voice I'd ever known. I believed her and trusted her. I loved her and everything she brought to me. Everything she promised me just by existing and not surviving, but thriving. She was BLACK. MAGIC. WOMAN. And she told me I was too. I could hardly believe her so she reminded me again and again.
With her passing, the breath was knocked from me and tears fell involuntarily and uncontrollably. I felt strongly that I should absorb her faith in me, in all of the black magic women. Women who need to give themselves permission to do their magic, to try their wares, to release their tethered souls, to soar. By her example and her wisdom and her guidance, there was no way for me to deny the possibilities. I see her dancing to that song, giving in with abandon, being so remarkably human and otherworldly at the same time. Dare I do it too?
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
When I discovered the black, female writers--Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni, Jamaica Kincaid, Maya Angelou--to start, I discovered a world that for me had been just a secret. I heard and saw and read things about myself that I'd never heard or seen. I did not grow up in the company of black folks. Yes, we had family and many close friends, but our community, what surrounded was white. I read these books with a longing, a desire, but also a realization of a hidden truth about me. These authors, along with many other artists (of music, visual art, dance, poetry, fiction writing) from all different backgrounds taught me the power of myself and that in the face of my every day loneliness, deep down there was magic.
I was loved by my grandmothers and my aunties, was held in their care. But it was the arts, from the creative spirits, seekers, seers, and black magic women and men that I first heard the call. My ballet teacher gave me the techniques, but when she asked me to feel it, to dance it with passion, I'd close my eyes and trust my magic to lead my body. When Marvin Gaye sang, "What's going on?" I heard something I'd never considered before and heard it like a rush of adrenaline in my veins. I saw Judith Jamison with Alvin Ailey as a girl because she'd to college with my mother and invited us to watch her and meet the dancers. She is a presence to anyone, but to a small girl chasing the muse, she was a giant in every sense of the word. I sat at the knee of any performer on television and closed my eyes listening to orchestration, composition, lyricists who said what my heart believed it was dreaming all on its own.
What I loved as a child was that though I found all of these people beautiful, otherworldly, and "gifted by God" (an expression I heard so often with the church ladies and aunties) they were not all traditionally beautiful; they were more. Their beauty came from another world. They were not charmed as much as possessed. Possessed of spirit, talent, direction, and passion. The light and energy radiated. Navigating the mainstream and the shadow world was done in secret and done every day. I could not articulate the how and the why, I just felt it.
When Maya Angelou passed this week, I was left with a sensation similar to the moments I'd learned of my grandmothers' passings. Maya Angelou I'd come upon quietly. No one handed me a book and told me there were secrets in there. But I'd heard her speak with that deep, knowing drawl resonating and vibrating with the power of a lion's roar but as direct and sharp as a crossbow, as humble and loving as a whisper that tickles the tiny hairs on one's ear, and as sure a voice I'd ever known. I believed her and trusted her. I loved her and everything she brought to me. Everything she promised me just by existing and not surviving, but thriving. She was BLACK. MAGIC. WOMAN. And she told me I was too. I could hardly believe her so she reminded me again and again.
With her passing, the breath was knocked from me and tears fell involuntarily and uncontrollably. I felt strongly that I should absorb her faith in me, in all of the black magic women. Women who need to give themselves permission to do their magic, to try their wares, to release their tethered souls, to soar. By her example and her wisdom and her guidance, there was no way for me to deny the possibilities. I see her dancing to that song, giving in with abandon, being so remarkably human and otherworldly at the same time. Dare I do it too?
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Father's Day
I have to confess that no matter how hard I've tried to distance myself from some of my dad's behavior, there is no denying it. My mom is as cool as a cucumber, but my dad, all moist-eyed and sensitive, all curious and excitable, all passion and rage and angst and joy, is me. A girlfriend of mine has told me repeatedly to cherish the time with my parents, to celebrate and relish who we are to each other while we can as both of her parents are no longer living. I have listened, though often not heard her because I am all moist-eyed and sensitive, all passion and rage and angst and joy. I am, in so many ways, the Mini to his Me.
He and my mother visited this Father's Day, stayed in our home for the first time (not including Barbados which was not actually ever our home), spent real adult time, played with the girls, went on our errands, meandered through our town, and enjoyed ourselves together. We visited with family friends and I felt adult and grown and proud to be with them. I am not sure if it is my midlife crisis which looks more like actualization than crushing breakdown, my recent interest in meditation and reiki, my return to dance, or the shifting of our collective consciousness, but I have found acceptance of who and what I am and therefore in who and what everyone around me is. I have found the desperate need to hold on to past hurts and wounds to be exhausting and have forgiven them, though more than likely not forgotten them. (I am, after all, a Penn.)
I have spent much of my life recognizing my role as a member of my family and feeling that I was failing miserably. No matter how this thinking came about, I felt overwhelming pressure at being "the daughter of/big sister of/first grandchild of." The burden of carrying on the line of two incredible families, the credits, achievements, and successes of which are extraordinary by any standard, but given that they were done by those poor and black, largely undereducated, during the dark days of our country's history, made them mythic, epic, heroic. I felt like a straight up fraud. Middle class, indulged, allowed my mood swings and artistic tendencies. I didn't have to give up my dreams, whatever they were, in order to put food on the table or a roof over my head. The fight over outright racist and sexist policy was fought on their backs while they were striving for the promised American dream. I had a kind of survivor's guilt because I did not struggle to achieve what was seemingly handed to me, because the racism, sexism, and white privilege that I faced was more subtle, because I had been walked to third base by a family that persevered in getting into the stadium and onto the field. Though I know now that I did not need to apologize for myself, I was then so sorry and ashamed.
Under the weight of that, my father and I would look at each other, mirror to reflection, reflection to mirror and declare, under our breaths, "What?" There was so much expectation, so much want, so much need and no real way to express it. So there was moist-eyed, sensitive, curious, and excitable passion, rage, angst, and joy. I would cower in his presence, hold my breath, not feel safe expressing myself as I did when "away from home." I was miserable to be around, was either pulled in and tense or exploded when provoked(like someone I know), hated family get-togethers because I did not feel like I could be myself, because what I reflected back to Mr. Penn was too much for him to see. It might even still be.
But there are new facets to this diamond. The glittering, fascinating shine of my children. And in my children and how they are being raised and how they behave and love and give, I believe that my dad and I can share something, love something together. We can see that part of each other that loves, that cares, that is all moist-eyed and longing. Like two shy, nervous baby birds we just might dare to fly, helping each other do so but also concentrating on our own flight. As I see him soar, I feel joy. He might not tell me, but he feels the same for me. We have this story to tell, this epic tale in which to contribute. Like that game where one person starts the story and another picks it up where he leaves off and then another picks up and so on and so forth until an incredible tale is told, we are living and weaving our lives.
We are much alike, but not entirely the same. My father wanted to be a journalist but that gig did not pay well enough for a young man who had the obligation to help put his younger siblings through school as his older siblings had done for him. He has something to say but often chooses his words carefully, sparingly, and certainly does not express his feelings or wear his heart on his sleeve. I, on the other hand, did not have that financial responsibility, did not make a choice based on monetary need, cry, laugh, love, freak, and respond to every stimulus, and even when I might keep my mouth shut, cannot do so! I want to say something; I have to, come what may. I respect his choices, his sacrifices, and know that he loves us. I hope, hope, hope that he feels the same for me because this Father's Day, I allowed myself to love him like I did as a girl. With wonder, curiosity, awe, and the first twinkling of autonomy that a toddler shows when she realizes that she and her parents are not indeed the same entity. It was truly a great day to celebrate having and being a father.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
He and my mother visited this Father's Day, stayed in our home for the first time (not including Barbados which was not actually ever our home), spent real adult time, played with the girls, went on our errands, meandered through our town, and enjoyed ourselves together. We visited with family friends and I felt adult and grown and proud to be with them. I am not sure if it is my midlife crisis which looks more like actualization than crushing breakdown, my recent interest in meditation and reiki, my return to dance, or the shifting of our collective consciousness, but I have found acceptance of who and what I am and therefore in who and what everyone around me is. I have found the desperate need to hold on to past hurts and wounds to be exhausting and have forgiven them, though more than likely not forgotten them. (I am, after all, a Penn.)
I have spent much of my life recognizing my role as a member of my family and feeling that I was failing miserably. No matter how this thinking came about, I felt overwhelming pressure at being "the daughter of/big sister of/first grandchild of." The burden of carrying on the line of two incredible families, the credits, achievements, and successes of which are extraordinary by any standard, but given that they were done by those poor and black, largely undereducated, during the dark days of our country's history, made them mythic, epic, heroic. I felt like a straight up fraud. Middle class, indulged, allowed my mood swings and artistic tendencies. I didn't have to give up my dreams, whatever they were, in order to put food on the table or a roof over my head. The fight over outright racist and sexist policy was fought on their backs while they were striving for the promised American dream. I had a kind of survivor's guilt because I did not struggle to achieve what was seemingly handed to me, because the racism, sexism, and white privilege that I faced was more subtle, because I had been walked to third base by a family that persevered in getting into the stadium and onto the field. Though I know now that I did not need to apologize for myself, I was then so sorry and ashamed.
Under the weight of that, my father and I would look at each other, mirror to reflection, reflection to mirror and declare, under our breaths, "What?" There was so much expectation, so much want, so much need and no real way to express it. So there was moist-eyed, sensitive, curious, and excitable passion, rage, angst, and joy. I would cower in his presence, hold my breath, not feel safe expressing myself as I did when "away from home." I was miserable to be around, was either pulled in and tense or exploded when provoked(like someone I know), hated family get-togethers because I did not feel like I could be myself, because what I reflected back to Mr. Penn was too much for him to see. It might even still be.
But there are new facets to this diamond. The glittering, fascinating shine of my children. And in my children and how they are being raised and how they behave and love and give, I believe that my dad and I can share something, love something together. We can see that part of each other that loves, that cares, that is all moist-eyed and longing. Like two shy, nervous baby birds we just might dare to fly, helping each other do so but also concentrating on our own flight. As I see him soar, I feel joy. He might not tell me, but he feels the same for me. We have this story to tell, this epic tale in which to contribute. Like that game where one person starts the story and another picks it up where he leaves off and then another picks up and so on and so forth until an incredible tale is told, we are living and weaving our lives.
We are much alike, but not entirely the same. My father wanted to be a journalist but that gig did not pay well enough for a young man who had the obligation to help put his younger siblings through school as his older siblings had done for him. He has something to say but often chooses his words carefully, sparingly, and certainly does not express his feelings or wear his heart on his sleeve. I, on the other hand, did not have that financial responsibility, did not make a choice based on monetary need, cry, laugh, love, freak, and respond to every stimulus, and even when I might keep my mouth shut, cannot do so! I want to say something; I have to, come what may. I respect his choices, his sacrifices, and know that he loves us. I hope, hope, hope that he feels the same for me because this Father's Day, I allowed myself to love him like I did as a girl. With wonder, curiosity, awe, and the first twinkling of autonomy that a toddler shows when she realizes that she and her parents are not indeed the same entity. It was truly a great day to celebrate having and being a father.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
After Mother's Day
My friend A has been spending Mother's Day alone for the past couple of years. Mother's Day for her, and for many I've heard, is indeed a mother's day. A day to do with it what she will. A went into the city this year, New York City, and did a bit of shopping and visited a museum. I went to the city too on both Saturday and Sunday to visit with my parents, my sister, my brother, and their families. My parents and my sister were staying downtown in Battery Park City at a luxury hotel with gorgeous views of the Statue of Liberty. Both days were wonderful for everyone, truly. No real conflict, no stress, no heartache or heartbreak. When visits with my family are few and far between, a weekend as lovely as the one that passed is a treat.
And yet there is this. On the one day set aside for me, a mother, I was running. Taking the train in the early morning after dressing the girls, doing their hair, making sure they'd eaten enough and had snacks for the ride in, carrying asthma meds, sippy cups, changes of clothes, toys, crayons, and coloring books. Before 8:45 am, I'd done more than most would do all day. My husband, not one for pomp and circumstance, grabbed a rose plant and card on his trip back from Dunkin Donuts, where he snagged Mother's Day sweets for the girls to inspire them to be kind to Mommy and get a move on in the morning. I gave him the words I believed he meant to share and told him that honoring his mother with roses, her favorite flower, was a pleasure and an honor. This is not a lie. I truly loved that woman. She was selfless, giving, feisty, and loving. We gave in the same way. Completely, totally, quietly wishing there were more moments for just us. After she passed, I spoke with an incredible psychic who gave me a moment with dear Paulette that still leaves me breathless.
It seems a shame there is just this one day. Only one? One day to express gratitude for the countless ways the mother of the house holds it down and keeps it running wearing lipstick and cute shit, strutting her stuff and cleaning poop. It's not just the household tasks, the bills, the drop offs, boo boos and play dates. The mother's heart is the pulse of the family, regardless of whether she is home all day or working outside of the home. When she shines there is light everywhere and when she is down the house is less comforting, scarier. Moms know this. I do anyway and I fear a cold heart stealing from my girls' childhoods, even if it is mine, so I give to them, share with them, show them love, love, love. They are too young to show me with more than affection and insanely cute hand-mades. Too young to give me my space, my time, my "room of my own" without someone else to take care of them. They are still little and my presence assures and reassures, that all is right in the world. My smile, my kind words, my listening ear tells them that there is a place in the world for them reserved by their loving mother.
They sat with me, held my hands, kissed my cheeks, and told me how much they loved me. I knew it to be true. Thanked them and counted myself among the blessed. Not just blessed to have children, but to be loved by such wonderful humans. It is intoxicating, heady, chakra spinning, and sometimes exhausting. Sometimes the love I want is quiet. Is a place for just myself. A place for my thoughts, my heart, my dreams, my heartbeat resonating just for me. It is a place where I can rejuvenate so that I can keep doing what I do. On this day, Mother's Day, I never made it to my own room, to my own space.
And like that, Mother's Day was over. We were home in time for me to get those dirty, little birds in the tub, scrub them down, read a story, and have Didier pick up some take out for everyone. After clearing plates and trays, I got the people to brush their teeth, get ready for bed, and pass out. There are photos, proof of what a wonderful weekend it was. I know it was. But I missed the chance to honor myself and after Mother's Day, there are never very many of those. For me.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
And yet there is this. On the one day set aside for me, a mother, I was running. Taking the train in the early morning after dressing the girls, doing their hair, making sure they'd eaten enough and had snacks for the ride in, carrying asthma meds, sippy cups, changes of clothes, toys, crayons, and coloring books. Before 8:45 am, I'd done more than most would do all day. My husband, not one for pomp and circumstance, grabbed a rose plant and card on his trip back from Dunkin Donuts, where he snagged Mother's Day sweets for the girls to inspire them to be kind to Mommy and get a move on in the morning. I gave him the words I believed he meant to share and told him that honoring his mother with roses, her favorite flower, was a pleasure and an honor. This is not a lie. I truly loved that woman. She was selfless, giving, feisty, and loving. We gave in the same way. Completely, totally, quietly wishing there were more moments for just us. After she passed, I spoke with an incredible psychic who gave me a moment with dear Paulette that still leaves me breathless.
It seems a shame there is just this one day. Only one? One day to express gratitude for the countless ways the mother of the house holds it down and keeps it running wearing lipstick and cute shit, strutting her stuff and cleaning poop. It's not just the household tasks, the bills, the drop offs, boo boos and play dates. The mother's heart is the pulse of the family, regardless of whether she is home all day or working outside of the home. When she shines there is light everywhere and when she is down the house is less comforting, scarier. Moms know this. I do anyway and I fear a cold heart stealing from my girls' childhoods, even if it is mine, so I give to them, share with them, show them love, love, love. They are too young to show me with more than affection and insanely cute hand-mades. Too young to give me my space, my time, my "room of my own" without someone else to take care of them. They are still little and my presence assures and reassures, that all is right in the world. My smile, my kind words, my listening ear tells them that there is a place in the world for them reserved by their loving mother.
They sat with me, held my hands, kissed my cheeks, and told me how much they loved me. I knew it to be true. Thanked them and counted myself among the blessed. Not just blessed to have children, but to be loved by such wonderful humans. It is intoxicating, heady, chakra spinning, and sometimes exhausting. Sometimes the love I want is quiet. Is a place for just myself. A place for my thoughts, my heart, my dreams, my heartbeat resonating just for me. It is a place where I can rejuvenate so that I can keep doing what I do. On this day, Mother's Day, I never made it to my own room, to my own space.
And like that, Mother's Day was over. We were home in time for me to get those dirty, little birds in the tub, scrub them down, read a story, and have Didier pick up some take out for everyone. After clearing plates and trays, I got the people to brush their teeth, get ready for bed, and pass out. There are photos, proof of what a wonderful weekend it was. I know it was. But I missed the chance to honor myself and after Mother's Day, there are never very many of those. For me.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
All Apologies
I do my best. I am with my girls alone a lot. Their day to day is primarily, well, entirely, my responsibility. I do my best. But there are certainly times when the stress, my emotions, the weight of it all gets to me and I let it out! That usually comes in the form of screaming and yelling and carrying on and saying stuff crazier than even my parents said when they were yelling at me. Truthfully, I feel terrible about it, especially when swear words come into play. My people know that Mommy says bad words and rather than copy me, they are trying to reform me. It takes a village, you know, to raise up everyone.
I hate it though. When I have come to my wit's end and I unleash. I hate seeing them looking at me, hoping, wondering, willing me to be better, and I am petty and tired and frustrated and mean. The difference though, between my experience and theirs is the apology. After every outburst, every lashing, every moment when I know there is a better way to handle things, we talk about it. We talk about my feelings and theirs. We talk about what made Mommy get to the crazy, especially when the crazy is not at all their fault but the fault of my being tired and overwhelmed and shocked as shit that I have woken up as the person in charge and I really just want to chill out for a second. They are learning, at the same time as I am, how to deal with their emotions and the emotions of others, how to listen, how to laugh, how to rage, how to respect, and how to love.
I never quite understood as a girl or teen or young adult or older one that one can have the full range of emotions, truly, and still be cared for, still be loved, still have a place in a family or group. I have tried to present, to represent, rather than just be myself. I do not want this for my children. I do not need them to be proper, young ladies at the expense of themselves. Of course I do not want them to be cruel or selfish, but I want them to be themselves fully, to accept and feel and express their full range of emotions. So when I laugh, I laugh hard. And when I cry, the tears are hot and if I am not hysterical, visible. And when I am angry or frustrated or frightened or at my end, I tell them,. I show them. And I apologize when I hurt them in anger, when I am make them feel small, when I take them down with me when anxiety controls my head and heart.
I feel like I am apologizing all the time. So often that I sit up at night and hope that they will come through it alright. That they will know that their mother loves them more than anything she ever had or has since they came. I tell them how I am learning this as I go, that we are all learning and often confused and sometimes selfish and once in a while irrational, but that we all come back to this. That we love each other, live to make each other happy, support each other on this journey, and are able to say we are sorry when we break the promise to love and respect each other. Saying sorry is one of the hardest things, I have found, for children to learn to say truthfully, not just mouthing the words, not just repeating what adults ask them to say, but meaning in their hearts. It is also hard for adults. There are many apologies I deserved and did not receive. I still feel the sting of not hearing those words following particularly cruel assaults and emotional betrayals. The girls will hear them from me. They will know that I am trying, that I tried, and that I have honored our pact to love, respect, and support each other on the journey.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
I hate it though. When I have come to my wit's end and I unleash. I hate seeing them looking at me, hoping, wondering, willing me to be better, and I am petty and tired and frustrated and mean. The difference though, between my experience and theirs is the apology. After every outburst, every lashing, every moment when I know there is a better way to handle things, we talk about it. We talk about my feelings and theirs. We talk about what made Mommy get to the crazy, especially when the crazy is not at all their fault but the fault of my being tired and overwhelmed and shocked as shit that I have woken up as the person in charge and I really just want to chill out for a second. They are learning, at the same time as I am, how to deal with their emotions and the emotions of others, how to listen, how to laugh, how to rage, how to respect, and how to love.
I never quite understood as a girl or teen or young adult or older one that one can have the full range of emotions, truly, and still be cared for, still be loved, still have a place in a family or group. I have tried to present, to represent, rather than just be myself. I do not want this for my children. I do not need them to be proper, young ladies at the expense of themselves. Of course I do not want them to be cruel or selfish, but I want them to be themselves fully, to accept and feel and express their full range of emotions. So when I laugh, I laugh hard. And when I cry, the tears are hot and if I am not hysterical, visible. And when I am angry or frustrated or frightened or at my end, I tell them,. I show them. And I apologize when I hurt them in anger, when I am make them feel small, when I take them down with me when anxiety controls my head and heart.
I feel like I am apologizing all the time. So often that I sit up at night and hope that they will come through it alright. That they will know that their mother loves them more than anything she ever had or has since they came. I tell them how I am learning this as I go, that we are all learning and often confused and sometimes selfish and once in a while irrational, but that we all come back to this. That we love each other, live to make each other happy, support each other on this journey, and are able to say we are sorry when we break the promise to love and respect each other. Saying sorry is one of the hardest things, I have found, for children to learn to say truthfully, not just mouthing the words, not just repeating what adults ask them to say, but meaning in their hearts. It is also hard for adults. There are many apologies I deserved and did not receive. I still feel the sting of not hearing those words following particularly cruel assaults and emotional betrayals. The girls will hear them from me. They will know that I am trying, that I tried, and that I have honored our pact to love, respect, and support each other on the journey.
(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.
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