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It has come to this, but I will be back. When we arrived in the States on June 29th after moving first from our home to a condo in the St. Lawrence Gap to the Hilton Barbados and then finally to my parents' home in Florida, it was my intention to keep up writing. Writing this blog, short stories, poems, anything really, changed my life and gave me purpose and a light at the end of an extraordinarily dark tunnel. I need it maybe even more today than I did when I first started it in May 2010, but just cannot commit to it consistently while we prepare for our future here in the States. I am overwhelmed.
I want to write something meaningful, something funny, something irreverent to put a smile on your face as you read this, but in truth, I am sitting in the mucky muck. There are too many loose ends that need my attention and all I can think about is getting us to a place of peace. I'll be back soon. I hope you will wait for me.
(c) Copyright 2011. City Mom in the Jungle.
And so we have arrived in the States. The last days passed so quickly it wasn't even like we were on vacation and it certainly wasn't as though we still lived in Barbados. Life was strange and surreal and transitory. Didier and I were talking last night and both have come to the same conclusion, though we are not sure why, Barbados seems like a dream, an hallucination. I cannot say that I see our departure as freedom as we were not really trapped, but I have found myself coming to the surface for air as if I have been underwater for a long time. We do not dream of our home in Barbados, do not pine even for the beaches. Maybe we are in a state of shock. Maybe the longing, the nostalgia, the warm and fuzzies will come later. But for now, we are gone. And yet we aren't really here either.
Living at my parents' home while we get our bearings, I feel like I am in a halfway house, debilitated by mental and emotional crises, unable to fully express myself, to feel, to cry, to scream. There is anxiety and stress. Sometimes I cannot really breathe. Deep in my heart I know we are on the road to the next chapter in our lives, that it will enrich the experiences of this rag tag clan we have created, but in the real present moment, as I live and breathe, I am not so sure. We are distracting ourselves and the girls with all the food and wine and fresh air we'd been denied for two years in Barbados. We are on an all you can eat and drink that makes us feel like we are putting on a pound a day. I know most people envision island living as full of fresh food, fruits, fish, vegetables. But Barbados produces nothing but rum, a little sugar, and sunburnt English tourists. Food was expensive and often what I'd craved wasn't even available. Since our return we've eaten crab legs, French cheeses, good baguette (not made by my husband), cupcakes, ribs, gorgeous Polish sausages, homemade Mediterranean food from the fresh market, farm grown veggies that do not cost as much as first month's rent. We've had champagne, wine, cordials, nuts, gelato, sushi at a reasonable price (and incredibly delicious), pretty much everything we can get our hands on.
Virginie, who appeared to be on the verge of asthmatic, is breathing easier. The girls are having a great time with my parents and sister, as well as their older cousin, though they do find the water too cold. We arrived half a week before Independence Day and though I have often enjoyed a barbecue and fireworks, afternoon beach or pool time with family or friends on many a 4th of July, this year was different. Being here for this particular holiday felt like home, like a reminder of going down South to see my family as a kid, knowing that in my blood I am tied to this place, that my spirit is tethered, no matter where I go, to a place where my ancestors lived and died no matter how excluded, outside, marginalized we've been, this is the only place that is home.
I never really considered what it meant to be an American until I found myself living abroad with very few Americans in the mix. I spent much of my time with Barbadians, English, and a few Canadians. I am always open to new perspectives, it is one of the true joys of life, but there is nothing like a common language, unwritten even, that I didn't know I had until I was alone. A language that includes sitcom references, songs, TV shows, minor celebrities and other trainwrecks, a self depreciating humor about how Americans see themselves and how the rest of the world sees us (and trust me, there are plenty of potshots). I stepped outside of my comfort zone even though I'd always felt disconnected and uncomfortable while living in the States. I was always sure that I belonged somewhere else.
When we leave Florida, we are heading to New Jersey, not to the town where I grew up, but JERSEY. After a lifetime of believing I was a New Yorker first and foremost, of thinking I could shake the Jersey Girl, I realized that my children might not be and might need more space than we could provide in glorious Manhattan. They are children of the world. If we are lucky they will travel, visit friends and family all over the world, learn languages, open their hearts to the world. For now, they will discover the United States, recognize the flag which right now just seems cool because it has so many stars, learn the holidays of this country, connect to their American roots, go down South, be with our relatives while we continue our adventures and strengthen our bond as a family. I don't ever profess to know what is coming and I am wise enough not to even try to guess. We had a choice, choose a life where transition was inevitable, new places, new adventures, new people, and let the world open to us or not. This path is curvy, crazy cuckoo nuts, but it is ours and we are doing it together.
(c) Copyright 2011. City Mom in the Jungle.
Two years ago today, an almost three year old Lily and a two month old Virginie and I moved from our apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in preparation for joining Didier in Barbados. We knew it would be a few weeks, never prepared for the nearly two months of separation that it would actually become, and had no idea what would be in store for us once we arrived. Memories of that day are fleeting as they morph and merge with flashbacks, dreams, next dimensional impressions that have clouded the actual events, but I do know that a moving company with six strapping young Eastern bloc gents arrived at the crack of dawn and got to tearing that apartment down like termites on a piece of sweet wood. Lily was off with her sitter, Liza for an extended mix of classic NY toddler time, Children's Museum of Manhattan, Central Park playground, pizza spot in her Peg Perrego, and Virginie, still a wiggly worm, was worn around my neck in the Baby Bjorn while I attempted to give directions with little success. These dudes knew what they were doing and this sweaty, postpartum baby carrier was not telling them anything they did not already know. My mother was there too, wandering about, watching, waiting for me to tell her what to do. We went to Le Pain Quotidien across the street for a little brunch and to get out of the way. Virginie was still a baby necklace.
The apartment was small, though pretty big by Manhattan standards, and had so many nooks and crannies to store things, bookshelves, drawers, cabinets, that these poor guys found themselves immediately swamped. They called in reinforcements and still had to reschedule their moves for the rest of the day as this little apartment was taking over. Move day was unseasonably hot, after days of cool weather and rain, so what was meant to be a half day job and then an afternoon at the Lucerne Hotel turned into a boiling hot, panicky race to the end. I remember standing on the street in my MBTs, a pair of harem pants, grey tshirt and Virginie swinging from my chest and catching my reflection in the glass pane of my soon to be former front door and wondering, "Who is this crazy bitch and where does she think she's going?"
Well, it turns out, she had no idea. In the haze of that afternoon, it was announced that Farah Fawcett had passed away that morning. Though that may seem insignificant to a late-thirtysomething black woman standing on the street in harem pants, the truth is that Farah Fawcett was my touchstone as a young girl watching way too much television. I was terrified of dying, morbidly attached to the subject, and only found comfort in the fact that should I die, when I did, Farah Fawcett would be there and I would be able to talk to her. Now she actually was dead and I felt time just stop for me as I knew for sure she'd made it there. I mourned for her and for her struggle which I'd seen well documented in a video memoir and then got back into the business of changing my life.
Once out of that apartment, I knew I was well on my way to becoming an American living abroad. Just had to get through that little stretch of living with my parents and my two children at their house in Florida in the house that is their house and not mine and never was because I grew up in New Jersey. In the house where I would stay in a guestroom with my two children, a toddler and newborn, without my husband or any family or friends close by and where I would contemplate my place, a place, any place, in the world for me after two glorious years in that small but kind of big apartment in the city that loved me that was ours. Everything was changing and spinning. I want to say I was excited, but I was postpartum, nursing every thirty minutes or so it seemed, fifteen plus pounds overweight, hot, scared, lonely, feeling unsupported, and slightly out of control. The call from my sister was a welcomed respite from the insanity.
Until she told me that Michael Jackson had been rushed to the hospital and was unresponsive and that she thought he was going to die. Michael Jackson? With Michael Jackson, one did not even have to be a fan. He was ubiquitous. He was in the air, floating through the ether. Even when you thought you didn't really like him, you did. Something would catch and you would remember a time when everyone loved Michael Jackson, before Crazy Town and the kids sleeping over. When it was just the music and that stuff was damned catchy. It has to be good to hook you like that. And suddenly, sending a prayer for Michael Jackson, begging him to live, to hang on, was all I could do. I needed him to survive in a way that didn't even make sense to me. I needed him to survive because if Michael Jackson couldn't get through whatever it was he was going through, how the heck was I going to.
And he didn't. Sitting in the Lucerne Hotel, in a queen sized bed with my two children curled up next to me, with my mother in her queen right next to us, eating dinner and having a beer (for the letdown, you see) I stared in utter disbelief as it was stated, shouted, tossed in my face repeatedly. The King of Pop is dead. Over. Gone. The next morning we took a town car to the airport, my two girls, my mother, and myself. The cab driver and I, an immigrant from West Africa, talked about how Michael Jackson and his reach across the globe, changed our lives. Passing familiar streets out of the city to the airport, "You are not alone" played on the radio and I cried and cried and cried. Not just for Michael Jackson, but for all of the memories, relationships, stumbles, and triumphs I'd had in that city. I cried because I was leaving and I had no idea where I was going. I cried because Michael Jackson sang, "You are not alone, I am here with you," and I had never felt lonelier than in that moment. I was heading into the unknown. I was doing it all alone. I was leading my children there and I had no idea what I was doing. Two years ago today.
RIP Michael Jackson.
(c) Copyright 2011. City Mom in the Jungle.
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As parents, we want to create a safe place for our children, no matter where we live or where we are, a place inside of them that reminds them that they are loved, honored, and cared for. They are little kids, under five, though Lily will turn five at the end of July, and I get all kinds of advice and info from well meaning individuals about the resilience of children and how these experiences will make them great. Well, I do believe all that to be true. I am thankful that Lily and even Virginie, have an international perspective from living abroad and from being the product of a bi-cultural union, but the other reality, the unspoken part, is that we give a damn enough to put their feelings, their fears, their perspective, if not first then at least on the table. I care that Lily gets to finish the school year with her classmates, that she sees that saying goodbye and accepting change are difficult but also important parts of the human experience. I want her to know that I too am afraid but that it certainly is not her fault and that she does not need to take on my insecurity.
So I am insecure as hell about our future and a little scared, but other than picking up on small clues, she is not going to get the freak out/alienation from me. I think that that is one of the hardest things about parenting, about leading and teaching a small child to feel secure and safe. Just because I am worried, scared, confused, does not mean that I need to put that burden on my children. In these tense scary moments, one can be withholding, because of fear, or one can try, against it all, to show love, love, love and compassion. Lily knows we are moving, is even adjusting to it quite well. She is kissed and hugged and reassured every day with storytime, visits to the beach and locales not yet visited and tried and true spots. The other afternoon we walked through the St. Lawrence Gap, just Lily and me, holding hands and talking about our interests and our desires, and I felt her ease. I did too.
In all of us there is a tiny place, right at the solar plexus, where we know ourselves and one can hope that in there are stores of feelings of love, adequacy, concern, respect, connection, community, family. It is a place reserved, set aside, saved for a tiny soul by its welcoming parents, where one can return when the world is upside down and chaos seems to reign. That place is beautiful and warm and secure. That, THAT is our job. We must show our children that place or each and every transition in life will be fraught with tension, confusion, fear. I must give them the tools to trust their instincts, but also to know and believe that their father and I are completely in their corner.
The girls made Father's Day cards for Didier and drew pictures of him holding their hands. We took him for brunch at a restaurant called Tapas, right on the coast, and we sat looking out at the turquoise blue sea. He got to sleep in until 7:30, which is like noon in our house. The day before, we visited the Graeme Hall Sanctuary, a gorgeous spread of land with a pond of monster carp, monkeys running about, and flamingos and ibis preening in the sun. It, like so much in Barbados, is locked in a political battle between its owner and the government of Barbados that doesn't want to fund the project, but would rather free up the land to build more condos and expensive properties for no one to live in. It's a real shame and a tragedy, the place is a thing of beauty. It provides peace and sanctuary, hence its name. We can only hope that we do the same for our children. Provide them with peace and sanctuary when life is crazy, when there is joy to celebrate, when there is love to share, when there is something to overcome.
If you did it, are doing it, if you have made the difference, HAPPY FATHER'S DAY. If you think you might do more, try a bit harder, make amends, make it right, HAPPY FATHER'S DAY. If you get it, if you see, if you know that your love makes a difference for the rest of that child's life, HAPPY FATHER'S DAY. And if you just couldn't step up, didn't do it, you still have time to be one of the greats. Show up for the next Father's Day.
(c) Copyright 2011. City Mom in the Jungle.
Today is our very last day in our home on the West Coast of Barbados. 5 Queen's Fort was ours for two years and try as I might to minimize its impact, its importance, this place was quite special for us all. Last night, with boxes all around, only the girls' room relatively in tact, we slept here for the last night. The power went out, which was fitting, as that often happens in Barbados and I was in bed with the girls, also happens. Every night. The humming of the ceiling fan gave way to the sounds of the night--toads, crickets, scurrying yucky things, and then it got hot. Hot enough for me to remove the sheets, but not so hot that I was sweating. There was no sweat on the noses of the girlies, but they did wriggle out of their covers and away from the warmth of my body.
I woke up first this morning, with no alarm. I had the last day blues, no matter that I have dreamed of this moment for months and months. This house was way too hot. It was not particularly elegant. I hated the finish of the walls and the do-it-yourself quality of most of the accessories. But it was our house. The first house for the Penn-Virot clan. And in this house, Lily had a long hallway to walk down on her way to the TV or our bedroom after waking up. In this house, Virginie stood up at eight and 1/2 months and then walked at ten. We looked out the windows at screeching monkeys, playing monkeys, cheeky monkeys stealing mangoes. We ran inside when the rain was too much and snuggled up in the guest room to watch videos when we wanted a change. We never did make it to the guesthouse for a night, but we did spend some afternoons watching the garden from a new perspective.
The pool, with its fence lovingly and tirelessly put up by a caring Didier looked peaceful this morning, super clean after a new pump was put in for the next guests. The water looked refreshing, though I know it to be nearing 80 degrees. Even the monkeys peeking at me through the windows of the guesthouse seem to know something is changing. They just watched in disbelief.
The goldfish died. This afternoon, right before the packers took their break. She didn't want to leave the house. It was the only place, other than the fish tank at Brighton Market, that she ever knew. Didier tossed her, lovingly of course, on the burial site of Salty the cat whom we also loved endlessly, along with his sister Sweety. We had our first pets here. Myself included. I'd never done cat food, worm meds, petting at my own house. I was a pet owner here.
I am writing from the guesthouse, where Virginie is hopefully finishing up her nap, as the packers and movers go to it. I doubted them. I admit it. From all of my experience in Barbados, there would never be a team who could get the place packed up as I liked, but they seem to be handling it over there. We will go and check soon as I do not like to leave people with my things too long without seeing what the heck they are doing! I managed to let go in New York on the way here and have taken to it here as well. We are moving. Today. And change starts right now. Behind us will be Barbados and in Barbados, 5 Queen's Fort, our home, our house for the last two years. Lily and Virginie will have fleeting memories of this place and I hope in their dreams they see corners, secret hiding places from this house, the place where they discovered themselves and we discovered that we were a family.
Though we are off to a condo for the next ten days and then to a hotel for a final staycation/vacation, we are already leaving a part of Barbados behind because we are moving out of our home. Onward...
(c) Copyright 2011. City Mom in the Jungle.
It's no secret that I plotted and schemed for almost two years to find a way off the island of Barbados. Even in the moments that I allowed myself to fall in love, and there were many, with this island and some of its inhabitants, I knew that this just was not and could not be our final destination. I was reminded by friends and family that this place was merely a stepping stone in the path I would trod with my family and that I should do my best to embrace every experience made available to me and I did. Finally. Still eager to find a home for us, I gave in to the rhythm, the pace, the pulse of Barbados and let myself open to this casual lifestyle and, more importantly, to the friends who were willing and able to love me and let me in.
What has come as a complete shock and surprise, though it probably should not have, is how hard Lily is taking the news. And when I say hard I mean, falling to the floor in tears, screaming, begging, pleading with us to keep our house here and let her stay, please let her stay, with her friends and at her school. Shouting, "I never, ever, ever want to leave Barbados! I don't want to live in another country! I want to stay here! Please do not make me leave Barbados!" Her tiny body shakes with each breath, every sigh of resignation met with a howl of heartbreak, tears don't streak her face, but turn it into a watercolor painting with swirls and smears, and wet curls on the fringe. She stops only to breathe and then comes back again. "I don't want my friends to lose me! How will they ever find me again? I don't want to leave my school. Please do not make me leave them. I want to stay. I want to stay. I want to stay."
