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Yesterday, on our quest for new furniture for the as yet unmoved into home, we spent six hours in IKEA. Six hours! I don't know if any two adults could handle that level of shopping, design, home furnishing intensity, but I do know that two little girls reach their breaking points at about the two hour mark. And that is including a stop for lunch looking out the window watching airplanes land at Newark International Airport and a 1/2 trip to the Ballroom which is basically a huge ball pit for kids over a certain height to run around and get their cooped up-in a shopping cart-in a building with no clocks and no air, rage on. Lily had a phenomenal time while Virginie played in the too-small-for-balls section across the aisle. Didier took off for the bathrooms and to peruse the beds for a few minutes which expanded into a lost parent/partner trip to Customer Service followed by an intense stand off in the Express to Exit section. The start of the breakdown began there.
Never have I shown Lily or Virginie the fear or the anger they saw in me that afternoon. Lily, the eldest and really more sensitive of the two, was in tears. I could almost not bear her face. I'd been scared and upset and hurt but so wish I could take back that moment when she saw me walk away, even though I just went to catch my breath. This tail end of our two year journey into ourselves just took its toll and I hope to God that it has strengthened and not broken us.
I wrapped Lily's birthday present, a Strawberry Shortcake Clubhouse with movable parts, and Virginie's consolation prize, Plum Pudding and Lemon Meringue getting ready for some kind of camping trip with fruity sleeping bags, at midnight in some Christmas paper I'd found in the home of a friend who's allowed us to stay in her home while she and her family are on vacation. I didn't want her to feel the burden of this experience, to remember what I think is a momentous occasion, as a troubling time. Yes, I have been slowly leaning towards having a mental breakdown, but it sure as hell was not going to happen on her birthday. My cousin and two very good friends and their families came to join us for some pizza and cake tonight where Lily laughed and played, opened gifts and got to blow out candles shaped like stars and hearts and crowns and castles. She called all of the friends who visited her "best friend" and told me that she had a wonderful time. I did offer a tea party some time in September for her to get to know some of her new playmates in town as a kind of extended, expanded birthday and will definitely hold up my end of the deal if she'd like it.
This afternoon, sitting on a swing in the playground near the house we will soon call home, I thought, I really like this place. Didier too felt we'd made a good choice after giving up on New York City and New York, further upstate. Sometime here just feels right. Watching Lily and Virginie running around together, going down the slide, sometimes stopping to hold hands or lead one another to unexplored parts of the park, I hoped that this, this change, this move, the dare could be a birthday gift of sorts to one of the girls who has my heart. And that my heart, my unacknowledged broken heart, would heal here. There are fences that need to be mended, promises that need to be kept, dreams that need to be followed. It was a move we had to make as a family, to come back to us, to get back to the business of living and loving more easily. Lily loves the house, the park, the playground. She is optimistic. I can see it in her face each morning. I am hopeful, I want to say optimistic, but I am still unsure.
What I know for certain is that I love my family. I love my girls and...my husband. I do, I do, I do. And our consolation prize is this beautiful, idyllic town, a chance to start new, a promise to seek out our dreams and not be trapped in mindless, heartless, soul-less work, no matter how many tell us "that's what adults do." As Lily turned five, she made a wish and blew out her candles. I would never tell her to wish for the middle, so how dare we tell ourselves.
Happy Birthday, dear Lily Frances Grace. I will tell you every day to choose what's best for you, follow your heart and your instincts, your dreams. To face your fears. To never give in. Watch Mommy and see what all that can do to you.
(c) Copyright 2011. City Mom in the Jungle.
One of the things I missed most living in Barbados was culture. This is subjective, some might say that I was surrounded by Caribbean culture whilst living there, but what I longed for were museums, curated exhibitions, galleries of painting, sculpture, media, theatre, music, concerts and surprises found on line or through friends or journals, little bars and cafes. I wanted magazines, books, writing. I would read in magazines either lugged in from the States from visiting friends or purchased at a mark up that would make your wallet explode, about exhibitions, books, TV programs, news articles, whatever connected me to the world and just dream.
When I read about the exhibition, Savage Beauty: Alexander McQueen, a collection of clothes, archives, collection videos, accessories of the talented designer, I knew that I could not miss this one. With the Met just a short walk from my former address, I could taste it. A little background. I'd often thought, as a girl, that I would be a designer. I loved clothes, breathed them. Bought fashion magazines at twelve, before all the twelve year olds of the world were doing so, and dreamt of the clothes I could create. I loved the artistry, as I'd loved all art then, and was especially drawn to the expressiveness of a collar, cut of a garment as it clung to the figure or gently caressed it, making the wearer even more than when naked. It was the 80s and there was color and androgyny, accessories and shoes. There was athleticism and energy and newly adored bodies hitting the gym looking for something to showcase themselves. I could feel the change in my stride, in my mood when I wore different clothes and I loved that feeling.
In the game or dance of limbo, participants try to shimmy their way under a pole that drops lower and lower and lower until it is almost on the ground. It is mesmerizing to watch as regular people contort, twist, and bend to the depths that bar takes them. The metaphor is so obvious. In the Catholic tradition, limbo, from the Latin limbus, meaning edge or boundary, presumably of Hell, is the place where souls wait in the afterlife in original sin (occurring in all of us due to the Fall of Man) but not having been assigned to Hell of the Damned. The limbo dance has its origins in the contra dancing of Trinidad and the word itself is a derivative of limber in West Indian English. The movements, similar to that of the African legba or legua dance (after the god of fate, chance, opportunities, and crossroads of Afro-Caribbean lore) reflect "the whole cycle of life" according to some African beliefs.
And so we find ourselves as we wait for a decision, are we in the house? Did we get it? Have we been approved? We are in limbo, not just in trying to figure out where we are going to live, but once we find a place, we will still be living in a hotel on the edge of New York City for two weeks while we wait until an August 1st move in. It's a strange place to be. We are not on vacation. Not on a business trip. Not in a home. We won't even live in the town where the hotel is, when all is said and done.
With my aching back, brought on by the children, both carrying them in pregnancy and then carting them around on my hip even now, bending like the willow and not breaking like a twig, is pretty tough for me. And with my contorted sense of self, just going with the flow and letting go and letting God, though I know the only way to weather life's changes, opportunities, crossroads is close to impossible. But each morning I get up and ask myself how we are going to do it and try to do it with a smile. Try to bend backwards and let life open to us and show us surprises.
The girls, missing a pool, swam in the bathtub with their suits on. They have built snow forts out of the pillows from the two beds in the suite. We have gone into the city and walked in our old neighborhood. Two years has not changed it much except for a few businesses that we feared wouldn't make it and didn't. On our way to a walk through Central Park to go to the MET(to see Savage Beauty, the sure to be thrilling and haunting exhibition at the Costume Institute of Alexander McQueen's work), Didier and I realized that that was more than likely not the right choice for us. We were travelling with two little people and where on the Upper West Side should we take these two little creatures while we waited for life to settle? The Children's Museum of Manhattan, of course! And it was a blast! The girls ran all over the place with their aged parents in tow. Lily spent nearly every single day there as a two year old when we lived right around the corner during the months that play in the park was too cold, too windy, too rainy, or too snowy. Watching Virginie make her way through the Dora floor, the Curious George exhibit, fingerpaint, feed the letter dragon, I saw we'd really come back.
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.
