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In 1986 when George Michael realized that he wanted to head in a more adult contemporary direction, he and his bandmate Andrew Ridgeley embarked on the Final-Edge of Heaven Tour. It was a fitting goodbye to their fans and an introduction for fans of George Michael, who always knew he was the stronger partner, to see where he was headed. I imagine the split was bittersweet. Old friends, world-weary travelers, a partnership forged with trust, commitment, love.
I have never been good at saying goodbye. I think it is why it has taken me nearly three weeks to write this blog entry. City Mom in the Jungle began as a way for me to cope, to make sense of what was happening in my life, as my family relocated from Manhattan to the Caribbean nation of Barbados. I started it a year too late, more than likely because I was stunned, shocked, absolutely frozen by fear and heartbreak. The early days in Barbados were like a horror show with each scene peeling back to reveal another dark corner. It seemed to never end. The sun was hot and bright, the waters turquoise and warm. There were palm trees and mangoes, monkeys, and incredibly lush vegetation. It was so humid that it felt like breathing in cotton balls. The newborn baby cooing/screaming in front of me, and the pre-schooler desperate for my attention and reassurance were greeted by a post-partum depressed wax figure. And by wax figure I mean, melty candle like the Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark, not Stepford wife. It wasn't that there wasn't anything to love about this place, surely anyone who chooses Barbados for a luxury vacation will find plenty to rave and postcard home about.
It is hard being new. The new kid on the block. New kid in town. First day on the job. First attempt, try, push in the right direction. Because we just don't know what's coming next, all those firsts are fraught with anxiety and devil voices in the head warning of utter failure and complete humiliation. Whilst protecting Lily from her little nerves, I had seemed to have forgotten that I too would be going out on a limb, sitting in judgment, more than likely being judged by myself and some other cows, and that I do not take too well to the piercing glare of the jury. But I didn't feel like running home to write about it. This, is everyday life. This is suburbia. There are so many wonderful bloggers and writers who have captured this sense of inertia on the outskirts of city life. All the complaints, issues, and concerns, extreme shopping and Pilates as sport, soccer/hockey/gymnastics/art classes/afterschool activities chaffeuring around has been mentioned ad nauseum and I realized that I had nothing to add. At least nothing that felt fresh in this forum.
I am officially a suburbanite. Again. Having grown up in the suburbs of New Jersey, just further south, I swore I'd never find myself here again. The fish bowl is too small and I have always felt more comfortable as a small fish in a big pond. Always more room for roaming and roving without anyone paying too much attention. But this time, I have come for my kids, so that they can have a great public school, afterschool activities, sport, community libraries, space to move about. I will not be able to remain anonymous, hide in the shadows, live a life without too much contact. I will have to share myself, share us, as we become part of the community. I will drive the girls to school, soccer games, gymnastics or ballet?, go to Target and Costco and Whole Foods and focus primarily on family life. Focus on the life of my family and make preparations for our second act.
So I am no longer a city mom and I no longer reside in the jungle. I am back where I started, so to speak, except with a wealth of achievement (if not financial wealth), accomplishment, strength, perseverance, and endurance that only my years abroad could have shown me. And I am warmed by the love I have felt on these pages, with comments, well-wishes, cheers, and hope for me and my little family as we wound our way out of the jungle and onto safer ground. I made so many friends on the way and lost a few too. People who definitely did not want to come with me on the quest, did not want to deal with the questions, the longing, the pain. I learned to trust myself and spoke honestly about what I was experiencing and discovered that open communication is my preferred style. I don't like charades or guessing games or innuendo. I would rather know up front where someone stands with me and I with them than do that dance. I want to find the shortest direction from points A to B in that instance, so I have time to journey and travel where it is actually exciting.
This was an incredible journey, one I will more than likely, never forget. But as I have reached the Edge of Heaven, there is little point in belaboring my story. This particular journey, that of the City Mom in the Jungle, has come to an end, and in its place, wide open road. I have learned that I suck at travel. I am no adventurer, no camper, no "let it fly" type of gal. I don't like wild animals, closed-hearted people, bullshit, dishonesty, or extreme temperatures. I love the sea, but didn't every day. I love the sunsets and pink, purple, and yellow skylines, but also missed the stark white of winter, the cold that rattles one's soul and provokes thought, debate, desire for warmth and connection and summer climes. I needed seasons and contrasts, excitement, and release and I needed love. In the end, isn't that what we all need?
I made apologies for not being able to thrive in Barbados. Felt like a failure for not being able to juggle my children, my husband, my loneliness, the new experiences there, the longing for the past, longing for home, and the monotony of home maintenance in a bloody hot climate. I am not sorry, not for that. I regret having refused to ask for help from the people who waited with open arms to love me and guide me. I will feel equal horror if I have not learned this lesson and continue on the path alone while back in the States. For what made me continue the stories on the City Mom in the Jungle long after the monkeys and the mangoes and the crazy driving and the heat, beyond the tropical storm and torrential downpours, skin peeling sunstroke, and wicked waves, inebriated expats and unfriendly locals, was sharing the story of being a mom. All the razzle dazzle and jazz hands might look different and certainly some circumstances can only be found on an island, in the mountains, in the suburbs, in a kibbutz, who knows. In the end, this was the start of a journey for a mom who was once a cool chick who got lost and worked damned hard to find herself again.
Thank you so for coming with me. Thank you for writing to me and sharing your thoughts. Thank you for loving my family and living our experience, even when it wasn't all island breeze and cocktails. That is life and I have shared just a little piece of it with you. I will continue to write, not sure if I can keep up the vigor and stamina of a blog here in the suburbs, but writing is now one of the things that I allow to define me. That I use to open my heart to the world and share. The City Mom has taken the train out to the 'burbs and is sipping tea in her office, looking out the window at the squirrels getting wicked in the trees.
What is it with those squirrels?
You take me to the edge of heaven
Tell me that my soul's forgiven
Hide your baby's eyes and we can...
You take me to the edge of heaven
One last time might be forever
Please don't tell me lies
It's just a matter of time before my heart is
Looking for a home (c)
Thank you.
(c) Copyright 1986. Wham, Songs from the Edge of Heaven
(c) Copyright 2011. City Mom in the Jungle.
It's not just the spiritual or existential crises that can get you down, move you to tears, or to action. Last night, the littlest one, dancing and swirling in a costume much too big for her, tripped over her feet and fell backwards like a plank onto the floor, hitting her head and knocking herself out. This is what I was able to surmise by talking to Lily, looking around the scene of the crime, and piecing it all together, as I had been in the kitchen cooking dinner and singing to myself, happy that we had made it back to the States, found a place to live, a good school for Lily, where she would start tomorrow, and that we were on target to get to bed on time. Even after sidewalk chalk and hopscotch at the front of the house.
And then, THUD. I check every thud. I am that mom. And glad I did, because I arrived to find Virginie in a pink ballet costume lying completely still on the floor, lids half opened, eyes glassy and no rise in her chest. As in not breathing on the floor. In a panic I grabbed her, turned off the television, started calling to her, "Virginie! Virginie! Look at Mommy!" and she just rolled her eyes into the back of her head and fluttered her eyelashes. Now past the edge of hysteria I was crying and dialing my sister. Right, not 911. I don't know why. The conversation was brief. I told her that Virginie seemed completely out of it, unconscious. She said call 911. I hung up and called.
The paramedics, firemen, and police officers arrived as I was filling the husband in on the goings-on over the phone. He'd had to ask me three times to slow down as I was barely coherent and talk fast anyway, but this was just gibberish. He heard the male voices in the house and wondered what the heck was going on over here until I was able to speak clearly. The officers turned off the food on the stove that I had immediately forgotten about and sat with me, examining Virginie who had since come to and was screaming like a banshee. Lily was crying and worried that (1) we were going to have to go the hospital in an ambulance and (2) we would be turning off the television and would not see how the Backyardigans episode ended. Honestly, I am not sure in which order her concerns ranked.
Virginie's eyes were checked as was her pulse, her heartbeat, her blood pressure, which made her giggle and remark to her examiner, "You squeezed me. That tickles." I declined a trip to the hospital in the back of the ambulance waiting in front of the house, but confirmed that I would monitor her every few hours and call right away if she vomited, looked or acted lethargic or different that usual, or passed out. And just like that, they were gone. We had chicken fingers and broccoli for dinner with popsicles for dessert. I finished putting Lily's clothes out for the first day of school, bathed them, and tucked them into bed. When the husband came home from work, having been reassured via text that all was well, I fell into his chest heaving and sobbing. I had been scared to death, beside myself, but didn't want the girls to see my fear. Just once Lily asked, "Why do you have that sad face?" And I responded, "Because I knew Virginie was hurt and I didn't know what to do to help her. I love you and Virginie more than anything in the world and I was afraid."
She stared at me blinking, blinking, as if realizing all the truth in that statement for the first time. "You love us." I do.
Virginie is fine.
(c) Copyright 2011. City Mom in the Jungle.
Because the satellite system we had in Barbados was based in Venezuela, we were able to get many of the American programs we wanted to see but with Spanish-language commercials. Though many of the Pollyannas in my life mentioned frequently what a wonderful opportunity this was to make the girls trilingual, yeah right, it did give us one advantage that I am only now realizing. My children, Lily in particular, could not get the message being delivered right into her tiny, influential soul that she needed something, lots of somethings, to make her life complete. Yeah, she saw the toys and things being advertised, but she had no idea where we could get these things. I used to remark how amazing it was that Lily didn't long for anything, didn't beg for toys, games, anything really, and was always happy with whatever came her way.
For the past few weeks, Lily has been sharing with me little secrets and tidbits that seemed to come out of nowhere. "You know, Huggies are good for squirmy babies." "Did you know that this dog can talk and he has the secret family recipe for baked beans?" While pretty hilarious, funny enough to make me turn my head so as not to seem like I am laughing at her in her face, it is also a little scary. The advertising messages are strong enough to convince even savvy adults that some product with the same ingredients as another is better based on the marketing, packaging, commercial. How can any child stand a chance?
There is a lot out there. A lot. And it is awfully distracting. I have never been into mall shopping, at least not since I was a pre-teen going to Spencer Gifts looking for Duran Duran pins, but our trip to Sawgrass Mills one rainy Saturday, regular visits to Target to stock our house, and drop-ins at CVS/Duane Reade/Rite Aid were a real shock to the system. One thing I am sure America exports is consumption, consumerism, buying, buying, and buying lots of stuff. I say this as I have spent nearly every weekend and every other day in the stores to furnish our home, so I am not exactly condemning or judging, just realizing. Every single time I've been out, I have remarked to anyone within earshot how easy it is to buy things here in the States. It's the access, the availability, and absolute inexpense of Made In China-take-over-the-world products. The choices, options, sheer volume is overwhelming. The choice makes me want to get something a little better, make the house a little nicer, get a better serving tray, glassware, hot pair of shoes, another pair of black pants. I get it. But watching the effect of this bombardment on my girls is so sad and painful.
While we were living abroad, there were fewer opportunities to buy as everything on the island was imported and therefore taxed and dutied beyond reason. A pair of shoes from Old Navy could cost upwards of four times its worth (which is already arguable) and toys, clothes, room decor, mattresses, and nearly all things for children were marked up beyond even the interest of expatriates and rich locals. Things just cost too much more than they were worth, so we were able to avoid purchasing all together. But in the States, Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, Littlest Pet Shop, crayons, Play-Doh, paints, coloring books, pretty much everything, is so inexpensive that saying yes is as easy as saying no. And saying yes all the time will send the wrong message.
Tonight, Lily, who was completely exhausted and barely able to string two words together, let alone a coherent thought, started bawling hysterically about a My Little Pony doll which probably has a brush or castle or sparkly something that comes with it. She repeated like a mantra, "I need it. I need it. I need it to be special. I need it." First, I was floored. Was she kidding me? I told her as firmly, as clearly, as I could that nothing, nothing in the world would make her more special than she already is. That everything about her that was special came from the person that she was and not from a toy, clothes, jewelry, friends, anything other than the peanut that she is. Second, I remembered wanting something more than I could explain and wondered what it was about this pony. Was she just insisting on a toy, any old toy, or was this that special thing. She has asked for it at least twice a week and I have given her the "we can't get everything we want" talk. With so many other things, she seems to get it and move on. But this pony, I just don't know.
We are at a standstill and will not be visiting Target today, though I do need some bath mats for the master bedroom. I just cannot meet that conflict right now and don't know that I have a solution. I, of course, want to get her the pony to give to her at another time and my husband wants to impress upon her the true fact that she cannot have whatever she wants and we will not give it. While I wish we were soon done with this topic, I am sure our return to the States and overindulged playmates, classmates, and friends will provide us all many more trials, errors, and successes.
The subject is so important to me because my years away from home showed me how much we were carrying with us already. How many pairs of jeans, pants, dresses, shoes, designer soaps, washes, beauty products, toys, games, bikes, paper towels, videos, movies are enough? When are we enough? I don't want the girls to take with them the message "You are what you have." I don't want them to give in to retail therapy, buying for the thrill, feeling special or better or superior because they have material things surrounding them. I want them to acknowledge what connects each of us, the joy in their hearts, a strong sense of self, a love for themselves and others. While I know we will not be able to avoid buying things or participating to some degree in the consumer culture, I don't want what we buy and how we buy to define us. I don't want to cross over from need to complete greed and gluttony, something I think many have lost sight of. It is a daunting lesson to learn, even to teach, in this culture. It is my wish that we will use money saved to spend time visiting places we've always wanted to go, doing things that cost more than we'd like, and trying new activities that take more investment. That's a legacy I'd feel good about.
(c) Copyright 2011. City Mom in the Jungle.
I have signed off of Facebook for a little while but not for the reasons given by most. I love my ten thousand friends. I do feel connected somehow to most of them. Each has been with me either physically or spiritually or emotionally at some time or other in my life. When the time comes to unhook some of those "friends" I do so quietly and truthfully, they have rarely realized it. I have not signed off to say goodbye to my friends, to my support. I have signed off to help me regroup, to think, to rest after the trauma and drama of Hurricane Irene.
When we were living in Barbados, Tropical Storm Tomas hit us fast and furious and left us without power for days. The experience was stunning and surreal, the lush vegetation of the island seemingly taking over where we were trying to live. No power meant no air conditioning in a sweltering tropical climate, and though we fared better with running water never being disrupted, many on the island were without water, electricity, rooftops for days. The reaction of an island nation to such a storm and that of the New Jersey town to which we have recently relocated were hugely different. In both places, water, candles, flashlights, and batteries were sold out immediately, as well as copious amounts of alcohol, snack foods, and tubs for storing water. But in New Jersey, there was a line out the door at Home Depot for generators. The idea of being without power for even a second too much to bear. There was a fear of flooded basements, which I totally understood, and which was certainly possible, more likely probable. And with sky high mortgages, rents, and expensive possessions in finished basements, it made total sense to try to protect those things.
I don't want to say that my attitude was blase, but in Barbados I had been afraid for my life, like if something really serious were to happen that other than being evacuated, we might not survive. While I know the same thing could be said of certain locations in the States, I just felt more secure this time around. As we drove from location to location seeking out flashlights and batteries, all of our batteries having been removed from all products by the Bajan moving team to prevent explosions in our container traveling back to the States, I remained relatively calm as each store announced "Sold Out" from front doors at at cash registers.
My friend Amy had a flashlight and she is excellent company. As my husband would be going to work hours before the hurricane was to hit and would more than likely be stranded in the city, I chose Amy and her family. Safety in numbers, someone to drink with, someone to talk to, someone to look to when the windows began to rattle and it seemed the rain would drown us all. The lead up day was uneventful. I let the girls go to the playground, work out the energy, eat lunch at our place, hang out in the nude as they are wont to do. I did all the laundry, cleaned the house, ran the dishwasher, and packed an incredible overnight bag that could have had us at Amy's place for two weeks. I packed the car with water and food, a portable DVD player charged for eight hours, twelve if watched with dim lighting, and drove over to Amy's at about 5:45 pm just in time for dinner.
The girls never really understood why we were heading over to Auntie Amy's, but they did know it would be lots of fun and it was. Food, wine, iPad games, TV, other kids to play with. Nevermind the hurricane soon to be roaring our way, we were having a sleepover! But the hurricane did come, creeping in some time in the middle of the night. By the time all of our eyes were opened, the electricity had gone out, there was water in the basement, tree limbs had been strewn around the neighborhood. When the call came in for water to be stored in pots to be boiled for future use, I figured I needed to get home quickly to see what was still standing at our brand new place.
On the drive home, I noticed many downed branches, stopped traffic lights, pools of water where just yesterday there'd been fields. When I was unable to make a turn down a main street to get home, I realized we might be in for some trouble. At the house, a river, formerly a creek, was raging at the edge of the back door, like Roaring Rapids that ride at Six Flags Great Adventure, but this didn't look like too much fun. I was scared out of my wits and thought for a second of not even going in, but I had to see that the place was alright. I knocked on the door my neighbor downstairs and discovered her door unlocked and she nowhere to be found. I ran upstairs, started running water in the tub, filling pots and pans, discovered that we still had electricity but no phone, cable, or internet. I grabbed food, toys, and ballet costumes for the girls, took some pictures, and got the heck out of Dodge.
Hours later, I found out that the street had been evacuated in the middle of the night due to the rising flood waters and that my neighbor had gone to safer ground. My house had been spared a loss of electricity while Amy had to wait days for electricity and water to return. The town was divided by people with services and those without. As we were on the same part of the grid as the fire station, it was essential that our power remain strong, much like we were meant to get power quickly in Barbados because we were on the same grid as some of the more upscale hotels and resorts. Our cable, phone, and internet were sporadically connected and there was mud and everywhere but in general, we were not worse for the wear. Even with my husband still in the city, where he would remain for five days, I felt confident that I could take care of the girls in our home all by myself. I was tearful and often fearful, still stinging psychologically from the stress of Tomas in Barbados, but the playground still had to get played on and the park still had to be trampled. We even went out as the sun came up the day after the hurricane.
We survived the hurricane. We were surviving. And then I stood at the edge of the park trying to enroll Lily in soccer camp when I turned to pick her up and hurt my back so badly I could not walk, well unless, babystepping all the way home is considered walking. Two chiropractor visits, ice, heating pads, and lots of drugs later, I am sitting in my hurricane-spared home in excruciating pain. The hurricane stirred up all kinds of feelings and memories and thoughts of attachment, abandonment, connection, love, and friendship and just in case I was going to miss this message, miss this sign, I have been felled.
Sitting on my bed with a heating pad on my back, thinking, contemplating, considering, I needed the quiet, needed to hear myself so that I could be sure the decisions I made for my future were my own. So that the next hurricane could swirl around outside of me, but that I would not be moved inside, spurned to hysteria, lost.
(c) Copyright 2011. City Mom in the Jungle.
To refresh your memory, see the post dated November 4, 2010 about Tropical Storm Tomas.
Some perspective. We left Barbados less than two months ago. Two years of complete numbness, disconnection, soul ache that ended with leaving the home we knew there so the owners of said home could have a place to quickly vacation having no consideration whatsoever for our feelings or situation. After that house, the whirlwind. Condo, hotel, rooms in my parents' house, hotel, hotel, friends' home. Friends, goodbyes, family, goodbyes, no one, cousins, kids, empty house, new home. The intensity of the experience exacerbated by a lack of sleep, fear of the unknown, fretting for the children, hoping and praying they are ok in the middle of all this chaos, disconnection, numbness, tightness, tension.
Slowly I am rising to the surface. Decompressing. Like living underwater in a submarine for years, I paid most attention to whatever was at hand and put on the back burner so many things--feelings, longing, desire--I just couldn't have survived letting my truths come up and grab me by the neck while I was hot and sweaty and angry and frustrated. And as I rise, as my equilibrium returns, the deluge. It's not just that there are tears, there are plenty, but I came up in my 40s (41 actually, racing towards 42), having arrived in Barbados on the edge of 39 and still feeling hopeful, youthful. As I surface, bubbles and steam blowing from my mouth, blinking from my eyes, and pooling off my hair, I arrive in a midlife crisis of sorts. Either nothing fits or it does and feels old. My skin is clammy, my brows are pinched in a deep furrow, and my heart is encased in a glue. It's beating in there. It's loving, but it is doing so ever so slowly. Tentatively, fearfully.
Post traumatic stress has left me tense, nervous, on a hair trigger and then I try to cover the outbursts and slip ups with reminders of love, cuddles, chatty conversation. As if anyone believes the cover. At least not the girls. It is the numbness that is most telling. I feel like I am still underwater looking through the eyes behind my eyes. Blinking, blinking, blinking as fast as I can so that the tears don't come fast and hot. I am afraid they will burn away my skin.
We left Manhattan for Barbados and returned to the States via the suburban landscape of New Jersey. I am still torn. I grew up in New Jersey, in a town far less diverse and open that this community and survived. I know it will be great for the girls. Already, here only three weeks, I have Lily in a sports camp, playing on the playground, going for walks in town, telling me how much she loves it here. Virginie is riding her tricycle in the driveway and knows what popsicle she loves from the ice cream truck. This place could be idyllic for them. There are mixed kids and families, straight, gay, old, young, smiles and surely some frowns, though we don't see lots. We've had a run in with a playground bully, but after she was set straight by yours truly, Lily mentioned seeing her today in the same breath as, "There were lots of nice kids to play with and that girl who said mean things to me was there too."
All of the unexpressed feeling and tension still twists in my muscles, so I walk. I have the car at home and voyage out to discover the town and go to Target/Whole Foods/Trader Joe's/Best Buy, all the perks of suburban living, but it is walking that is thawing out these limbs, getting blood pumping to my veins and allowing me to feel again. And the feelings are exhausting. The expression, "walk a mile in another man's shoes" is so telling. It is the walking, the moving, breathing, reflecting that gives us an idea what someone else is dealing with. If we cannot empathize, feel the feelings, how can we connect? I am trying to reconnect with everyone and everything in my life, but especially with myself. I was on my way, on a path, had a direction, so I thought, before we left for Barbados. I didn't trust that we had any other options or that I could talk to anyone about my fears and concerns about making the move. We can't go back, but I have to make the changes for the future.
I need to speak, to share, to communicate my needs, my dreams, my goals. I certainly do not hold anyone else responsible for my mistakes or my choices, but I am starting to breathe with my own lungs, feel with my whole heart, and think with my own mind. I can, should, must trust myself. The transition from all the way down there back up is terrifying, stressful, and exciting. It's probably best that I can't or don't allow myself to feel everything at once lest I explode. If this is a midlife crisis, and I surely hope I have at least 42 more years, I hope I can sail smoothly into the second act.
(c) Copyright 2011. City Mom in the Jungle.
Upon reflection, and there has been much of that lately, I think we should have stayed just one year in Barbados. It's all water under the bridge now, but Didier and I both look at each other sometimes when we are talking to others about our time there, with a look that says, "*&;%$, did we really give it two years?" The truth is neither of us gives up easily, on anything, which can make for some pretty intense stand-offs in the house, on the street, in the car, you get the idea, and giving up when the contract said two years just did not seem like an option. But it was an option and we could have put it on the table. We probably should have.
For myself, as I cannot speak for my husband and would not dare, I think I just didn't know what I wanted to do next, so there was nothing to commit too. Because I was in a state of shock, cultural, emotional, spiritual, I don't think I could consider what I even wanted to do next, let alone what I would be willing to do, other than, of course, watching our children. But it was watching our children, getting lost in that life, being unable (unwilling?) to scream out loud, that my sense of purpose, my direction came to me.
I want to write. I want to tell stories. I want to tell the truth about being a woman, a black woman, with a brain and a heart and a family, two crazy kids, and a totally hot but oftentimes clueless husband, reaching, trying, embracing, crying, laughing, doing a great job, and fucking up. I want to admit, confess, wrench, scream, cry, giggle, tickle, tease, inspire, piss off. I have been open to life, to experiences, and closed as tight as a clam shell in hurt and pain. That's real life as I see it and I want to talk about it the way I talk to my friends, other artists and women and men and thinkers and readers and writers and seekers.
For people who know me now, it may come as a shock that as a young person, a very young person, elementary school student, I was so shy and uncomfortable talking out loud to people I did not know well. I studied dance and loved it because all the communicating could be done with my body, a line, a gesture, pantomime. Classical ballets were so wonderful because the stories were relatively simple stories, motifs, and in between was the dance, the glorious dance, the movement, the energy. I could and did get lost in it. When I concentrated on the stories, the imagery, the dance, I could disappear and forget about my life, the loneliness, alienation, insecurities.
And then one day someone asked me, "What are you thinking about when you are dancing? Who are you in there? When you are portraying love, when you are crying, when you feel loss, who are you thinking about?" I couldn't bear to say. The narrative had always been running in my head; I did know the answers to all of those questions, but I thought I'd explode if I revealed them. I entered a world of metaphor when I began painting. I could be screaming with the paint, angry with a certain gesture, the push and pull of whatever medium appealed to me, begging for attention. But what I meant, what I was saying, could be interpreted by the viewer however he or she wanted, and I could hide behind whatever they saw in the image. I knew what I meant, but I did not have to say it or admit or confess.
When acting, doing commercials and voiceovers, I was always someone else. Even the "me" I was portraying was a composite of all the best of me. It was the medium, I am not a fake, but no one was looking for the darks and the grays when they wanted to sell something. It was sunshine, brights behind the eyes, a lift in the voice, a promise of a new day. I loved it. I believed it. My husband still refers to me as an actress when I am animated, excited, pissed off, which surely takes me even higher, lost in the upper register and I am raspy voiced. I don't always recognize myself.Going to Barbados helped me find my voice, helped me find something to say and for the first time, I was willing to say it out loud, scream it even, share, confess, admit. I have been struggling through this thing called life, the big moments and the tiny, hysterical meltdowns on the floor, especially after trying to create and live up to an image of myself as a wife and mother that I could not possibly uphold and that does not ring true. If I want to say something properly, I have to write it down. Writing it down keeps me from lying. With my face. To my face. Prevents me from trying to save face.
The stories in my life are real and I have rarely seen them portrayed in the movies, on television, in books. There are questions and contradictions, two sides of a coin flipping at once. There is crazy love and blinding rage in the same moment. I love my family and wish they would leave me alone at the same time. I am afraid of letting go and jumping into the abyss yet refuse to sit on my ass and watch the years, the opportunities, and dreams go by. Confessional, but not reckless. Truth-seeking but still protective. I am working on peeling back the onion skin a little at a time, but you know it sticks.
I need to make the time. Dare to go in the direction of my dreams (as has been postered, fridge-magneted, Hallmark carded into my eyes, but never into my heart). Accept my role in the cosmos. All of that while also making a home, a haven, a life for myself and my family. There have been countless stories about the ball-busting executive, power woman who has given up that glory for dirty diapers, Mommy and Me's, and playdates. But what about the creative woman, the artist, who feels the same pull in her core whether she creates a work of art, goes through the process of thinking, making, or doing, or makes a child, nurtures it, provides for it, loves it?
Now we begin. Every day.
(c) Copyright 2011. City Mom in the Jungle.
Our life together is so precious together
We have grown, we have grown
Although our love is still special
Let's take a chance and fly away somewhere alone
It's been too long since we took the time
No-one's to blame, I know time flies so quickly
But when I see you darling
It's like we both are falling in love again
It'll be just like starting over, starting over
Everyday we used to make it love
Why can't we be making love nice and easy
It's time to spread our wings and fly
Don't let another day go by my love
It'll be just like starting over, starting over
Why don't we take off alone
Take a trip somewhere far, far away
We'll be together all alone again
Like we used to in the early days
Well, well, well darling
It's been too long since we took the time
No-one's to blame, I know time flies so quickly
But when I see you darling
It's like we both are falling in love again
It'll be just like starting over, starting over
Our life together is so precious together
We have grown, we have grown
Although our love is still special
Let's take a chance and fly away somewhere
Starting over (c)
When we left Barbados, I didn't have time to stop and reflect on the time spent, lessons learned, growth, progress, great leaps made. We had too much to do. We still do. And not just the "you'll never find the right time to do it so just do it" too much to do, but really I have a lot to do to get us settled into life in the United States, in New Jersey, where I said I would never return, to get Lily ready for school, to get us ready for the next phase of our lives. I have taken a long time to return to writing because the waiting, the receiving, the unpacking, the unpacking, the unpacking, and the breaking down of boxes, crumbling of paper, stuffing of said paper into huge garbage bags to hopefully be recycled has been too much.
My emotions have been all over the map. We were in an empty house that took days and nights to clean after the previous messy, slightly disgusting tenant got her stuff out, well downstairs in the basement, with two girls that we'd taken from their home on a desert island, who had no toys, games, movies, anything really to do except for wait. Wait for us to get it together, doing it while making it look like fun, doing it while making it look like we were actually doing it or anything together.
When I came back to New York one year into our two year stint in the Caribbean, a friend of mine who has encouraged my writing, the stories told, the openness of my telling them said something along the lines of, you can't have the story end with the City Mom getting divorced and leaving with her children. You must go and seize your life, live that experience, feel it, share it, remember it. I did go back and try, excited by her excitement really, enthusiastic about telling these crazy stories of monkeys and coconuts and citrus rashes and left side of the road driving on the right side of the car. I made friends. I let my children love that country, let them believe it was their home, let them need me more than they probably should have. I held them close and made my family look like one.
When we got back to the States, Didier got a job offer and we both jumped at it, excited at how fortunate we'd been, how serendipitous and fortunate, how we were on the path back to...something. I am not actually sure what. I do know that being back home, in a less stressful place, a place that I know because I come from here, physically, spiritually, mentally, a place where I can walk, breathe the air, I am starting to feel myself warm up, thaw from the chill that Barbados, that scorching hot island that ripped my heart out and made me eat it. And now I am burning. My heart beats out of my chest every night because I am so sad, so pissed, so angry and I am just not sure at what. I can admit that I am raging but I am really just shouting to the air. I wait for the girls to go to sleep so they do not have to work this out with me but they really are anyway. They know I am wounded and I hope to God they do not think it comes from them.
I waited two years to let it all out. The prison that was my life in Barbados has released me, but now I have nothing else to blame. The people I thought loved me, would care for me, look out for me, take care of me, did not, while others came to my rescue in their place. I didn't dare scream for help while there because I knew no one would come. They couldn't. But now I am here, home again, and there is no place to hide. I cannot hide in the cultural differences, accept that no one is calling, connecting, reaching out because the call is too expensive. I cannot tell myself any longer that it's the job, the schedule, the pressure. I had to accept that there because there was nothing to escape to. There was nowhere to go.
There was a rumor that when John Lennon wrote the song Starting Over, he was referring to the "lost weekend" when he and Yoko Ono lived apart and were trying to reconcile, reconnect, get back to each other. I was so moved that adults wrote songs about love, caring, admitting mistakes, longing, desire. I wanted that. Hearing the song so much as a child, especially around the time that this artist was killed, stolen from his love, I could not believe how that emptiness must have hurt.
When I fell in love with Didier, there was a magic in our connection that I still believe is there. I love him, care for him, want to share with him in ways I think he has never been shared with and in ways he is terrified to open. I have spent a great amount of my adult life on a quest to heal my childhood wounds. The scars are so easy to find on me if one even dares or cares to look. But his are so well hidden that I would not even know they were there if I had not spent so many years with him. There is no way that he left Barbados unscathed. I think he is too proud, maybe too much in denial to even acknowledge the wounds, how the experience hurt his pride, his ego, his sense of how important he is, I guess his ego. He has retreated and he was never that open to begin with. We never speak of our pain, our disillusionment, our disappointment. We do not meet at a place where we know we at least have each other. The truth is, I have the girls. At least I have the girls.
We are starting over. And though it is not from zero, it sure feels that way. I don't recognize anything and yet it all looks the same. Except for me. I have no idea who this person is. I am tiptoe-ing around myself, around saying what I want to say, what I want to do. I am a teenager back in my room in New Jersey begging to be acknowledged and loved except this time, I have kids. And to keep them from beating this same path, I have to shake this. I have to start over so I can love me enough to love them. And love me enough too to see that two years ago, I unpacked a house all by myself and find myself again alone in my new house with two sleeping girls, order and control, everything in its place. Except...
(c) Copyright 2011. City Mom in the Jungle.
(c) John Lennon, Just Like Starting Over
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.
