Meeting of the minds

Last night I went to my friend Wendy's house after dinner,as she had gathered a group of women for a "Girls Night In," where we could all sit together and listen to music and chat and drink wine...and drink wine.  Man, it's been a long time since I had a night on my own with no children and no husband even.  Talking with these women, all of whom have kids who swim with Wendy, about the trials and thrills of raising and loving our children in Barbados was thrilling.  I realized what I had been missing all this time.  Friends.  People to commiserate with.  Not bitch and complain about life, but to talk, work things out, mull things over thoughtfully and always, always maintain a sense of hope. 


I am a hopeful person.  Many times in my life I have lived with hope as my only guide through tough patches, even the roughest patches, and had lost that during those early months in Barbados.  I don't beat myself up.  Post partum, roving bands of monkeys and bugs the size of my eyelids would probably do that to many.  Add to that, new acquaintances who found little joy in their lives as my only contacts and one can imagine the hopelessness.  I can't live like that. 


Daphne, Edna, Vicki, Wendy, and Katie, my friend visiting from New York, and I represent a range of cultural and life experiences, yet we all spoke the common language of motherhood.  Daphne and Vicki are both Barbadian, Daphne as a transplant at four years old and Vicki born here but raised in the States and here.  Edna is German and has been in Barbados for eleven years.  Wendy is English and Katie and I rounded out the group, an Irish-American and African-American respectively.  Many of us have mixed children and the conversation about the Bajan take on our relationships and kids left us all in stitches.  Daphne, married to an Asian man from Trinidad, has been asked about her "Chine-y babies."  Vicki, Edna, and I have little girls with curly hair and brown skin and we often hear obsessive comments about their looks as though doing some sort of math problem to determine who they favor our husbands or us.  The answer is both.  They are ours.  Ours.

It felt so good to share.  To chat.  To laugh out loud again.  I left at 11:15, sure that Didier was worried about me, but more concerned that Virginie would wake up to nurse and find me gone.  The ladies continued into the night, the last leaving at 1:30 am!  With Lily's 5:45 wake up that would have given me just a little over four hours of sleep.  Forty is not the new twenty.  I have been recuperating all day and I was the first to leave, something I am completely unfamiliar with.  I hope we will do it again soon.  Maybe I will take a nap and stay out a little later than my bedtime next time.


(c) Copyright 2010.  City Mom in the Jungle.

On love and destiny

In my twenties I was fond of saying, "You will know if you are meant to be a couple if you can travel well together.  That is a true test."  I am not sure where I heard it first, but I thought of it often as Robert and I traveled in Europe together (Germany and Austria to see his family and then other cities as we could navigate) as a gift from my parents for my college graduation.  As history would show, we did not fare so well.  We were not great traveling companions as truthfully, our relationship was probably over before we'd even left.  I just wasn't ready to let go.  Robert had opened my eyes to an artistic, laissez-faire lifestyle, where one could follow his dreams and money could allow you anything.  He was a true Bohemian and philosopher, an extraordinary musician (he played a classical guitar that could bring tears) and thinker, but also a rich young man with a tortured youth who was trying to reconcile this dichotomy in himself.  The times were heady.


He was magic to me.  A diamond with sparkling eyes even as the torment of injustice clouded the clarity.  I'd loved no one like him not only because he'd allowed me to see myself too as more than suburban, as beautiful, as an artist with a voice and a vision, but because he had a compass for truth and was not won over by flash, smoke and mirrors.  We read The Illuminati Trilogy and saw black and white magic everywhere.  Losing him broke me on a psychic level because I still could not see the magic in myself and I'd believed our coupling to be celestially ordained.  I thought all the shine was his.  We were victims of the sex, drugs, and rock and roll of youth, but there had been light.


My heart was rescued when Ismael, a gorgeous Spanish sculptor, creator, cyclist, reggae connoisseur, whom I'd known for years as a classmate and friend, came back into my life.  He was, he is, like no one I had ever known then or since.  No one had been as gentle with me in my life.  No one had honored me, treated me like a queen, loved me that way.  When we were first together, I melted in the pleasure of him.  He was tactile.  He handled everything with care, a real naturalists long before this was popular.  He showed me nature and taught me to seek the special quality in even the smallest thing.  We walked in the woods of Vermont, considered life and the abundance in nature in such a real and present way.  He did not mess about with chatter but talked with conviction about the things that mattered to him.  He was so lithe and sensual and physical and present.  We lived in different states and he would not settle for a life in the city on my terms.  In the end, he was right, but at the time I did not want to give him up.  I fought and fought viciously, I am afraid and regret the small things we did to hurt one another to make the break.


Foolishly, I ran to the arms of Khalil, a phony record producer in Atlanta and got myself so twisted and hurt and confused, that I feared allowing myself to love ever again.  After him there were lovers and affairs and hopes, but I was not able or willing to commit myself again.  Fear racked me and while I hoped there was a love for me, I did not hang my hat on anything or expect it to come.  I truly let go and was rather shallow in my relationships for years. 


When I think of how I have come to find myself living in Barbados with a husband and two beautiful little girls, and I often do, I can really cherish the lessons learned, the loves, the heartaches.  It is because of this incredible journey that I wonder about the expression "soulmate" as it is usually used to describe one's current love partner, and embrace it as a collection of people who guide us to this penultimate moment.  This moment too is not perfect, but there is a comfort, a security, a sense of our need to do it together.  Even in the blind moments of rage, there is a desperate pull towards Didier that is thrilling and romantic and terrifying and calming all the same.


I have been thinking about love for the past week now, after reading of the love between Lady Antonia Fraser and Harold Pinter, a love affair and marriage that lasted over thirty years, after both had been previously married for eighteen years!  Before our paths crossed, Didier had been married for fourteen years.  On seeing him that first day in the restaurant, I just knew that this would be a significant love and it is.  I have been driven to the edge of sanity by this man but have also experienced the calmest me I have ever known.  I can close my eyes and see us as old people, see our daughters trusting in life and love by the look in our eyes. 

Save Khalil, I have been in touch with my lovers past and I have seen them grow more into themselves and find loves that have helped them soar.  They have started families, continued creating and developing into fine human beings, artists, fathers, loving partners, and I love them for driving part of the way on our journey.  And with Didier, always driving the car, literally, but letting me navigate some times, figuratively, we have found a way to travel together.  Well.  He and the girls are my life and I am not sure where we are going, but I hope we will all go together and do it for a long time.

(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle

La Manzanilla de la Muerte

One of the first things we were told when arriving in Barbados was not to handle the tiny green apples on the trees ringed in red paint.  They are the fruit of the machineel tree and are extremely poisonous.  Found along the coast including our favorite secluded beach here, the machineel tree releases a toxin in its creamy white, milky substance.  The Caribs used to use the sap of this tree to poison their darts to ward off intruders and tied their captives to the trunk of this tree ensuring a slow, painful death.  It is said that the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon was felled by an arrow dipped in the sap of the machineel by the Calusa in Florida and died shortly after.  What I am trying to say is, the plant is no joke! 

Somehow my husband managed to bring one home (long before I arrived with the girls) and cut one open, curious about its delicious fragrance.  Something prevented him from tasting it which would have surely caused his death, as he would also more than likely not seek medical treatment when the vomiting began.  He was lucky.

Didier's BFF and family are visiting with us for two weeks and on our first trip to the beach I did mention that this plant was to be avoided at all costs.  I think the message was duly noted and no one touched the little apples or the tree bark during our visit to the beach.  Yesterday, it appears, was different.  LB, the eight year old son picked up an apple while on a surfing excursion on the south coast and I imagine that when his mother saw him handling the fruit, she grabbed it from him and threw it.  This morning, young LB's hands were swollen like baseball mitts and nickel-sized blisters were forming at his knuckles.  Day three of the trip.  Off to Sandy Crest 24-hour Medical Center where it was confirmed.  Poisoning for the machineel tree.  It's green fruit is called in Spanish, "la manzanilla de la muerte " or the "little apple of death" and its sting is apparently pretty painful. 

The pus was removed from the blisters and his hands are being topically treated like burn wounds.  He has also been given an antibiotic, pain killers and an antihistamine for the swelling, itching, and pain.  Poor baby can't get his hands wet at all and will return to Sandy Crest on Sunday for a check up.  Oh, and his mom's swelling has just begun on the hand she threw that little sucker away with.  My friend jokes that they didn't have this in the travel brochures, but it did get a little mention. 

The blistering continues.  Listen, as Snow White should have.  DON'T TOUCH THAT APPLE!

(c) Copyright 2010.   City Mom in the Jungle.

Melty popsicle

I am a melty popsicle.  It's been hot, but I think this condition is particular to my make up.  Even our guests visiting from upstate New York, in all their whiteness, and I refer only to their physical whiteness, are not stressing from this heat.  They spend more months out of the year in cold and they are not melted.  They are a little pink.  At all times, I am dripping. 

Some people sweat and others glow.  I am drenched.  Here in Barbados, those who have lived here all their lives, don't even look like the heat is phasing them.  When I first arrived in Barbados, my friend Eva, who was visiting and also sweating her brains out, and I were told that after being here a while, our "blood would thin and we would better able to handle the heat."  After careful consideration and commentary from my husband, we realized this was kind of ridiculous and impossible.  As Didier pointed out, "Your blood is going to thin?  How is that going to happen?  So there should be fewer heart attacks on the island then and with the national weight problem, I don't think that is the case."  All said with a smirk and French accent, he still had a point.  I think what the person was trying to say was that I should acclimate at some point and respond less profusely to the temps.  One year and counting.  Sweaty mess.


(c) Copyright 2010.  City Mom in the Jungle.

The little mermaid

As a parent, I try to make connections between things Lily and Virginie like and something new and hopefully educational, or at least entertaining.  Lily loves to swim and draw pictures of mermaids and fish and other sea creatures.  She has been introduced to the Disney princesses by other little girls here, though I could have gone on forever without them in our lives.  So making the jump to the Little Mermaid, seemed like a no brainer.  We started out the video together and, though Lily asked lots of questions, some thoughtful and some just inane and exhausting ("He's a man.  What's a man?"  She's underwater?  What's underwater?"), it looked like she was in for a love affair with Ariel and her friends.

And then came the dreaded Ursula, the seahag, the bad guy.  I am not sure how, but Lily has had very little contact with the bad guy, in any story really.  When she does, her reaction is the same, absolute terror and a freak out that ends in tears.  This was no exception.  When Ursula took Ariel's voice as she sent her to woo the prince in three days in silence, I looked over to see Lily recoiling from the scene in front of her.  She kept asking,"Why is she doing that?  Why is she mean?  Is she going to hurt her?"  This device to move on to the love story was a real stumbling block for my little princess and she could barely get past it.

I had to ask myself, how did we miss the bad guy?  When I was a little girl, I always knew the bad guy was lurking.  I was actually terrified of the bad guys and was on the constant look out for one who would certainly appear.  Life was full of bad guys.  I knew this, at least I thought I did, even at four years old.  Was that better?  Expecting bad things to happen or someone to rain on my parade?  Knowing that good people could not exist in a utopia because that was not real.  The bad guys were what made an otherwise perfect world of happiness, smiles, and sunshine, REAL.  Does Lily not live in the real world?  Am I supposed to infuse her life with a little bit of bad guy?  Will it come to her eventually and will she be shocked out of her face and unable to cope when she finally does see something painful in her life?  Now I am the one with all the questions.

And I don't have the answers.  She is a sensitive girl.  I can tell from the things she says when she is sleeping; yes, the girl talks in her sleep, that she knows there is evil out there, but I don't want to force her to see it.  I want her to feel freedom for just a little while longer.  I see the bad guys.  I know they are out there.  I suppose I need to keep vigilant and attentive and let my little mermaid swim freely through life just a little more.  Disney has that good and evil thing down to a science.  All of their movies for kids are set up that way.  I guess we held it at bay for as long as we could and just like evil, it is going to get in somehow.


(c) copyright 2010.  City Mom in the Jungle.

Because

I love language, languages really, although the development of a passable French still escapes me, and hearing an interesting turn of phrase or expression in any language makes me smile.  Listening to Lily and Virginie as they navigate the worlds of English, French, Spanish (the language primarily taught in Barbados), and Bajan, which I tell you is insanely difficult to comprehend, is just incredible.  As Virginie is new to talking, but no slouch, she has a few key questions she asks everyday.  One of those is "Wheh? Wheh tasi?"  This is pronounced like the New Yorker that she is and means," Where?  Where is my paci(fier)?"  I think we hear this question no less than 75 times a day. If we do not answer, she asks, "Oooh?" which in French, "Ou" is where.  You see?  Learning.  There's a lot of "I'n ge' down" and "some, some," typical toddler fare and a request for "booby," which yes, I know, means it is time to stop nursing, but I particularly love rambling songs of conversation in the lost alien language that only babies and maybe the insane can still recall. It's just amazing and shocking that one year ago, I was worrying about Virginie falling on this hard tile floor from up high and now she is lecturing me like I am the teenager and she, the mother. 

Lily is a champion talker.  Seriously, if there were prizes given out, she would win all the time, and this is not just a proud mother bragging.  It is endless. Some nights I have to tell her to just stop talking, don't move her mouth or make another sound and once she finally shuts up, she passes out on her face like she was meant to do earlier, but the talking prevented.  My favorite discovery of Lily's is "because."  It is in nearly every sentence uttered and keeps the conversation, well monologue, lecture, diatribe, going for hours.  Everything is connected from Dora's City of Lost Toys to her recently turning four to her going to big girl school to Virginie's superwet diaper with "because."  Not only tall tales, but entire universes of observations, all interconnected.

I am engaged, enthralled even, when she tells me something that I thought she had not caught being discussed between "big adults."  As she recounts what she'd heard, all the nuances in speech are still there, but the hidden meanings are all lost on her four year old self.  Last night she told me, "I have to move my head from this side of the bed to this one because I am sweating like shitake mushrooms.  The conditioning must not be working good.  It is making me a piglet."  Stifling a giggle, I helped her move.  Shitake mushrooms is my euphemism for the expletive and Didier often says, "Sweating like a little piglet" at the heat of the day when everyone is wiping his brow.  The conditioning?  The AC.  And needing to move her head?  Well, that is because she wanted to be closer to Mommy nursing the baby.  I don't mind that.  I love being close to these ladies and will listen to them until they have talked my face off, just because.

(c)Copyright 2010.  City Mom in the Jungle.

Hot, crazy, tired

I am going to try to keep from writing every single day about the heat and the state of my diminishing brain capacity to the exhaustion caused by extreme temperatures.  But I must say today, it is boiling.  I know it is pretty hot all over the globe right now, but if you are not reading this from the Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the rainforest, or somewhere scorching with only fans and water to cool you down, save your weather reports, especially if you are in the United States.  Your beloved air conditioning, even if just in the grocery store, movie theater, or retail shop prevents you from going absolutely mental from the heat.  Crazy from the heat?  That is what I am talking about.

Add to it the mommy fatigue of nightly visits to the girls' room for nursing session, diaper changes, and a wake-and-take to the potty, followed by a 5:30 am wake up on a Sunday morning, a Sunday morning! and you have the confused, aimless, totally clueless shrew I have become.  I do dress it up nicely, insisting on getting up and putting on a dress, coiffing the hair, read putting up the ponytail or bun, and adding a little mascara to tired looking eyes, but don't be fooled.  I feel like I just spent the night with the Senior Girls during the overnight at Happy Time Day Camp without a shower, drenched in the sweatshirt I'd slept in on the open pavilion at night, and then had forgotten to take off during the day as the temperature climbed.  My body aches like it did then after a night of eating Doritos and too much candy and soda, no nutrients to motivate myself through the day but full from the junk.  Ugh.  I want to go back to sleep.

 But the truly a crazy ride, the day to day, staying-at-home with two little girls for hours on end as the "summer" winds down, has just begun.  Any mom with more than one knows what it's like to get tossed into the center ring and asked to juggle for the first time like a pro who went to the Circus Academy or clowning school.  I have to laugh at myself or I will surely cry.  I find myself completely unable to concentrate on what character just did the funny thing and which one is mean.  I laugh at all of them to Lily's dirty looks and scowls saying, "What kind of a person would laugh at the bad guy hitting someone?"  She's right.  What kind of person?  The tired lady sweating her face off on the floor.

Funny, once the morning's fatigue has worn off with either a cup of coffee or tea, I forget about it and get into the rhythm of our play.  Lily and Virginie are so smart, so entertaining, so engaging, that it is hard to hang on to my grudge about another sleepless night.  My grandfather used to tell us he would sleep when he was dead (and he lived to be 104) and at this rate I think the same is true for me too.  Being bone tired seems to be the general state of all mommies and I am no different. 

In a few weeks, Lily will start at primary school and I will miss her during the day.  I will miss the inquisition, the constant chatter, the questions I'd never considered, and the observations I'd never made or forgotten about.  Having small children is a young person's game.  A friend of mine recently said something to this effect, "Having children later in life either keeps you young or will send you to an early grave."  While my back and the bags under my eyes probably believe the latter, I think my soul feels revived and refreshed by these two characters.  I love them and they love me.  And even in this sticky heat that has us all, at times, lying down on the floor, I will relish their wet nose kisses and nuzzles.  In the future, sitting in a freezing cold air-conditioned room while the girls are making summer plans that certainly do not include their mother, I will miss this, all of it.

(c) Copyright 2010.  City Mom in the Jungle.