Pack it up, Pack it in

I cannot imagine that I am going to be able to write in any consistent way for the next few weeks, maybe even months and it is killing me.  My brain has been racked with thoughts of all of our possessions wrapped and tucked neatly in boxes going on a sea journey from a little corner of the Caribbean back to mainland USA.  I have haggled and negotiated for hours on end over a few hundred dollars and finished feeling exhausted and dirty.  I have photographed furniture that we intend to leave behind with the hopes that after a full day of tending to our move and the every day lives of my girls and family, I will make a list, attach said photos, add prices and send that damn list all around the expatriate community of Barbados in the hopes that someone wants my IKEA dresser for $75 Barbados dollars. 


After much pushing and pulling, we are still hopelessly overweight, more like over freight, but damn it, I really don't want to give up the elliptical.  We have convinced ourselves that we can just go back to the States and start new.  New town, new home, new furniture, new job, new car, new all kinds of stuff, the kind of stuff that gets me to the verge of total freak out.  I say the verge, but some, OK Didier, may argue that I have gone past it.  Maybe.  I am tired, frustrated, and hopelessly organized and obsessive, so I think about the move and the packing and the move and the unpacking and the job search and search for Lily's school and the move and where the fuck are we going to live and how are we going to do it all in a couple of months and how much of our savings will we go through before something catches and we feel back to normal and Lily needs to go to school in America after a year abroad learning how to read and being incredibly polite and proper and correct and now will go to kindergarten for just 1/2 a day?  Half a day, even Virginie who is just two years old goes longer than that AND she is learning Spanish.  Perhaps just a tiny bit past the verge.


Thank you, United States, for the lack of health coverage for all.  I am looking forward to spending out of pocket for coverage for a family of four until we are covered by one of our jobs.  That we do not have yet.  Actually, in my heart, I am optimistic.  Generally speaking, I think this is true of me.  I can see the big picture, know that the move out of Barbados is one of the greatest gifts handed us by God, the Universe, and corporate intrigue, but on the day to day, I am scared and a little bit lost.

"All I do is win, win, win no matter what."  --DJ Khaled



Even Charlie Sheen, falling apart at the seams, calls himself winning because nobody, nobody wants to be a loser, a failure. But to lose or to fail is not to have it define you. One is not a loser because he has lost or a failure because he has failed. In fact, I think if one has not lived a life in which one fails, even greatly, it means that he has not moved outside of his comfort zone, has not risked, has not thought outside that proverbial box. Judgment, by a jury of one's peers, which now appears to be anyone looking at you seems to be handed down on a daily basis. It is a wonder anyone can breathe. The shallowest, cruelest, most condescending individual can be called a winner because he's got all the accoutrements of modern life, even if he is a fucking jerk. And a poet, an artist, a revolutionary, risk taker is a loser because he does not. I struggle with how to share the need to create, have new experiences, try new things with my children, and prevent them from falling so far on the outside of "normal" that they are wounded or hurt or even worse, feel ashamed of themselves. Or us.

There is nothing like the creeping stickiness of shame that causes one's eyes to glaze over, avoiding eye contact, leaves a sour taste to the tongue, preventing words from coming out clearly if at all, makes a buzzing in the head simmering with anger, sorrow, frustration, sadness, loneliness. It fills your legs with glue and makes moving through a crowd of staring eyes like wading through quicksand. Who knows if anyone is really looking anyway. Shame leaves one with the feeling that everyone knows, everyone cares, and everyone is talking about it. You are the butt of all of life's jokes and better you than the next guy so everyone gloms on to avoid finding their place in that particular spotlight. I wish it weren't so, but I feel like creeping back in to the States and trying to start again quietly without the prying eyes and nervous glances of friends and family, and worse yet, the haters who are wondering, Well what are they going to do now?

My Grandma Schooler once told me that she would not want to live forever because after a certain point, you really have seen the same themes, characters, situations come and go and then repeat.  While there are new lessons to learn each time, when you feel like you got it, you are done, you can be at peace and move on.  When I look at where we are right now, I can see the point on the path and how it can/will/must get us to the next place of learning, growth, development in a very broad sense.  I see it as grand, epic maybe, and necessary.  But on the day to day, the questioning, the doubt, the judgment makes me feel like the only loser in the world.  I know I am not a loser and if I were, I certainly wouldn't be the only one, but in a culture where we define ourselves by winning and winning by a certain kind of success, clout, attention, I am not feeling like the star of my own video so to speak, more like the guy endless auditioning on American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing/Skating/Fencing with the Stars and not getting his break, not making it past round one.

But Round One, Two, Three they've come and gone and I am still standing facing my opponent.  It's me, it's life, it's possibilities, it's change.  It's goodbyes, farewells, I love yous.  It's let's go.  We're packing up and we're packing in Barbados.  But we aren't giving up on us.  And writing that, when I have not been able to write for days, feels like a good start.



First arrived in Barbados



A few months in



Family moment, almost 1 year in



Weeks before departure

(c)  Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.

Tattoo You

It is hard to accept that sometimes in life, the people and places and things that drive us the most batty are set there to teach us and probably teach us more than we ever thought possible.  Barbados, for sure, has shown me more than I ever expected.  There were many dark nights of the soul, many wrenching, painful hours where just being me emotionally and spiritually, hurt me physically.  Sure, a little dramatically stated, something I have been accused of before, but truly a time when questioning myself, my experience, my capacity as a human being, was the leitmotif of my existence.

This was not the first time and I suspect it will not be the last that I got on a path fraught with perils, trials, tribulations and found my way again to joy, to love, to understanding.  At the end of the tunnel, light.  And for me, at the end of the journey, tattoos.
Jonathan Foster at Soul Touch on the South Coast of Barbados was recommended by pretty much everyone on the island who had a tattoo that I liked.  He is a surfin', tall drink of water with a sleeve of tattoos on one arm and some others on his neck and hand, with a soft White Bajan accent, different than the Black Bajan accent, dreamy blue eyes, and a references for any and all cultures, designs, fonts, you name it, that you might want.  I'd planned for months to get in to his shop, but during surf season his little blue car was nowhere to be found.  He was out on the waves.
Driving one afternoon with my friend KC I saw that OPEN sign and we went in immediately, even though it would soon be time to pick up Virginie from school.  I talked with Jonathan about lots of images, things that were swirling in my head, ink I knew I would get either with him or in the future.  We talked a lot about the Hand of Fatima, an image I am still considering though finding the perfect design has proven difficult.  Perhaps I will have to create one of my own.  I am interested in protection symbols, not only for tatts but in art, design, culture, images or amulets that ward off the Evil Eye, evil spirits, bad energy and juju.  The world I live in is full of magic realism and I can use all the guidance, protection, and light I can get.

After scheduling with Jonathan, I sent him my images via email so we would both be prepared.  I wanted something to signify my relationship to my girls, in whom I have begun to heal some of the wounds of my childhood and for whom I have chosen life in the clearest, cleanest possible way.  I am superstitious about names written on the body unless it's Jesus, Buddha, Zarathustra, something along those lines to remind you of something greater than just the name.  I think once a name is on your body you are either doomed to break up with whomever's name it is you have inked or you will lose them, like they will die. I know, magic realism.  I told you.

So in the crook of my arm it now says MAMAN, French for Mommy, with two stylized butterflies on each side for each of my little girls.  They both come to check out their butterflies regularly and feel pretty special to have a touchstone right on Mommy's arm to show them how magical they are to me.

The Eye of Horus on the inside of my wrist under the symbol for infinity (already there 2002?) and the word DIVINITY above it gave me not only protection, but a reminder of our souls' infinite journey and of the divinity, God's breath, in all of us.  I wanted to remind myself to be aware of all the divine moments in life, places where signs were offered, where angels came to guide me, where the path, sometimes obscured was revealed.  I have felt blessed and well guided on my journey, even when life was fraught with craziness.  Inner peace and tranquility prevailed.  Divinity.


(c) Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.

Hoots, bells, and whistles

While we agree to disagree, my husband is one of the world's crazy drivers.  Something of a debonair, European, I-had-to-take-the-engine-apart-to-get-my-license French, 2 days of stubble crazy, Versace sunglasses from 1991, driving gloves if it wasn't so hot crazy.  Seriously.  For Didier, Barbados is driving hell and he really has good reason to feel so.  Believe me. 

When we moved here almost two years ago, our 2004 Passat GLX with 4-wheel drive was deemed too old to be on the road here and we sold it.  For much less than it was worth, but what car seller ever says they got what they should have.  Get on the road in our Suzuki circa who knows when with the screeching brakes and shoddy shock absorbers and, except for the super-rich or trendy in their Range Rovers, BMWs, Mercedes, or (for the really extravagant) Ferraris or Jaguars, there is nothing but a hodge-podge of parts puttering on the roads here.  Black clouds of smoke from the "re-tooled" engines, part boat motor, part tinker toy, all kind of asthma-inducing insanity, come from cars, trucks, buses, motorbikes.  One wonders in what way, with what kind of hush money paid, did these vehicles pass inspection.  Any kind of inspection.  Some are just hard to look at.

Though our rental car, also known as an "H" or hired car, known as such by the H at the front of the license plate numbers which gives everyone on the island the impression that we are tourists, has no kick, Didier will gladly attempt to overtake the following:  slow drivers, Sunday drivers, motorcycle riding mail carriers (They drive motorcycles here in Barbados.), garbage trucks, people dropping off friends, family, or co-workers on the side of the road (or middle of the road), other H car drivers (aka tourists, probably American because only people who do not know how to drive on the left side would go so slowly )and "snails (slow drivers) who annoy him."  Makes sitting in the passenger seat torture and sitting in the back of the car an exercise in motion sickness.  My poor Lily gets sick at least three times a week.

But the truth is, it is annoying.  Where we are on the West Coast there is one road, the West Coast Road, that has two lanes, each going in the opposite direction.  So if, when, you find yourself stuck behind one of the aforementioned slowpokes, the entire coast finds itself in a traffic jam.  Don't let there be an accident.  Unlike in the States, should an accident occur, all parties must stop exactly where they are and not move their vehicles until law enforcement arrives to review and take measurements.  Imagine an accident at rush hour that blocks both lanes, without cones, road signs, etc to divert traffic.  We have lived a number of these accidents, once even considering abandoning our car and walking with each child on our backs in the dark for at least a mile without a flashlight after driving in circles trying to find an alternate route to no avail.

The main highways have not been in existence very long, about 4-5 years, so it is still common to see people crossing the highway at the most inopportune times.  Rush hour.  In the dark of early morning or late night with no reflectors and almost always in a curve or blind spot.  Strangely, many of the crosswalks are situated just before or after the curve in or out of a roundabout. For foreign drivers this is incredibly shortsighted planning.  For Bajans, eh.  It doesn't matter as slow driving is par for the course and a series of hand signals, flashing lights, and basically stopping for everyone at the side of the road to cross keeps some level of consistency.  Didier and I joke that a woman with a big juicy behind at 20 paces will stop traffic even before she even considers crossing.  She might not even be crossing at all but just in case, everyone smooths down their hair, straightens up their collar in the hopes that she may choose to cross in front of their car. 

Funny enough, I like the signals (unlike Didier who, if committed after we leave Barbados you will know why, goes berserk every time someone brings him to a halt with a hand signal a little like biking hand signals mixed with the Snake and Walk-like-an-Egyptian dance moves).  I think they are sweet and hearken back to an easier time when driving around the island was like driving on country roads.  Where letting the little old ladies, goats, chickens, laborers with trucks stacked with untethered machines in the truck bed, moms and children, hot chicks, and B-boys was the neighborly thing to do.  I will miss car honking that means "How you doin'?" or "Say hi to your Momma," instead of, "Get the f*&$ out of my way, you moron!"  I like that flashing high beams means, "Go ahead," or "Thank you," and that passers by on foot will tell you that there is an accident ahead so look for a diversion.

It took a lot of getting used to, but it is quite quaint and sweet and small town.  It was nice to feel part of a little community of drivers, though the emissions test could use a little improvement.

(c)  Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.

In the middle of the night

It's often in the middle of the night that I finally get to stop and think about things in my life.  Usually I get the motors churning after one or both of the girls has called out to me and I find myself snuggling, cuddling, changing diapers, Pull ups or sheets, searching for nighttime medications or lost snuggly toys.  I have a dictaphone in which to chatter on so I don't have to keep the thoughts turning in my head, but for some reason that is most often tucked away in a drawer full of phone chargers, iPod cords, cables, and other wires that connect only to the Matrix as far as I know.  Last night was no different as poor Virginie who suffered a severe bronchial infection brought on by allergies and the Bajan tendency to burn everything--paper, plastic, rubber tires, sugar cane, garbage, you name it--and disregard emissions standards from all over the world, putting out some of the blackest smoke from cars and trucks, called out to me some time around 3 am.
The bronchial infection set off a chain of events--antibiotics for the infection caused severe diarrhea, which in turn made my baby's bum so raw I had to cover her in diaper cream just to get her standing.  She became so afraid of going to the bathroom because she knew it would cause pain and stinging.  I couldn't allow her to run free without a diaper as after one too many runny accidents I just couldn't handle it anymore.  She was so sore she didn't want to be touched at all, which made changing her close to impossible.  Because she talks so much, we also had to endure screams and cries of, "Please don't wipe me, Mommy!  It hurts my butt butt!  No do it!"  It was torture.  For all of us.  Really, Didier, Lily, and I tried frantically to ease her pain, to distract her with kisses, with toys, with songs, anything to give her peace.

When she called to me last night, she screamed like an animal caught in a trap.  There was a whimper that just ripped at my heart.  Her little face showed terror when I arrived and I had to coax her into letting me even look at her.  I just wanted to open her little diaper and clean off her parts, put some cream on them, and get back to sleep.  She fought every move I made.  I went left, she went left.  I moved right, she did too.  I tried to pull back one of the tabs of the diaper, she kicked me in my chin, my chest, my arm.  She screamed, "No! No! No!"  I found myself clutched her arm and starting to pin her when I caught myself.  Wait, wait, wait.  She is two years old.  Scared out of her wits and now even more so at this frantic banshee who looks a bit like Mommy but is surely a lunatic, clawing at her, fighting her.  I looked at her wide eyes, wiggling little body.  She was in pain.  She was scared.  She was tired.  So was I.  But these are the moments that Mommies are made. 

I picked her up and snuggled with her, dancing slowly in front of the wall mounted air conditioner, letting it cool us both down.  I whispered in her tiny ear, "I know it hurts, Pumpkinseed.  I want to help you so you can sleep.  Will you let Mommy help you?  Mommy will give you some medicine and put some cream on you so it doesn't hurt.  Will you let Mommy do that?"  She pulled away, frightened I would do it without her consent.  I told her I wouldn't.  But that I knew this would make it better.  We got some Meltaways for the pain and some wipes and lots and lots of diaper cream.  Her tiny behind was coated like a cupcake when I was finished.  I put baby powder on her back as I massaged her to sleep.  I heard her start to purr and then snore softly and I knew she had found some comfort.  As I gently lay her back down on her bed with her paci and tissue in hand, I curled my body around hers to be sure she felt safe and secure and truthfully, to be sure she was asleep before my planned getaway.

But I didn't leave.  Lying in the bed with Virginie, Lily just feet away in her little bed breathing softly, I wondered if these people felt safe with me.  If they realized all that I would do so that they felt secure, cared for, loved.  I thought about the countless mornings these two girls have awakened to find Mommy drooling in their room, twisted in their blankies with animals, tissues, and pacis plastered onto her body.  I have no memories of sleeping, napping, cuddling with either of my parents.  It was a different time.  The level of intimacy required to allow your children to see you as loving, open, vulnerable individuals was just not something that was considered by the mainstream.  Embracing and nurturing the emotional, psychological, spiritual lives of children probably seemed ridiculous.  But for me, it is something I think about constantly.

When I meet people, I often consider the little child that lives in them, often somehow recognizing the moment in which their hearts were pushed to closing, the moment they felt unsafe or threatened.  I find my kindred spirits in those broken souls and yet, what I wouldn't give for my kids to at least feel that they are, were, will be loved always.  There will be enough in the world to give them doubts.  My love or devotion or willingness to accept them, support them, be with them as they are and not as I want them to be just should not be one of them.  After putting Virginie to sleep, tired as I was, I couldn't get back myself.  In the dark room with my two little girls, both of them asleep, both of them tucked in, both of them loved and adored, I tried to tuck my little self in and go back to that moment in my life when my little heart started to close.  When the fear overtook me and I no longer felt I could call out for anyone to help me because I just wasn't convinced that anyone would come.


(c)  Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.

Coming around again

I know nothing stays the same
But if you're willing to play the game
It's coming around again

So don't mind if I fall apart
There's more room in a broken heart

One year ago, Lily participated in the Blossoms Nursery School Sports Day after 10 days with hand, foot, and mouth disease.  She was tired and weak and a little timid but the day was still great.  We spent it with friends and families at the Glendale Plantation in Saint Michael.  We ate rotis and samosas, hot dogs, cupcakes, chips, and cookies and I do believe I cracked my first Banks beer some time around 10:30 am.  The sun was hot, the earth dry and cracked after a wicked dry season.  I saw my first giant centipede there (another thing to be grossed out about, seriously, the sting is apparently incredibly painful) crawling out of the scorched earth.


Virginie, who arrived in Barbados as a tiny sack of new potatoes, just participated in her Sports Day, much like Field Day in the States, where she ran, walked backwards, did the egg and spoon race and a little obstacle race involving some blocks and more running.  There were hurdles and relay races, sack races and a tug of war for the older kids and parents (more on that later) and lots of refreshments and snacks to be purchased.  Sports Day is Blossoms' fundraising event for the year and a great opportunity for families to be together and celebrate the physical achievements of their children.  Many of the younger children were escorted through the events by either their parents or "aunties," many crying or looking completely clueless.  Virginie had a good time, it seems, though there was so little urgency in her step.  Perhaps we have been in Barbados too long.  Didier and I both participated and, like last year, I competed like I was on the field at FTHS some twenty odd years ago.  It seems I did not get the memo that I am 41 years old and that many of the other mommies were a bit younger than I.  No harm, no foul.  I had fun and came in second in my two races.  Hollah.

When Mother's Day was celebrated in England last month, two of my friends reported rather lackluster celebrations of their motherhood by their husbands and children.  One of the women, whose mother had passed away years ago, felt a bit raw knowing that she didn't have her mother with her and that her husband had sent flowers to his own mum but had not honored her. In fairness, he'd figured that as they were now living in Barbados, Mother's Day in Barbados would be her day and he did well last weekend with breakfast in bed and a nice dinner. The other friend did get an email from her husband stating that he'd remembered it was Mothers' Day in England, oh and Happy Mother's Day.  As he was out of the country last weekend, I am not sure if he did the right thing.


When I told Didier about these stories, for whatever reason I continue to bounce some of these things off his head, he said something along the lines of, "Well Mother's Day is like Valentine's Day, a made-up holiday to sell cards and candy and make everyone feel guilty that they are not doing enough to show how much they love." Hmm. Well that didn't sit quite right with me and, as one would imagine, I told him as much.  Valentine's Day, to me, is complete crap. It makes me think of overaccessorizing with one too many pieces of jewelry, hair up in some elaborate 'do, satin heels and clutch with rhinestones when really you are a let your hair blow, minimalist, natural kind of woman. It is too much because it is trying too hard and it is therefore, insincere. But Mother's Day? Mother's Day is for mothers. Something I certainly never really considered as I doled out another coffee mug for my mother as the day rolled around each year. To be fair, it is nearly impossible for a child to completely understand what this day could mean to a mommy. The dads, other mommies, grandmas and grandpas are meant to step in here. Even if you are not exactly sure what it is the mothers in your life are doing or have done, you know it's something.


I didn't know I was capable. Had no idea what all this would require, but now that I am doing it I must say, it is fucking tough. Harder than anything I ever dreamed about, and committing to the lives of other people forever, so that they can be better human beings who feel safe and loved and cared for and supported, is not for the faint of heart. From teething and fevers to cut knees to heartbreak, SATs, job searches, I have signed on. Weddings, babies, divorces if it comes to that, I am in.  And committed. Maybe all the mums out there have not. But Stephanie Penn-Virot has. 


So when Mother's Day rolled 'round again on Sunday I was looking for a little acknowledgment.  It had been a tough few months.  When the kids woke me at 5:30, I got them some snacks and marched my behind back to bed, MY bed (I'd been awakened by Virginie in her bed yet again.)  At 6:30 when the girls started reporting on each others' actions I told Didier that it was Mother's Day and it was time for him to get to it.  It's a good thing I did.  That's pretty much the full celebration of the day right there.  If my friend Holly had not been en route to Barbados from St. Vincent, the day would have been like any other Sunday, replete with laundry, floor mopping, toilet bowl cleaning, and total exhaustion.  The day seemed not to register at all with my hub.  I have learned not to make my dear husband feel like he has done something wrong because the idea of that will prevent him from even seeing his error when he is indeed in the wrong, so I expressed a little disappointment and then mentioned that Holly's visit just might make it right again.  Luck for him he can try again next year.


In an effort to put a smile on my face, he went to pick up Holly and her girls, taking Lily so that I might get Virginie down for a nap.  Virginie did go down moments before Holly arrived and just as I'd finished the last of the laundry and a good mopping of the patio.  Drinks were chilled and I must admit, I was nervous.  Holly was my best friend in the early months of living in Barbados, coming into my life months after I'd arrived, weeks it seems before I was about to give up.  She is funny and irreverent and shy and kind and exactly what I was searching for.  God works in mysterious ways and nearly one year to the day of her departure from the island, Holly came through Barbados on her way to St. Vincent, an island in the Grenadines, the famed locale of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.  We'd had just one hour at the airport and I'd begged her to see if there was any chance for her and her girls to come and stay with my family before returning to England.  The five days we all had together in Barbados solidified our friendship.  She met the friends I finally made here, saw me well-adjusted and not as crazy, and prepped to get the hell out of Dodge.With my old friend here, I saw just how far we'd come in her eyes.

Lily has become an incredibly poised young lady who is thoughtful and curious.  Virginie, a chatty little toddler who is intelligent and funny.  Didier, finally, a relieved, relaxed man.  And I, I came to terms with the straw I drew and found a way to recognize this as my life too.  As the saying goes, "It ain't a dress rehearsal.  This is it."  Holly and I didn't have a long time in Barbados together.  Like many other expatriates around the world, this is a transient life, and she was quickly back to England.  Having her here at the milestone marker, the end of our time in Barbados, was quite symbolic.  I feel able to close this chapter as she did, while taking with me lasting friendships and memories, both good and bad.

And so we will find ourselves by mid-summer back in New York.  Not in the city that I love, but closer still than Porters, Barbados.  All nearly two years older and, I hope, wiser.  I have learned much about myself and how I live during this time in Barbados.  Convinced I could be an international traveller, live abroad with ease, embrace new cultures and experiences, before we arrived, I discovered that it was quite difficult and lonely and challenging, more than I ever expected.  I now understand what it is that makes me a real American girl, what I love about my culture, my community, myself and what it was nice to let go of for a bit (materialism, consumerism, around the clock entertainment news and gossip, throw away items).  Maybe I don't need all the new latest products, to see all the new shows, to check out all the fashion magazines to feel in the know.  Maybe being in the know is overrated.  Maybe what I now know about me was worth going into the jungle and back.

And back.  That is the key.  I have new tools to take with me, a new mind, new goals, new dreams.  The nearly two years in Barbados felt at times like a dream or an alternate universe, but they were actually part of my life.  I did not waste those years, do not even regret them, but am happy to move on to a new chapter.  I fell to pieces here, actually broke down and broke apart.  Whether from post-partum or solitude that felt more like solitary confinement, it doesn't matter; it came, a crushing loss of identity that forced me to find myself all over again.  The things I once took painfully seriously, I can now recognize as inconsequential.  I realize that everything comes in due time, no point in freaking.  Things come when they come.  And I have found that I am a lover of many things--my children, my husband, my family, my friends, nature, cities, expression, creativity,new experiences, humanity, God, life, love.  But none of these things can be manifest if I do not first love myself enough.  Still working on it.  I'm sure I'll get another chance to learn.


And I believe in love

But what else can I do?
I'm so in love with you




(c)Copyright 1986. Carly Simon, Arista Records



(c) Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.

Paradise Lost



courtesy of Jean-Luc Virot

 I do finally understand people's utter fascination with life on the islands, whether it be because they actually live here and enjoy the slow paced, laissez-faire, year round sun and sea that big company salaries and /or expendable income (read riches) can provide, or because they do not live here and their dreams of paradise are far better than actually living on an island every day.  I fought and I fought hard against Barbados.  My slightly schizophrenic, obsessive-compulsive, reading-frenzied, brain-racing, artistic, chaotic brain just couldn't slow to the pace.  I was bored.  I didn't have my own group of friends and I didn't have my husband who worked all the time.  Every honeymoon story, cruise story, island hopping tale from years ago...I loved it.  Mount Gay Tour, Banks Brewery visit from the cruise ship, I feel you.  But living here after a life in a city that welcomed me as no other had, hurt both physically and emotionally.  It is beautiful here, someone's paradise.  But not mine.


I love the sea.  I love picking mangoes and limes and coconuts in my garden.  I love the strange fig bananas that look like regular bananas but have to be cooked to reveal their yumminess.  I even love the sun, just not all year 'round.  I have adjusted to the heat.  Foregone my best friends for new.  Traded cute clothes and haircuts for sun dresses, flip flops and ponytails or buns.  I wore no make up.  At all.  To the grocery store.  To a restaurant!  But this could only have been a temporary stop on our life path.  (I mean, I love clothes and make up too much.  I kid.)  Barbados, any island really, is for me, a place to settle down when all you were meant to do in the world has been done, or can be done from your home.  I don't think that is the case for me. I hope, no I expect that we will look back and smile about our time here.  After nearly two years, we are going "off island" for good.

Suddenly, I am looking at things nostalgically, recalling our first drive in from the airport in the middle of the night on August 7, 2009, waking up in a queen-sized bed sweating my face off with all four members of our family, one of them a 3 1/2 month old Virginie, cramped together being eaten alive by mosquitoes.  My friend Eva, in a gift that could only be given by God, just happened to be visiting Barbados and she witnessed with me, firsthand, the insanity.  Eva is a world traveller.  She has been everywhere and I could see on her stunned face that this was going to be a challenge. 

Our house had no screens, AC in the bedrooms only, no fans, save two poorly placed ceiling fans probably put in some time during the disco era, hard tiled floors, bars on every window and door wide enough to keep out people (did we need that?) but not wide enough to keep out curious monkeys, lizards, geckos, bats, moths, and blood-lusting mosquitoes.  They tried to kill us.  No really.  Drain our blood and make us look pock-marked so no one would love us, or at least recognize us.  We slept under sauna hot mosquito-netting, getting tangled in the middle of the night for diaper changes and bathroom breaks.  Didier worked for hours at a time and I was alone in the jungle with two little girls, one a baby, the other a terrified toddler who wanted clues from me and I had nothing to offer it seems other than hugs and a completely bugged out expression on my face.  I had no friends and no one wanted to call me from home because it was crazy expensive and I just cried and wailed all the time.  Who wants to talk to that post-partum inflicted, mosquito-bite covered, incredibly tan and shiny wench complaining about life in the tropics?  I got it.  I get it.  I have just always needed to sound it out.  I need to talk about it, process, figure out stuff and I need to run my mouth to do it. 

And so it happened that I started to meet people...running my mouth, as they say down South for "talking too much."  Didier put screens on the windows after much debating about whether or not this was even possible.  (Let me remind you that anything is possible.  Anything.)  We kept doors sealed at night after 6:30 pm to keep out the humidity and the house cooled down.  Lily went to a wonderful pre-school and then reception class where she met lots of great kids and I amazing parents.  We found a hot little spot for good music, dancing and sushi on the beach run by a sexy young couple, she is Guyanese and he, Iranian--HOT-- with whom we became friends.  (Shout out Cassareep!) 

On breaks and days off, we explored the island, though there is still much we would like to try before going--the submarine tour, swimming with the turtles, Aerial Barbados Zip Tours, a dinner at Cariba, maybe cool pics at some of the rum shops.  But honestly, it still felt like an extended vacation, a break from reality, a little bit like a black hole.  Professionally it did nothing for Didier or me, but it gave us better focus as to who we really are and who we really want to be when we return to the surface.  Yes, there was turquoise blue water, calm seas (usually), and a very laid back lifestyle, but it did not seem real. 

And now we are leaving.  Heading back to "home," wherever that mythical place is, to start again.  Start.  Not much is planned and we are excited, nervous, anxious, thrilled.  We are certainly preparing better than we did when we came here.  We know what to look for now, what works for us and what doesn't.  But what we have this time that we didn't have last is a sense of steering our own course.  I think a lot of people who come to Barbados do so to do just that.  Get off the grid.  Control their destinies.  Make their own paradise.  We came here for work in a pretty tough set up, and that as much as anything else shaped our minds about the place.  For us, Barbados can never be paradise, but somewhere else can.  I think it hovers in the space between us, all four of us, where we feel safe and loved and connected and free.  Let's see where that takes us.

courtesy of Jean-Luc Virot

(c)Copyright 2011. City Mom in the Jungle.

The Royal We

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On an island that was once under rule of the British and where nearly 80% of all tourism comes from the UK, it should come as no surprise that the wedding of Prince William to Kate/Catherine Middleton would cause a little stir and excitement.  There were cafes and bars that hosted early morning or all day events with traditional English food and Pims cocktails, hanging of the Union Jack in shop windows, as well as a denial by many of any interest whatsoever in what the royals were up to.  Of course I was told by a few that the Americans were more interested than they in the nuptials and then saw that played over and over again on many news outlets when royal wedding tourists from Tennessee and Oklahoma ended up being interviewed in tiaras and feather boas outside the Palace.  Nice.


I won't lie.  I watched the wedding at 5:45 am after a long night with very little sleep and lots of wake ups from the kiddies and would do it again, even knowing that it would be rebroadcast one hundred times that day.  I did the same for Princess Diana's funeral, rising at 4 am after my wake up call, from my dad, and sitting quietly sobbing in my tiny studio apartment in Boston.  I'm not ashamed.  My excitement was not really because of an attraction to all things royal, nor to things British, though I have often had a soft spot there, but because I am so moved by witnessing someone else's destiny.


Princess Diana was to the manner born and though she could not have known that she would be chosen an appropriate mate for a future king, it wasn't out of the realm of possibilities.  But Kate Middleton, how could she ever have guessed this?  Maybe she dreamed it.  Maybe she willed it.  Maybe it was written.  I'm not sure; I am still working on that.  But I think often, probably everyday, about how I am where I am moment to moment.  A black girl from Freehold, NJ with southern family roots married to a Frenchman who'd moved all over France, to Belgium, travelled abroad, lived in different parts of the States and together made two beautiful crazies.  I consider fate and destiny every day when I think of our future and what we will do next and how we will do it and how lucky we are to do it together. 


During that period a few months ago when Dan Savage's "It gets better" campaign for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered youth got underway after a series of profiled suicides and humiliations came to light, I thought of how true this is, or can be, for us all.  I thought of how I could never have known I would find such happiness, but that also in tough, ugly, humiliating times, I could find a voice and a place where I could trust myself over the noise and the nonsense.  When I saw Kate Middleton in that gorgeous Alexander McQueen dress, I didn't want to be her, didn't even envy her.  It's just that she seemed truly present, truly accepting of that moment in all its facets in her life.  We watched and loved her and hopefully felt love.  Just love without all the other stuff, judgments, considerations, calculations.


When I first met Didier, on that first day before he was DIDIER and was just Didier, the chef at the restaurant I'd just started working, I saw a glimmer, a flash, a second, split second, and I sucked in my breath and said, under it, "Oh boy."  I just knew there would be a "we."  Some nights, say when I am running from our bedroom to the girls' room and then back after hearing one of them shouting, talking, crying on the monitor or when the girls are snuggled up under my arm reading a story complete with Lily's interpretations of all images, sights, and sounds or when, once they are fast asleep, Didier and I just look at each other across a paper and crayon strewn living room with a knowing look, I am stunned by the fact that we are, indeed, a "we."  My life as I'd known it has changed and my commitment to these people and to life has been made ever stronger. 

So when I watched the royal wedding, as when I watch any wedding really (you should have seen me bawling my face off at my brother Jeff's wedding to his insanely fabulous betrothed), I am excited by and reminded of hope, that moment when we trust in the good, suspend disbelief for even just a moment that the fights, poopy diapers, fatigue rage, and all kinds of things, serious and not so, will eventually enter into the picture.  I am tickled by the fact that two people, whoever they are, came together in that moment as their best selves (hopefully) or at least their best projections.  I am floored by destiny.  How did these people find each other in the rough seas of souls surfing killer waves all over the planet?  I am a sucker, I know.  But I'd rather be a sucker for love who held out for my prince, warts and all, than a tight, closed fist of a heart looking for all that is wrong instead of all that is right.  Even a cynical fool like myself, Depeche Mode/Cure sure that I was fated for loneliness am part of a royal "we."

(c)  Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.