Life in transition

And so we have arrived in the States.  The last days passed so quickly it wasn't even like we were on vacation and it certainly wasn't as though we still lived in Barbados.  Life was strange and surreal and transitory. Didier and I were talking last night and both have come to the same conclusion, though we are not sure why, Barbados seems like a dream, an hallucination.  I cannot say that I see our departure as freedom as we were not really trapped, but I have found myself coming to the surface for air as if I have been underwater for a long time.  We do not dream of our home in Barbados, do not pine even for the beaches.  Maybe we are in a state of shock.  Maybe the longing, the nostalgia, the warm and fuzzies will come later.  But for now, we are gone.  And yet we aren't really here either.

Living at my parents' home while we get our bearings, I feel like I am in a halfway house, debilitated by mental and emotional crises, unable to fully express myself, to feel, to cry, to scream.  There is anxiety and stress.  Sometimes I cannot really breathe.  Deep in my heart I know we are on the road to the next chapter in our lives, that it will enrich the experiences of this rag tag clan we have created, but in the real present moment, as I live and breathe, I am not so sure.  We are distracting ourselves and the girls with all the food and wine and fresh air we'd been denied for two years in Barbados.  We are on an all you can eat and drink that makes us feel like we are putting on a pound a day.  I know most people envision island living as full of fresh food, fruits, fish, vegetables.  But Barbados produces nothing but rum, a little sugar, and sunburnt English tourists.  Food was expensive and often what I'd craved wasn't even available.  Since our return we've eaten crab legs, French cheeses, good baguette (not made by my husband), cupcakes, ribs, gorgeous Polish sausages, homemade Mediterranean food from the fresh market, farm grown veggies that do not cost as much as first month's rent.  We've had champagne, wine, cordials, nuts, gelato, sushi at a reasonable price (and incredibly delicious), pretty much everything we can get our hands on.

Virginie, who appeared to be on the verge of asthmatic, is breathing easier.  The girls are having a great time with my parents and sister, as well as their older cousin, though they do find the water too cold.  We arrived half a week before Independence Day and though I have often enjoyed a barbecue and fireworks, afternoon beach or pool time with family or friends on many a 4th of July, this year was different.  Being here for this particular holiday felt like home, like a reminder of going down South to see my family as a kid, knowing that in my blood I am tied to this place, that my spirit is tethered, no matter where I go, to a place where my ancestors lived and died no matter how excluded, outside, marginalized we've been, this is the only place that is home. 

I never really considered what it meant to be an American until I found myself living abroad with very few Americans in the mix.  I spent much of my time with Barbadians, English, and a few Canadians.  I am always open to new perspectives, it is one of the true joys of life, but there is nothing like a common language, unwritten even, that I didn't know I had until I was alone.  A language that includes sitcom references, songs, TV shows, minor celebrities and other trainwrecks, a self depreciating  humor about how Americans see themselves and how the rest of the world sees us (and trust me, there are plenty of potshots).  I stepped outside of my comfort zone even though I'd always felt disconnected and uncomfortable while living in the States.  I was always sure that I belonged somewhere else.

When we leave Florida, we are heading to New Jersey, not to the town where I grew up, but JERSEY.  After a lifetime of believing I was a New Yorker first and foremost, of thinking I could shake the Jersey Girl, I realized that my children might not be and might need more space than we could provide in glorious Manhattan.  They are children of the world.  If we are lucky they will travel, visit friends and family all over the world, learn languages, open their hearts to the world.  For now, they will discover the United States, recognize the flag which right now just seems cool because it has so many stars, learn the holidays of this country, connect to their American roots, go down South, be with our relatives while we continue our adventures and strengthen our bond as a family.  I don't ever profess to know what is coming and I am wise enough not to even try to guess.  We had a choice, choose a life where transition was inevitable, new places, new adventures, new people, and let the world open to us or not.  This path is curvy, crazy cuckoo nuts, but it is ours and we are doing it together.





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

Two years

Two years ago today, an almost three year old Lily and a two month old Virginie and I moved from our apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in preparation for joining Didier in Barbados.  We knew it would be a few weeks, never prepared for the nearly two months of separation that it would actually become, and had no idea what would be in store for us once we arrived.  Memories of that day are fleeting as they morph and merge with flashbacks, dreams, next dimensional impressions that have clouded the actual events, but I do know that a moving company with six strapping young Eastern bloc gents arrived at the crack of dawn and got to tearing that apartment down like termites on a piece of sweet wood.  Lily was off with her sitter, Liza for an extended mix of classic NY toddler time, Children's Museum of Manhattan, Central Park playground, pizza spot in her Peg Perrego, and Virginie, still a wiggly worm, was worn around my neck in the Baby Bjorn while I attempted to give directions with little success.  These dudes knew what they were doing and this sweaty, postpartum baby carrier was not telling them anything they did not already know.  My mother was there too, wandering about, watching, waiting for me to tell her what to do.  We went to Le Pain Quotidien across the street for a little brunch and to get out of the way.  Virginie was still a baby necklace.


The apartment was small, though pretty big by Manhattan standards, and had so many nooks and crannies to store things, bookshelves, drawers, cabinets, that these poor guys found themselves immediately swamped.  They called in reinforcements and still had to reschedule their moves for the rest of the day as this little apartment was taking over.  Move day was unseasonably hot, after days of cool weather and rain, so what was meant to be a half day job and then an afternoon at the Lucerne Hotel turned into a boiling hot, panicky race to the end.  I remember standing on the street in my MBTs, a pair of harem pants, grey tshirt and Virginie swinging from my chest and catching my reflection in the glass pane of my soon to be former front door and wondering, "Who is this crazy bitch and where does she think she's going?"

Well, it turns out, she had no idea.  In the haze of that afternoon, it was announced that Farah Fawcett had passed away that morning.  Though that may seem insignificant to a late-thirtysomething black woman standing on the street in harem pants, the truth is that Farah Fawcett was my touchstone as a young girl watching way too much television.  I was terrified of dying, morbidly attached to the subject, and only found comfort in the fact that should I die, when I did, Farah Fawcett would be there and I would be able to talk to her.  Now she actually was dead and I felt time just stop for me as I knew for sure she'd made it there.  I mourned for her and for her struggle which I'd seen well documented in a video memoir and then got back into the business of changing my life.

Once out of that apartment, I knew I was well on my way to becoming an American living abroad.  Just had to get through that little stretch of living with my parents and my two children at their house in Florida in the house that is their house and not mine and never was because I grew up in New Jersey.  In the house where I would stay in a guestroom with my two children, a toddler and newborn, without my husband or any family or friends close by and where I would contemplate my place, a place, any place, in the world for me after two glorious years in that small but kind of big apartment in the city that loved me that was ours.  Everything was changing and spinning.  I want to say I was excited, but I was postpartum, nursing every thirty minutes or so it seemed, fifteen plus pounds overweight, hot, scared, lonely, feeling unsupported, and slightly out of control.  The call from my sister was a welcomed respite from the insanity.

Until she told me that Michael Jackson had been rushed to the hospital and was unresponsive and that she thought he was going to die.  Michael Jackson?  With Michael Jackson, one did not even have to be a fan.  He was ubiquitous.  He was in the air, floating through the ether.  Even when you thought you didn't really like him, you did.  Something would catch and you would remember a time when everyone loved Michael Jackson, before Crazy Town and the kids sleeping over.  When it was just the music and that stuff was damned catchy.  It has to be good to hook you like that.  And suddenly, sending a prayer for Michael Jackson, begging him to live, to hang on, was all I could do.  I needed him to survive in a way that didn't even make sense to me.  I needed him to survive because if Michael Jackson couldn't get through whatever it was he was going through, how the heck was I going to.

And he didn't.  Sitting in the Lucerne Hotel, in a queen sized bed with my two children curled up next to me, with my mother in her queen right next to us, eating dinner and having a beer (for the letdown, you see) I stared in utter disbelief as it was stated, shouted, tossed in my face repeatedly.  The King of Pop is dead.  Over.  Gone.  The next morning we took a town car to the airport, my two girls, my mother, and myself.  The cab driver and I, an immigrant from West Africa, talked about how Michael Jackson and his reach across the globe, changed our lives.  Passing familiar streets out of the city to the airport, "You are not alone" played on the radio and I cried and cried and cried.  Not just for Michael Jackson, but for all of the memories, relationships, stumbles, and triumphs I'd had in that city.  I cried because I was leaving and I had no idea where I was going.  I cried because Michael Jackson sang, "You are not alone, I am here with you," and I had never felt lonelier than in that moment.  I was heading into the unknown.  I was doing it all alone.  I was leading my children there and I had no idea what I was doing.  Two years ago today.

RIP Michael Jackson.


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

On Father's Day

After two days with the movers packing us up, loading up the truck, and shipping us out, well not quite yet, but soon, cleaning, clearing, and removing all traces of us in our former home (except for the man Lily drew on the front patio in pencil just hours after the house painters had left or the "hearts and stars" Virginie added to the otherwise dull hallway walls that one has to discover like the paintings at Lascaux), it seems that we can leave Barbados without a trace.  This Father's Day morning, Didier said to me, "In ten days, we will be in Florida."  He was contemplative, thoughtful, and quiet as he watched the girls run ahead of us on the boardwalk along the South Coast of the island where we have relocated for the time being.  He loves those people I am sure more than he knew he would, probably even knew he could, and it is for them that he worries about our next step.  When they took to the condo quickly and easily, feeling excited about the elevators, in house washer and dryer, balconies with views of the sea, I saw him sigh with relief.

As parents, we want to create a safe place for our children, no matter where we live or where we are, a place inside of them that reminds them that they are loved, honored, and cared for.  They are little kids, under five, though Lily will turn five at the end of July, and I get all kinds of advice and info from well meaning individuals about the resilience of children and how these experiences will make them great.  Well, I do believe all that to be true.  I am thankful that Lily and even Virginie, have an international perspective from living abroad and from being the product of a bi-cultural union, but the other reality, the unspoken part, is that we give a damn enough to put their feelings, their fears, their perspective, if not first then at least on the table.  I care that Lily gets to finish the school year with her classmates, that she sees that saying goodbye and accepting change are difficult but also important parts of the human experience.  I want her to know that I too am afraid but that it certainly is not her fault and that she does not need to take on my insecurity. 


So I am insecure as hell about our future and a little scared, but other than picking up on small clues, she is not going to get the freak out/alienation from me.  I think that that is one of the hardest things about parenting, about leading and teaching a small child to feel secure and safe.  Just because I am worried, scared, confused, does not mean that I need to put that burden on my children.  In these tense scary moments, one can be withholding, because of fear, or one can try, against it all, to show love, love, love and compassion.  Lily knows we are moving, is even adjusting to it quite well.  She is kissed and hugged and reassured every day with storytime, visits to the beach and locales not yet visited and tried and true spots.  The other afternoon we walked through the St. Lawrence Gap, just Lily and me, holding hands and talking about our interests and our desires, and I felt her ease.  I did too.


In all of us there is a tiny place, right at the solar plexus, where we know ourselves and one can hope that in there are stores of feelings of love, adequacy, concern, respect, connection, community, family.  It is a place reserved, set aside, saved for a tiny soul by its welcoming parents, where one can return when the world is upside down and chaos seems to reign.  That place is beautiful and warm and secure.  That, THAT is our job.  We must show our children that place or each and every transition in life will be fraught with tension, confusion, fear.  I must give them the tools to trust their instincts, but also to know and believe that their father and I are completely in their corner.


The girls made Father's Day cards for Didier and drew pictures of him holding their hands.  We took him for brunch at a restaurant called Tapas, right on the coast, and we sat looking out at the turquoise blue sea.  He got to sleep in until 7:30, which is like noon in our house.  The day before, we visited the Graeme Hall Sanctuary, a gorgeous spread of land with a pond of monster carp, monkeys running about, and flamingos and ibis preening in the sun.  It, like so much in Barbados, is locked in a political battle between its owner and the government of Barbados that doesn't want to fund the project, but would rather free up the land to build more condos and expensive properties for no one to live in.  It's a real shame and a tragedy, the place is a thing of beauty.   It provides peace and sanctuary, hence its name.  We can only hope that we do the same for our children.  Provide them with peace and sanctuary when life is crazy, when there is joy to celebrate, when there is love to share, when there is something to overcome.

If you did it, are doing it, if you have made the difference, HAPPY FATHER'S DAY. If you think you might do more, try a bit harder, make amends, make it right, HAPPY FATHER'S DAY. If you get it, if you see, if you know that your love makes a difference for the rest of that child's life, HAPPY FATHER'S DAY. And if you just couldn't step up, didn't do it, you still have time to be one of the greats. Show up for the next Father's Day.



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

Moving Day

Today is our very last day in our home on the West Coast of Barbados.  5 Queen's Fort was ours for two years and try as I might to minimize its impact, its importance, this place was quite special for us all.  Last night, with boxes all around, only the girls' room relatively in tact, we slept here for the last night.  The power went out, which was fitting, as that often happens in Barbados and I was in bed with the girls, also happens.  Every night.  The humming of the ceiling fan gave way to the sounds of the night--toads, crickets, scurrying yucky things, and then it got hot.  Hot enough for me to remove the sheets, but not so hot that I was sweating.  There was no sweat on the noses of the girlies, but they did wriggle out of their covers and away from the warmth of my body.

I woke up first this morning, with no alarm.  I had the last day blues, no matter that I have dreamed of this moment for months and months.  This house was way too hot.  It was not particularly elegant.  I hated the finish of the walls and the do-it-yourself quality of most of the accessories.  But it was our house.  The first house for the Penn-Virot clan.  And in this house, Lily had a long hallway to walk down on her way to the TV or our bedroom after waking up.  In this house, Virginie stood up at eight and 1/2 months and then walked at ten.  We looked out the windows at screeching monkeys, playing monkeys, cheeky monkeys stealing mangoes.  We ran inside when the rain was too much and snuggled up in the guest room to watch videos when we wanted a change.  We never did make it to the guesthouse for a night, but we did spend some afternoons watching the garden from a new perspective.

The pool, with its fence lovingly and tirelessly put up by a caring Didier looked peaceful this morning, super clean after a new pump was put in for the next guests.  The water looked refreshing, though I know it to be nearing 80 degrees.  Even the monkeys peeking at me through the windows of the guesthouse seem to know something is changing.  They just watched in disbelief.

The goldfish died.  This afternoon, right before the packers took their break.  She didn't want to leave the house.  It was the only place, other than the fish tank at Brighton Market, that she ever knew.  Didier tossed her, lovingly of course, on the burial site of Salty the cat whom we also loved endlessly, along with his sister Sweety.  We had our first pets here.  Myself included.  I'd never done cat food, worm meds, petting at my own house.  I was a pet owner here.

I am writing from the guesthouse, where Virginie is hopefully finishing up her nap, as the packers and movers go to it.  I doubted them.  I admit it.  From all of my experience in Barbados, there would never be a team who could get the place packed up as I liked, but they seem to be handling it over there.  We will go and check soon as I do not like to leave people with my things too long without seeing what the heck they are doing!  I managed to let go in New York on the way here and have taken to it here as well.  We are moving.  Today.  And change starts right now.  Behind us will be Barbados and in Barbados, 5 Queen's Fort, our home, our house for the last two years.  Lily and Virginie will have fleeting memories of this place and I hope in their dreams they see corners, secret hiding places from this house, the place where they discovered themselves and we discovered that we were a family.

Though we are off to a condo for the next ten days and then to a hotel for a final staycation/vacation, we are already leaving a part of Barbados behind because we are moving out of our home.  Onward...


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

We go together

It's no secret that I plotted and schemed for almost two years to find a way off the island of Barbados.  Even in the moments that I allowed myself to fall in love, and there were many, with this island and some of its inhabitants, I knew that this just was not and could not be our final destination.  I was reminded by friends and family that this place was merely a stepping stone in the path I would trod with my family and that I should do my best to embrace every experience made available to me and I did.  Finally.  Still eager to find a home for us, I gave in to the rhythm, the pace, the pulse of Barbados and let myself open to this casual lifestyle and, more importantly, to the friends who were willing and able to love me and let me in.

What has come as a complete shock and surprise, though it probably should not have, is how hard Lily is taking the news.  And when I say hard I mean, falling to the floor in tears, screaming, begging, pleading with us to keep our house here and let her stay, please let her stay, with her friends and at her school.  Shouting, "I never, ever, ever want to leave Barbados!  I don't want to live in another country!  I want to stay here!  Please do not make me leave Barbados!"  Her tiny body shakes with each breath, every sigh of resignation met with a howl of heartbreak, tears don't streak her face, but turn it into a watercolor painting with swirls and smears, and wet curls on the fringe.  She stops only to breathe and then comes back again.  "I don't want my friends to lose me!  How will they ever find me again?  I don't want to leave my school.  Please do not make me leave them.  I want to stay.  I want to stay.  I want to stay."

On the drive home from our farewell party this evening I think it finally hit her that we were going, never to return as locals, but as visitors.  That she would not have a school here and we would not have a home.  My back was to her, but I reached to hold her hand.  I only refused to turn to her because tears were streaming down my face and my heart was melting out of my eyes.  When I was able to compose myself, I would look at her, look in her eyes and tell her that I understood.  And I do. 

We have made some incredible friends, had some wonderful times, after school beach sunset walks, swims at our private beach, impromptu swimming parties after lessons or after a friend's drop in.  Lily has been loved by friends and by the parents of her friends like family.  She has always felt safe, always felt free, always felt Barbadian.  She became a big girl here.  This has been the only home she truly remembers no matter how hard I try to press New York into her heart.  Her heart is here.  But when we go, we go together and our time here is done.

After our shower this evening, where Lily continued to pour her heart over my tormented soul, I finally stopped her gently and asked her if she wanted to try to talk about something else as I could see she was becoming quite hysterical.  We talked about maybe getting a puppy or a kitten when we found a safe, new home and she said she would prefer a kitten.  Suddenly, her bright, open face twisted and she asked, "But if we go away, where will the kitten go?  What will happen to her?"  I told her a little bit about kennels and how they care for animals when their owners are away and she asked what they did there and I told her about the animals getting groomed, and having snacks, and watching TV shows only about dogs and cats, and running on the treadmill and clawing at scratching posts.  This seemed to lighten her spirits.  She asked if we could hold hands and I said, "Always," taking hers on mine.  We walked together down the hallway, holding hands until she asked, "When we go on the airplane, can I sit next to you?"

I know the whole "kids are resilient" spiel.  I do believe it.  But I also love, honor, and respect my daughter's feelings, even if she is a young child.  And her little heart was near to bursting today.  No matter what I offer her or use to comfort her, she knows she will experience a loss with this move and there is no denying that I know it too.  We cannot stay in Barbados.  This is the direction that our life has taken us, whether willed or not, and we must go.  But if Lily's heart hurts, then mine does too, and I know that childhood wounds, unacknowledged, ignored, unspoken, can burn a hole in one's soul that is nearly impossible to heal.  We will go this road together.  And I will hold her hand and meet her eye and cry my tears too until both of our hearts heal.

Thank you to my friends in Barbados, who gave us a send off so filled with love and hope and community.  We go together.


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

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.