Just like starting over

Our life together is so precious together
We have grown, we have grown
Although our love is still special
Let's take a chance and fly away somewhere alone

It's been too long since we took the time
No-one's to blame, I know time flies so quickly
But when I see you darling
It's like we both are falling in love again
It'll be just like starting over, starting over

Everyday we used to make it love
Why can't we be making love nice and easy
It's time to spread our wings and fly
Don't let another day go by my love
It'll be just like starting over, starting over

Why don't we take off alone
Take a trip somewhere far, far away
We'll be together all alone again
Like we used to in the early days
Well, well, well darling

It's been too long since we took the time
No-one's to blame, I know time flies so quickly
But when I see you darling
It's like we both are falling in love again
It'll be just like starting over, starting over

Our life together is so precious together
We have grown, we have grown
Although our love is still special
Let's take a chance and fly away somewhere

Starting over (c)

When we left Barbados, I didn't have time to stop and reflect on the time spent, lessons learned, growth, progress, great leaps made.  We had too much to do.  We still do.  And not just the "you'll never find the right time to do it so just do it" too much to do, but really I have a lot to do to get us settled into life in the United States, in New Jersey, where I said I would never return, to get Lily ready for school, to get us ready for the next phase of our lives.  I have taken a long time to return to writing because the waiting, the receiving, the unpacking, the unpacking, the unpacking, and the breaking down of boxes, crumbling of paper, stuffing of said paper into huge garbage bags to hopefully be recycled has been too much. 

My emotions have been all over the map.  We were in an empty house that took days and nights to clean after the previous messy, slightly disgusting tenant got her stuff out, well downstairs in the basement, with two girls that we'd taken from their home on a desert island, who had no toys, games, movies, anything really to do except for wait.  Wait for us to get it together, doing it while making it look like fun, doing it while making it look like we were actually doing it or anything together.

When I came back to New York one year into our two year stint in the Caribbean, a friend of mine who has encouraged my writing, the stories told, the openness of my telling them said something along the lines of, you can't have the story end with the City Mom getting divorced and leaving with her children.  You must go and seize your life, live that experience, feel it, share it, remember it.  I did go back and try, excited by her excitement really, enthusiastic about telling these crazy stories of monkeys and coconuts and citrus rashes and left side of the road driving on the right side of the car.  I made friends.  I let my children love that country, let them believe it was their home, let them need me more than they probably should have.  I held them close and made my family look like one.

When we got back to the States, Didier got a job offer and we both jumped at it, excited at how fortunate we'd been, how serendipitous and fortunate, how we were on the path back to...something.  I am not actually sure what.  I do know that being back home, in a less stressful place, a place that I know because I come from here, physically, spiritually, mentally, a place where I can walk, breathe the air, I am starting to feel myself warm up, thaw from the chill that Barbados, that scorching hot island that ripped my heart out and made me eat it.  And now I am burning.  My heart beats out of my chest every night because I am so sad, so pissed, so angry and I am just not sure at what.  I can admit that I am raging but I am really just shouting to the air.  I wait for the girls to go to sleep so they do not have to work this out with me but they really are anyway.  They know I am wounded and I hope to God they do not think it comes from them.

I waited two years to let it all out.  The prison that was my life in Barbados has released me, but now I have nothing else to blame.  The people I thought loved me, would care for me, look out for me, take care of me, did not, while others came to my rescue in their place. I didn't dare scream for help while there because I knew no one would come.  They couldn't.  But now I am here, home again, and there is no place to hide.  I cannot hide in the cultural differences, accept that no one is calling, connecting, reaching out because the call is too expensive.  I cannot tell myself any longer that it's the job, the schedule, the pressure.  I had to accept that there because there was nothing to escape to.  There was nowhere to go.

There was a rumor that when John Lennon wrote the song Starting Over, he was referring to the "lost weekend" when he and Yoko Ono  lived apart and were trying to reconcile, reconnect, get back to each other.  I was so moved that adults wrote songs about love, caring, admitting mistakes, longing, desire.  I wanted that.  Hearing the song so much as a child, especially around the time that this artist was killed, stolen from his love,  I could not believe how that emptiness must have hurt.

When I fell in love with Didier, there was a magic in our connection that I still believe is there.  I love him, care for him, want to share with him in ways I think he has never been shared with and in ways he is terrified to open.  I have spent a great amount of my adult life on a quest to heal my childhood wounds.  The scars are so easy to find on me if one even dares or cares to look.  But his are so well hidden that I would not even know they were there if I had not spent so many years with him.  There is no way that he left Barbados unscathed.  I think he is too proud, maybe too much in denial to even acknowledge the wounds, how the experience hurt his pride, his ego, his sense of how important he is, I guess his ego.  He has retreated and he was never that open to begin with.  We never speak of our pain, our disillusionment, our disappointment.  We do not meet at a place where we know we at least have each other.  The truth is, I have the girls.  At least I have the girls.

We are starting over.  And though it is not from zero, it sure feels that way.  I don't recognize anything and yet it all looks the same.  Except for me.  I have no idea who this person is.  I am tiptoe-ing around myself, around saying what I want to say, what I want to do.  I am a teenager back in my room in New Jersey begging to be acknowledged and loved except this time, I have kids.  And to keep them from beating this same path, I have to shake this.  I have to start over so I can love me enough to love them.  And love me enough too to see that two years ago, I unpacked a house all by myself and find myself again alone in my new house with two sleeping girls, order and control, everything in its place.  Except...



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

(c) John Lennon, Just Like Starting Over

Consolation

Lily turned five today and in the middle of the chaos I wanted to be sure she had a wonderful day.  We started out with a full on playground session at a park that will be a stone's throw from our home when we finally do move in.  Both she and Virginie made a friend and in one touching moment, when Lily tried to climb some crazy nuts apparatus more advanced than anything I ever played on as a child, a young boy, maybe about seven or eight, took her hand to help her maneuver herself.  I nearly cried.  True, I have been on the verge, for the past few weeks now, but it was so lovely and so well received.  I don't think there is a parent out there who gives a damn, who doesn't worry/hope/pray that his/her child will find random acts of kindness to spur them on.  Right now especially, I look for the signs in every gesture, every touch, every wink, sigh, or gasp as my guilt for dragging these girls to six locations in six weeks is extreme.  After buying the birthday cake, candles, plates, napkins, cups and princess crowns for Lily and her side kick, we went home for a little lunch and a quick swim, one of the greatest gifts for Lily who was privileged enough to swim every day in Barbados.


Yesterday, on our quest for new furniture for the as yet unmoved into home, we spent six hours in IKEA.  Six hours!  I don't know if any two adults could handle that level of shopping, design, home furnishing intensity, but I do know that two little girls reach their breaking points at about the two hour mark.  And that is including a stop for lunch looking out the window watching airplanes land at Newark International Airport and a 1/2 trip to the Ballroom which is basically a huge ball pit for kids over a certain height to run around and get their cooped up-in a shopping cart-in a building with no clocks and no air, rage on.  Lily had a phenomenal time while Virginie played in the too-small-for-balls section across the aisle.  Didier took off for the bathrooms and to peruse the beds for a few minutes which expanded into a lost parent/partner trip to Customer Service followed by an intense stand off in the Express to Exit section.  The start of the breakdown began there.


Never have I shown Lily or Virginie the fear or the anger they saw in me that afternoon.  Lily, the eldest and really more sensitive of the two, was in tears.  I could almost not bear her face.  I'd been scared and upset and hurt but so wish I could take back that moment when she saw me walk away, even though I just went to catch my breath.  This tail end of our two year journey into ourselves just took its toll and I hope to God that it has strengthened and not broken us.


I wrapped Lily's birthday present, a Strawberry Shortcake Clubhouse with movable parts, and Virginie's consolation prize, Plum Pudding and Lemon Meringue getting ready for some kind of camping trip with fruity sleeping bags, at midnight in some Christmas paper I'd found in the home of a friend who's allowed us to stay in her home while she and her family are on vacation.  I didn't want her to feel the burden of this experience, to remember what I think is a momentous occasion, as a troubling time.  Yes, I have been slowly leaning towards having a mental breakdown, but it sure as hell was not going to happen on her birthday.  My cousin and two very good friends and their families came to join us for some pizza and cake tonight where Lily laughed and played, opened gifts and got to blow out candles shaped like stars and hearts and crowns and castles.  She called all of the friends who visited her "best friend" and told me that she had a wonderful time.  I did offer a tea party some time in September for her to get to know some of her new playmates in town as a kind of extended, expanded birthday and will definitely hold up my end of the deal if she'd like it.


This afternoon, sitting on a swing in the playground near the house we will soon call home, I thought, I really like this place.  Didier too felt we'd made a good choice after giving up on New York City and New York, further upstate.  Sometime here just feels right.  Watching Lily and Virginie running around together, going down the slide, sometimes stopping to hold hands or lead one another to unexplored parts of the park, I hoped that this, this change, this move, the dare could be a birthday gift of sorts to one of the girls who has my heart.  And that my heart, my unacknowledged broken heart, would heal here.  There are fences that need to be mended, promises that need to be kept, dreams that need to be followed.  It was a move we had to make as a family, to come back to us, to get back to the business of living and loving more easily.  Lily loves the house, the park, the playground.  She is optimistic.  I can see it in her face each morning.  I am hopeful, I want to say optimistic, but I am still unsure.

What I know for certain is that I love my family.  I love my girls and...my husband.  I do, I do, I do.  And our consolation prize is this beautiful, idyllic town, a chance to start new, a promise to seek out our dreams and not be trapped in mindless, heartless, soul-less work, no matter how many tell us "that's what adults do."  As Lily turned five, she made a wish and blew out her candles.  I would never tell her to wish for the middle, so how dare we tell ourselves.

Happy Birthday, dear Lily Frances Grace.  I will tell you every day to choose what's best for you, follow your heart and your instincts, your dreams.  To face your fears.  To never give in.   Watch Mommy and see what all that can do to you.


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

Savage beauties

One of the things I missed most living in Barbados was culture.  This is subjective, some might say that I was surrounded by Caribbean culture whilst living there, but what I longed for were museums, curated exhibitions, galleries of painting, sculpture, media, theatre, music, concerts and surprises found on line or through friends or journals, little bars and cafes.  I wanted magazines, books, writing.  I would read in magazines either lugged in from the States from visiting friends or purchased at a mark up that would make your wallet explode, about exhibitions, books, TV programs, news articles, whatever connected me to the world and just dream. 

When I read about the exhibition, Savage Beauty: Alexander McQueen, a collection of clothes, archives, collection videos, accessories of the talented designer, I knew that I could not miss this one.  With the Met just a short walk from my former address, I could taste it.  A little background.  I'd often thought, as a girl, that I would be a designer.  I loved clothes, breathed them.  Bought fashion magazines at twelve, before all the twelve year olds of the world were doing so, and dreamt of the clothes I could create.  I loved the artistry, as I'd loved all art then, and was especially drawn to the expressiveness of a collar, cut of a garment as it clung to the figure or gently caressed it, making the wearer even more than when naked.  It was the 80s and there was color and androgyny, accessories and shoes.  There was athleticism and energy and newly adored bodies hitting the gym looking for something to showcase themselves.  I could feel the change in my stride, in my mood when I wore different clothes and I loved that feeling.

Home economics, 7th grade changed all of that when I struggled with the "car pillow."  Nasty little stitches, broken threads, tough times threading that bobbin, pattern making, using patterns. All of it.  I didn't have the patience, nor the talent for it.  I continued to love fashion, however, and looked out for new voices, visions, leaders.  I loved Jean-Paul Gaultier, Claude Montana, respected the perfection of Valentino, Givenchy, Chanel though I didn't quite see my place in it.  And then there was Alexander McQueen.

When I first discovered Alexander McQueen I thought, this is one of mine.  He was shy and crude and elegant and tortured and so extraordinarily talented and skilled.  He was such a true artist that I whispered to myself, I want to wear that, even from the very first.  I waited for every collection, went into the boutiques selling his clothes to see them up close.  I worried for his gentle soul hiding inside that rough exterior.  And when he seemed to get himself on track for the "dream"--new love, weight loss, good looks, sales=money--the mile markers for happiness by most of our friends and family, I sighed with relief that maybe he had really found it.  I knew about emotional and spiritual pain, knew how it ate away at joy and achievements and milestones, knew how it could kill any sense of hope, success, love.  I saw it in his eyes, maybe loved him more for being a "tortured artist" unable to enjoy the mundane and routine.

But I didn't want it to end.  Never thought it would.  At least not as it did.  Those beautiful, beautiful clothes.  And I had to see them.  Today, with my cousin Kelley, after waiting two hours in a line snaking through Mesopotamia and Persia at the Met, I opened my eyes to Savage Beauty.  We must find a way to love and nurture artists.  In the creative, there is everything.  In the exploration, desire, longing can come magic.  Artists are wizards and no matter the medium, they ask/demand of us to consider the world differently.  Reading McQueen's thoughts on his collections, what inspired him, what worried him, called to him, all the things from which he drew gave a glimpse at a man not just tailoring.  He had the technique, the skill, the craft and he had the magic.

I came home living in his dream, wrapped in the world he'd created when my husband called to tell me that another of my beloved artists had passed.  Young Amy Winehouse.  Tragic, flawed, insanely talented, wounded.  The tears came not in a trickle, but bursting out of my face like Pop Rocks contained in a soda can, then suddenly released.  I was bawling in seconds, my cousin sitting next to me afraid something had happened to one of my girls. 

And something had.  Amy Winehouse was one of my girls.  One of the many artists, female voices that moved me forward, onward, through it when I knew I just could not get through.  She had gravel and pain and heartache and longing and love and dreams.  She got locked in her world, a sensitive creative soul who just could not work out the every day.  She was an addict and that seems to have made it easier for people to take potshots.  Don't.  She just wore the wounds on the outside.  She got ridiculous because she hurt so much and looking at her made us see, whether we wanted to or not, that it's hard, no matter the money, the fame, the accolades, and attention, this thing called life. 

They can both be viewed as reckless, Alexander McQueen and Amy Winehouse, in different ways, but they had genius.  They were artists.  Their beauty was savage,  natural and wild and from it, they fashioned something we could all claim, see reflected in our own souls, the beauty and the pain.  The beauty and the pain.  Rest in peace.



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

Limbo

In the game or dance of limbo, participants try to shimmy their way under a pole that drops lower and lower and lower until it is almost on the ground.  It is mesmerizing to watch as regular people contort, twist, and bend to the depths that bar takes them.  The metaphor is so obvious.  In the Catholic tradition, limbo, from the Latin limbus, meaning edge or boundary, presumably of Hell, is the place where souls wait in the afterlife in original sin (occurring in all of us due to the Fall of Man) but not having been assigned to Hell of the Damned.  The limbo dance has its origins in the contra dancing of Trinidad and the word itself is a derivative of limber in West Indian English.  The movements, similar to that of the African legba or legua dance (after the god of fate, chance, opportunities, and crossroads of Afro-Caribbean lore) reflect "the whole cycle of life" according to some African beliefs.


And so we find ourselves as we wait for a decision, are we in the house?  Did we get it?  Have we been approved? We are in limbo, not just in trying to figure out where we are going to live, but once we find a place, we will still be living in a hotel on the edge of New York City for two weeks while we wait until an August 1st move in. It's a strange place to be. We are not on vacation. Not on a business trip. Not in a home. We won't even live in the town where the hotel is, when all is said and done.


With my aching back, brought on by the children, both carrying them in pregnancy and then carting them around on my hip even now, bending like the willow and not breaking like a twig, is pretty tough for  me.  And with my contorted sense of self, just going with the flow and letting go and letting God, though I know the only way to weather life's changes, opportunities, crossroads is close to impossible.  But each morning I get up and ask myself how we are going to do it and try to do it with a smile.  Try to bend backwards and let life open to us and show us surprises. 

The girls, missing a pool, swam in the bathtub with their suits on.  They have built snow forts out of the pillows from the two beds in the suite.  We have gone into the city and walked in our old neighborhood.  Two years has not changed it much except for a few businesses that we feared wouldn't make it and didn't.  On our way to a walk through Central Park to go to the MET(to see Savage Beauty, the sure to be thrilling and haunting exhibition at the Costume Institute of Alexander McQueen's work), Didier and I realized that that was more than likely not the right choice for us.  We were travelling with two little people and where on the Upper West Side should we take these two little creatures while we waited for life to settle?  The Children's Museum of Manhattan, of course!  And it was a blast!  The girls ran all over the place with their aged parents in tow.  Lily spent nearly every single day there as a two year old when we lived right around the corner during the months that play in the park was too cold, too windy, too rainy, or too snowy.  Watching Virginie make her way through the Dora floor, the Curious George exhibit, fingerpaint, feed the letter dragon, I saw we'd really come back. 

We met up with friends not seen for two years and fell back into easy rhythms and patterns, everything seeming the same, except for older children and maybe a little more gray hair for us (probably caused in part by the older children).  There were parks in New Jersey, playgrounds and the zoo in Manhattan, a ride on the NY Waterway ferry between New Jersey and New York crossing the Hudson River, and our first trip to the movie theatre as a family.  We saw "Winnie the Pooh" and its one hour and three minute screen time was just about right for the ladies.  Virginie shouted out to the screen with questions and demands and Lily sat mesmerized.  Like bookends, Didier and I sat with the girls between us, laughing and smiling, getting lost in the picture.

And in limbo, that place, at a crossroads, a place of opportunities, a place of mirrors, a place where fate is decided, I bent backwards, squeezed Didier's hand, kissed our girls, and laughed outloud.  This isn't the first time we have done these moves.  We all do them.  And I am much more flexible that I ever expect, more agile, more light on my feet.  Love is burning in my chest and I trust that the fates are on my side and will help us win.  It might cost more money that I want to spend (I am cheap).  I might miss my things locked away in a container stuck in customs, as we are here.  I might wish I knew the answers already so I wouldn't have to sweat it out.  But maybe I should just stop sweating because it will all be decided anyway.  One doesn't sit in limbo forever.  The trick is timing the perfect moment, with the perfect backbend, at just the right height or depth of the stick, bending one's head back, and letting go.  I am always surprised when I make it under and up again.


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

Hotel, motel, whatcha gonna do today?

I am not sure what I was thinking.  Okay, actually I am.  I thought that if we were travelling for two weeks, living out of suitcases and crashing in hotels, we needed to do our best to save some money, especially as other expenses were soon to be mounting what with the new house, car, school, relocation, et al.  What I wasn't thinking was what an $80 a night hotel was going to look like, smell like, feel like, so I went into it hopefully optimistic.  A very fancy friend of mine had stayed there.  She said it was really accommodating, close to where we were looking for a home, and inexpensive.  She is still very fancy.  The hotel was...not as she remembered.  I think when we overshot the entrance and ended up, just yards away at the corrections facility where two forms of ID needed to be shown to get, we should have wondered what was up.  Or when the parking attendant said, "You know I hate that shit!" when we rolled up and then said, "Oh my bad, you need your parking?"that we were so not in Kansas anymore.

At many of the beaches in Barbados when one finally came out of the water and brushed off the sand, there were makeshift showers rigged out of plastic or metal piping, sometimes some twine, maybe, if the creator of said construction was ambitious an on/off switch other than a simple garden faucet.  Didier and I used to remark how easy it would be to draw tourists with a nicer set up, correct showers, paved floor to stand in, dare I say, hot/warm water even.  I could have made mention of this at the reception desk of the Ramada Inn over by the airport (see, I would tell you eventually about my foolishness.)  Standing in the dark (the dark because the two lightbulbs in the bathroom had burned out and we only discovered this when we returned to the room at night) with a faucet that read hot and cold and then produced the opposite or scalding or ice cold or a trickle with no rhyme or reason, I flinched and twisted and contorted and shivered. 

The girls were not able to take a bath as the stopper did not work and I was extremely grateful for that as I did not want those people sitting, swimming, kicking, soaking in that dark, dank tub.  We had to use the water from the tub to rinse water on our toothbrushes because the sink faucet let out eye dropperfuls of water at a time.  It was clear though.  Thank you for the small miracles.  I made them put toilet paper down on the seat when they had to use the bathroom.  Virginie is potty training.  These are things you learn even if you can barely get up on the seat.  At least with this mommy you do.

As we snuggled in for bed, all four of us a king-sized twin bed combo lashed together, I found a hair on one of the squishy pillows and promptly threw it, the pillow, onto the floor.  When I pulled back the blankets I was greeted with a lipstick kiss on the white cover, which found its place next to the comforter that had already been hurled to the floor.  (Look, I watch Oprah, I know what's on those things and I do that at the better establishments.)  And in a "you can't make this shit up" moment, when I went for the extra blanket provided, it has a cigarette hole burned through it.  We turned off the A/C and slept on the bed, sheet covered, rolled together sardine packing style with the two little ones in the middle and Mommy and Papa holding up the ends to make sure no one fell onto the dirty floor.  The floor that we were all disallowed to walk on without shoes.

It was laughable and we would have moved out after that first night, but we were scheduled to look at a large number of houses and condos in our hoped for new town and had to race out to make our 9:30 am appointment.  The hotel policy was to have notice given before 6 pm the night before check out and we just didn't think we would make it through all the day's events and still find a place and be able to check out by noon.  The search was thrilling, scary, depressing, exciting.  We saw lots of properties, some that had potential, some we adored, and some that were just downright filthy.  Didier, the superclean Frenchy, could not help but remark how dirty some people actually are.  Given a gorgeous property in a gorgeous location, could they not do better than that?

We were exhausted at the end of the day.  Excited that we found a few that thrilled us.  Hopeful that one could be ours.  Bummed that we had to go back to the hotel to think, consider, reflect when we knew it would be impossible to relax.  It was.  Impossible I mean.  We arrived at the same time that the guests from two different convention groups were arriving.  The first group seemed to be a large Latin family gathering from the United States and Canada who had not seen each other in at least the last ten years.  There was a lot of stopping in front of the front door, parking lot, reception desk, elevator, vending machines, business office, restrooms, water fountains, any place really to chatter on and on, "Ah que linda!  Ah que guapo!"  I couldn't be happier to see people reunited.  I wanted to get to bed.

When Bunny in her red wig, cut off jean shorts, tattoo of a cat on her upper thigh, lace front something or other showing her 55 year old plus-sized modeling wares got on the elevator with the Chinese food delivery man, I figured this shit was a rap.  When she said in her bourbon and cigarettes voice (and this from a raspy voiced woman myself), "Ooh baby, y'all's cute!" to my kids, I thought, nice.  Later that night a few of the crews from the Biker Club Convention revved up in the parking lot doing wheelies and giving pounds and hi-fives as I tossed and turned, dreaming of the speed packing I was going to get done to get us out asap in the morning.

In the morning, I awoke to read a message from my realtor with a twelve page lease agreement on a property that we absolutely loved that basically stipulated that we could not live freely in the house, as if it were our own, care for it like normal human beings, and raise our family.  It had clause after clause, loopholes in which to trap us into giving away, signing away our rights.  We had to give it up.  Strangely, I was able to honor myself and my family immediately upon reading this drivel, but never thought for a moment about what booking us into an $80 a night shit hole said about my feelings of worth.  I knew I did not deserve that.  Knew that no one in my life, in my family, would ever consider that for themselves.  Inside I must have known what to expect from a hotel by the airport, with such a low rate in a busy part of the country, (this wasn't some little town with very few visitors and travelers).  I had to have known that I was selling myself and my family short. 

My sister spoke out.  My dad bit his tongue saying only that I should move those babies if it was not good enough for them.  And for me, what is good enough for me?  There are eye opening moments if we stop and check them.  I read my internal gauge and reset it.  I am worth more than that.  I want to be comfortable, to feel secure.  I want my family to feel the same, Didier and the girls.  I used the excuse, and a valid one, that we could not afford it.  It is expensive to relocate, to start over, to change one's life, but what am I willing to pay financially, emotionally, spiritually for my own safety, comfort, security?  It is certainly more than $80.

I booked us into a family style suite hotel closer to the city and it costs much more that the first.  The girls came in, pulled back the sheets on the bed and snuggled in to play with their toys.  They said, "Mommy, we like this hotel better than the other one because it has a kitchen.  It is like a real home."  For the girls, a kitchen where we can sit around and chat while Papa (or Mommy sometimes) can cook, where we can listen to music or watch TV is home.  And when you are in transition as we are, providing any sense of home, of safety, or security is a blessing.  They are all sleeping.  Didier in his/our bed, the girls in theirs/ours.  It is quiet.  It is a hotel and for the next few days/week until we find something to call our own, this will have to do.



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

Hiatus

It has come to this, but I will be back.  When we arrived in the States on June 29th after moving first from our home to a condo in the St. Lawrence Gap to the Hilton Barbados and then finally to my parents' home in Florida, it was my intention to keep up writing.  Writing this blog, short stories, poems, anything really, changed my life and gave me purpose and a light at the end of an extraordinarily dark tunnel.  I need it maybe even more today than I did when I first started it in May 2010, but just cannot commit to it consistently while we prepare for our future here in the States.  I am overwhelmed.

I want to write something meaningful, something funny, something irreverent to put a smile on your face as you read this, but in truth, I am sitting in the mucky muck.  There are too many loose ends that need my attention and all I can think about is getting us to a place of peace.  I'll be back soon.  I hope you will wait for me.

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

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.