November 27, 2002

  • The following rather lengthy piece is a personal story that mentions how I got the African painting that headlines my blog.  It's a tough story; both sad and gruesome -- and it's not about the artwork itself.  If you don't want to go there, the raw specifics are that the painting, which is colored sand on wood, was purchased in the early '90's in Dakar, Senegal from an itinerant vendor outside a hotel frequented by expatriates.  There is no artist's name, or any other mark, anywhere on the painting.


     


    Fear Twice-Told


     


    I must not fear.
    Fear is the mind killer.
    Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.
    I will face my fear.
    I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
    And when it has gone past I will turn my inner eye to see its path.
    Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
    Only I will remain.


    Dune, Frank Herbert (New York: Berkley Pub., 1987, c1965)


     


    Fear I


     


    August, 1985.  I am gasping as I climb in the populous foothills of the Great Rift's Ruwenzori range.  Soon, I'll reach the “Equateur” sign, which by this time is too familiar to me to occasion much thought, except the passing consideration that the equatorial line, if mapped truly according to the sign, runs straight through my privy, situated on the slope behind us. 


     


    I am terrified.  Figuratively - but firmly - attached to my back is my “bete noire” (which in my mind's eye is the twin of the demon released by Ged in le Guinn's Earthsea Trilogy: a night-black, round-backed creature with long claws) of panic and fear.  I don't yet know that "panic disorder" is a recognizable diagnosis.  That I'm by no means unique in the experience.  Had I know, and faced the beast from the start, and fought it with counseling, I might have rid myself of it more easily.  But I didn't want to give the Peace Corps any fodder to dismiss me.  So today I trek the mountainside on my first true assignment, teaching supplies in my backpack and stark terror in my heart.  I do not know if my condition is evident to the mammas hoeing maize and manioc along the wayside.  Their broad grins and habitual “Mwabukire!” seem no different.  Perhaps my mental state is indistinguishable from my physical weakness: red face and heavy breathing.  My assistant, climbing easily behind me under a heavier load, says little to me but chats in Kinande to the mammas, obviously deriving significant status from his accompaniment of the local mzungu.


     


    I know that I can conquer this fear, and I do.  Hours later, laughing with my elderly “students” as we look at the “new, improved” beehive I've come to show them, the fear is gone, and only I remain.


     


    Fear II


     



    February, 1993.  I stand on a balcony overlooking the Pacific.  I can see, dimly floating on the azure waves, the island of Gorée, from which, a century ago, African natives, torn from their homes in the interior, started their voyage to the slave markets of Europe.  This hotel where I'm staying caters to well-to-do clientele, including expatriate “experts,” of which I am now, shamefully, one; and also to local men and women made wealthy by more overt extortion.  The rooms are cleverly constructed to jut right over the waves, letting the shore breeze erase all scent of sewage-laden tidal refuse.  I am leaning on the railing, naked except for a thin wrap around my chest, just recovered from a bout with amoebic dysentery. Hidden by the sidewalls from any eyes but the gulls', listening to the slurp-slurp of the tide, smelling the salt wind and seeing the bright white daylight, I feel, momentarily, purged, free, and clean.


     


    But I am not clean.  I know, although the medical proof is yet to be sought or provided, that I am pregnant, and that the fetus, which could have been my long-sought first-born, is dying inside me.  The fault is entirely mine.  After five years of trying without success, I took this extended business trip to the African West Coast, swallowing known foeticidal anti-malarials to ward off the possibility of the quick-killing P. falciparum, endemic to this area.  The deadly conjunction of the unexpected conception and the pressures of my professional life have left me bereft and deeply afraid:  afraid of what I have done, what remains to occur, and how I will live with it.


     


    I dress and leave the room, pausing at the hotel entryway, where local artisans ply their wares.  I buy a Picasso-esque sand painting in soft tans and browns; an African mother with a burden on her head and an infant on her back.  Years later, it will hang above my staircase, framed by the 150-year-old logs from the original log cabin.  Every time I pass beneath it with a daughter in my arms, I will say:  “Mommy, baby, mommy, baby.”  The girls will love the mantra and the image.  They will not know it does not pertain to them.


     


    Two weeks later, back in the States, the thoughtlessly self-induced miscarriage bleeds me and wracks me mentally and physically.  A fumbling young doctor tells me, however, that although the uterine wall is gone and there is no further hope of life, no fetal tissue has been passed.


     


    A day before the prescribed exploratory ultrasound, I am in the shower when I feel a soft mass pass from me, sliding down my leg and resting on the screen above the drain.  I stand in the sluicing water, myopically looking at the definitive evidence of death.  It takes all the strength I have to bend down to collect it.


     


    No discernibly human features remain; just a fleshy mass; a casual bit of offal from the butchery.  Nothing to speak of the tenacity of this once-living, once-potential-human, clinging to its host until all possible life-support was gone.  Nothing left.


     


    The fear has only begun.  I am unsure what remains.

November 23, 2002

  • The Uplift Moment


     


    There is that moment in one’s current favorite score – say Liam O’Flynn’s solo rendition of “The End of Winter,” when the peripherals fall away and the reedy solo begins, catches, soars, j-u-s-t there – yes, that part, that ephemeral tremulous set of notes that still the heart and stop, for one soul-piercing moment, the stars in their course – that can only be captured in the instant, but can be forever recalled as an instant of ecstasy.

October 29, 2002


  •

    A Seasonal Tale

    (as told to my eldest, yesterday, en route from school)

    You were feeling a little grumpy as you went into the Kindergarten that morning. Somehow, things just didn’t seem to be right. It didn’t help that you were a little late, and everyone else had gotten first chance to examine the color of their eyes in the mirrors. Everyone was talking about liquid brown eyes and sparkling green eyes and deep hazel eyes. "What about blue?" you asked, grumpily. But no-one in your class except you had blue eyes! You were just about ready to be REALLY grumpy about that, when….

    BANG! S-H-H-H-A-A-a-a-a-l-l-l-u-u-u-p-p-p-h-h-h-h. Pop! Pop! Pop!

    A h-u-g-e cloud of very white smoke poofed out of nowhere into the the classroom. As it cleared into little cloudlets that floated away up to the ceiling, revealed, in the exact middle of the rug, was a Witch. A tall, thin witch with a pointy hat, pointy shoes, bushy broom, and a big, wide swirly skirt that stood out from her waist like an umbrella.

    "Hi!" she said with a big smile. "I’m looking for a beautiful blue-eyed girl."

    Everyone stared at you.

    You took a step back.

    "Why?" you asked with a little frown.

    "I desperately need a beautiful blue-eyed girl to come round the world with me on a little trip," said the Witch with a big, and truthfully somewhat desperate, smile.

    "But why?" you repeated, taking a step back.

    "Won’t you come with me?" she asked, advancing and getting down on her knees (with some difficulty, because her skirt got in the way and almost sent her flat on her face instead). "If you don’t, my entire life will be ruined!"

    You stopped backing up. "Just tell me why," you said, more gently.

    "Well," said the Witch, sitting back on her heels and picking thoughtfully at some loose rough straws on her broom, "It’s all because of my Iguana." A dreamy look came into her eyes. "My Iguana is the most exquisite shade of pale green, except for a bright, bright, bright blue stripe running from the tip-top of his nose a-l-l the way down to the tippy-tippy-tip of his pointed tail." She sighed deeply. "Such a gorgeous Iguana."

    "And…?" you said somewhat impatiently.

    The Witch started.

    "Yes, well – um." She looked around as though wondering where she was, then began anew. "Yesterday, my amazing Iguana disappeared! I was just flying through the house to get my shopping list before going out to the corner store, and I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that his cage was wide open – and he was nowhere to be seen! I was distraught. I flew all the way through the house, this way and that, knocking things over with my broom (I still haven’t swept up the glass in the kitchen). I was SOOO upset. Finally, I just had to accept that he’d absolutely disappeared."

    The Witch looked up from her broom-picking to see if you were listening, which you were, so she settled down a little more, sticking her feet straight out in front of her, and continued.

    "So I determined right then and there that I’d go to the Find Iguana Hour at 3 o’clock. There’s a Wizard, you see, who’s very fond of Iguanas, and every day exactly at 3, he stands on our street corner doing a Find Iguana Spell. And he gathers all the lonely and lost Iguanas he finds from all over the world, and cares for them himself. So I was sure my Iguana would be among the found. I canceled ALL my shopping plans and got ready to go down to the corner."

    The Witch heaved a deep sigh, and you could see that canceling her shopping plans had been pretty traumatic for her. Pushing aside that thought with obvious effort, she continued.

    "Well, just right then, of course, the phone rang. It was someone trying to sell me carpets. I was just telling them how my kitchen carpet was ruined, from all the glass, but that I expected they really didn’t have my favorite color – which is light green, like my Iguana -- when I realized that it was already past 3! I was SOOO upset. I dropped the phone right then and there (I think it’s still off the hook, come to think of it) and flew out of the house. By the time I got to the corner, the wizard had already done his Find Iguana spell, and had five cute little Iguanas in his hands. But none of them were MY Iguana. I asked him how this could possible be, and HE said that he had sensed my Iguana as he cast his spell around the world, but that my Iguana was not only exactly on the opposite side of the world from where we were, but that he was quite happy and content where he was, and that he’d fallen in love with a beautiful blue-eyed girl."

    Great tears welled up in the Witch’s lustrous brown eyes. "Can you imagine how I felt? I was SOOO upset. I asked the Wizard what I could possibly do. He suggested that I go visit my Iguana, because after a while of being away, travelers do get tired of their travels. And he suggested that I bring my Iguana’s favorite food, which is banana bread, and that I find a beautiful blue-eyed girl to take with me. And finally, because I was so dedicated to finding my lovely Iguana, he would loan me his Travelin’ Shoes." The Witch pointed at her feet and wiggled her toes. Her shoes were v-e-r-y shiny black with huge twinkly buckles. "All I have to do is click my heels three times and say where I want to go, and ‘S-H-H-H-A-A-a-a-a-l-l-l-u-u-u-p-p-p-h-h-h-h,’ I’m there!"

    The Witch sighed another deep sigh.

    "I was in so much of a hurry that I forgot the banana bread entirely. But – you see now? You see why, if you don’t go with me, my entire life will be ruined?!?"

    You looked at her thoughtfully.

    "Since that’s the way of it," you said, "Of course I’ll come!" And you put your hand on the Witch’s arm.

    "Oh, HOORRAYY!!" said the Witch, delighted. And, springing to her feet, tucking her broom beneath her and clicking her heels all at once, you were off.

    "BANG! S-H-H-H-A-A-a-a-a-l-l-l-u-u-u-p-p-p-h-h-h-h. Pop! Pop! Pop!" You heard as the Witch’s shoes shot bright sparks into the Kindergarten carpet and propelled you both right through the roof, leaving a gaping hole. Fortunately, both you and the Witch were magical, or you would have hurt yourself going through the rafters.

    And you were off, exactly a-l-l the way around the world from where we live, which as you know is….

    (Author’s Aside: at this point, as I took a deep breath and negotiated a stop light, Lark said worriedly: "But what about the burnt carpet and the hole in the roof?" I assured her we would get to that)

    ….which as you know is right off the coast of Australia. And THERE, sitting on a Very Small Island in the middle of an intense azure sea, lolled the Iguana, stretched out on a green lawn chair with a visor on, sipping a fancy drink with a small umbrella in it.

    "Iguana!" cried the Witch.

    "Witch!" said the Iguana, leaping to his feet so quickly and joyfully that the drink went flying and the little umbrella got stuck upside-down in the sand, "I’ve MISSED YOU!" Then the Iguana noticed YOU, and without so much as a blink of an Iguana-eyelid, it flung itself at you. "What a GORGEOUS blue-eyed girl!" It wrapped both arms, both legs, and its l-o-n-g tail around your arm. "Can I come home with you?" it asked.

    The Witch burst into tears.

    You looked at the lovely light green Iguana, with the brightest of bright blue stripes running a-l-l the way from the tippy-tippy-tip of its tail to the tip-top of his nose, and said:

    "Hmmm. We’ll think about that, okay?"

    Then, linking arms with the Witch and using your own Supergirl powers this time, you ZAPPED everyone back to school, where you fixed the carpet and the hole in the roof with a few quick waves of your magical wand, then you took the Witch and the Iguana home with you and fed them both the banana bread you’d made with Daddy on Sunday, and talked about how everyone might be able to live happily ever after, if we were all just polite and careful and patient.