Work In Progress – Going Home

Tonight, I’m looking forward to going home; the place where my heart breathes. I will walk in and take deep breaths in every room so I can feel the nostalgia in the my bones.

I will touch doors and chairs and enter rooms for the sake of touching and seeing what should be there.

Every room will look exactly the same as it did when I last saw it but it will seem more distant, it always does when I’m away for more than a day.

I will step out of my clothing and linger naked in front of the mirror, hoping that like the rooms of the house, I haven’t changed. My eyes leave my reflection in the mirror before I can find too many flaws on my skin and subsequently in my heart.

Towel in hand, I close the distance between me and the bathroom, my sanctuary and I begin my purification, my hands turn the knobs until the perfect temperature enfold me. Hot, cold, a little more hot.

Slowly but surely I’m embraced in the soothing water and I can distract my mind from the imminent predator that waits outside of the walls. Steam clouds my vision as I dry my aberrations away and comfortable clothes become the only thing I can hide my heart behind.

I massage lotion into my skin, skin that he no longer wants to tough and I check my face one more time in the mirror.

The throes of silence tell me its time  and I emerge composed and seemingly victorious until I realize that I am wanton and clingly and before I stop myself I start talking and get no answers – I reach out to touch and feel nothing but the coldness and the still condemnation of my love.

Deep breath, light sigh.

My heart drops and my lips pay the price for the tears threatening to fall.

———————

I have no idea where this is going, but it keeps going in circles in my head, hopefully I can do lots of re-writing and writing until it comes together. 

Coping

I’m reading to cope, trying to find comfort in the books I read over and over.

One quote I’ve been reading over and over again from one of my favorite authors:

She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars. – Stardust by Neil Gaiman

A Death in the Family

While the title sounds like a poorly casted 80s movie, it’s really my life. My grandmother passed, on Monday.

I never took notice of how different it is for Caribbean people, culturally.

We kept a Wake at my uncles’ house, that no one had to announce. After I heard, I started to prepare for the eventuality of being around all of the family I had in NY.

The shock hasn’t completely worn off yet, but the first layer of it peeled away as I crossed the threshold.

My grandmother died. That was an unarguable fact, one that I’m not sure that I can…really accept yet. The violence that put her on the path to her passing has made me feel nothing but hapless despair.

I won’t be able to go to Guyana for the Funeral, so I will have to wait for that closure, which is something I don’t think I’d ever be able to find. Whenever I hear her name, my heart constricts…my stomach flips and I’m ready to go right back to the comforting denial that sustained me all Monday.

 

I’m not sure what I need, where I go from here or how I deal with this. I thought myself better prepared and over estimated my ability to deal over all.

I’m in shambles.

The Night

Her kiss was the flavor of sin that tempted the light to fall
Brown eyes devoid of lies
She beckons out of the darkness
Mirroring your true desires
Staccato heart beat drumming in your ears
To see her is to pay reverence;
Head bowed
On your knees
The void in her absence amplified by the wholeness in her love
Death was built to hold you close,
To love
To want you to fulfil your dreams
Before you come to her
Prostrate and filled with wonder
The night was created for her
Her arms spread wide
Gentle fingers will wipe your tears
And tilt your chin upward
Death was built to care

Struggling with Mortality

I start my new years resolution on my birthday, December 29th of every year. Usually, I take that day to reflect on my life and how far I’ve come in 365 days and start to set goals for the upcoming year.

A few days before Christmas I got some disheartening news about my Grandmother who lives in Guyana. Three men broke into the house, to rob them and in the processes physically assaulted her to the point of hospitalization. My world crumbled around me. 

The first reaction was one of complete sadness. I’ve imagined many horrifying scenarios staring my Grandmother, she’s getting up in years and they are relatively alone. I’ve imagined life alert commercial like events where she’s fallen in the house and can’t call for help; that seemed possible and plausible to me but never once did I ever think that someone would do her bodily harm in her own house, a home that she’s lived in with my Grandfather for decades…not in that town that she’s lived in all her life…I never crossed my mind.

The second was of sheer shock. Growing up in Guyana and in Trinidad one of the things you learn earlier on is that older people, elders are revered. Doing a senior citizen bodily harm is a point of shame, you would probably get disowned by your family, if they’re not too busy trying to rectify things with the injured party. It was preposterous to do this to a woman well past her prime. Why? I couldn’t understand the logic in it. There was no resistance, there was no argument. Shock.

My mother held onto the phone as my crying turned into silence. She knew that once I reached that place that she could go. She talked me through the sadness and the terror but once I got silent she told me she loved me and hung up.

In the silence I found a question that’s manifested itself in a lot of ways before but was more sinister, forceful and demanding.

Death.

Not so much a question as a statement, your life being the remnants of a story is something you can’t avoid.

I think about it for myself in a different way than I think of it for those that I love especially now that I’m older.

I was fortunate (and yes, I do count it as a good thing that I was acquainted with death while I was young) that I lived in a “third” world country growing up and was exposed to it at a younger age. it helped me to understand the concept of it without making it a non personal issue. I lost my great grandmother while I was young and it felt like the most heartbreakingly final thing that I had ever experienced, to translate that to the relationship I have with my grandmother and not to think that one day she would not be here devastated me in a way I didn’t expect.

It made me realize that while I understood death and experienced it on a personal level I still didn’t acknowledge that it was not a respecter of persons. It would not spare the people I think I can not live without. I would experience this is the worst way for however long I am alive and the longer I’m alive the more likely it is that I would be around for the passing of those I love.

Hm.

Fuck.

I realize that the lives we live are not entirely for us, it’s mostly for those that carry a part of us with them every day.

That realization forces me to acknowledge and be thankful for what I have shared with her and it makes me hope that today isn’t her last but I know one day, it will be and I hope that day I am ready, that I am more at peace with the idea of death itself.

My new years resolution for last year, December 29th, 2011 was to reconnect with my family. I’m very happy I succeeded in accomplishing that and that it has carried over into great relationships with the amazing people I’ve been lucky to share blood with.

This year, I want to make my family proud.

On being sick

It sucks. *throws tissue*

I’ve been sick for a bit over a week and I’m at the stage where my nose is raw, eyes are swollen and running and my chest feels like it’s caving in on itself. I haven’t worked a full day in a week and I’m quite frustrated and depressed since I seem to not be getting better. No doctor would take me same day appointment and I refuse to go sit at a doctor’s office for 6 hours just so they could give me antibiotics and tell me to rest and drink fluids.

The issue with doing walk in appointments and waiting that ridiculous amount of time is that I know what I need. I’m familiar with my body and what it requires and I know I need the antibiotics…maybe a short course steroid to get me back on track but it will wait until Monday. When I can actually waltz in and waltz out so lets hope this is just the flu gone wild and nothing too serious. Hopefully it isn’t.

In the mean time, I have two full days of work ahead and I’m dreading it. I hate being sick and not being at home, blowing my nose, spitting constantly and feeling like I’m going to fall apart is hard to deal with while you’re not in your comfort zone. That’s the toughest part for me. Not the actual work or getting out of the house itself, but being sick for an extended period of time while I’m at my desk and everyone looks at me while I make every move. Ugh.

Did I mention I hate being sick?

Remembering my Great Grandmother, Susan

Her name means joy, I try to keep that in mind every year as I remember her on the day that she passed. The day rushes back to me vividly and suddenly I am 12 and I’m rushing home from school because my Grandmother called the Principal and my teachers and told them I needed to be home.

Our Great Grandmother had been ill for some time and we prayed that she would find peace in her passing the way she had given it in her living. She was amazing to me. My first brush with something I still haven’t been able to understand, death. For her, they made friends before she finally let go. I like to believe that she didn’t want us to worry, or suffer but had great wisdom to impart before she moved on. The words that she shared with me right before her passing are some I would never forget.

“I want all of you to find happiness, where ever you find it. When you do, I will be happy for you”

It echoes in everything I do. My search not only for knowledge but the search for myself is wrapped up in those words.

When I finally made it through the iron gates of the yard, I dropped my school bag and ran directly to the room that she occupied. The house rule of making sure your shoes were off and greeting everyone in the house be damned. I knew there were only two reasons I could be called home. Either she was gone, or she was almost gone. The entire one hour ride I wondered. There were no cell phones then, no Facebook chat, no twitter alerts to pacify me on my trip. My anxiety clawed at my throat like a mad person trapped and partially freed.

I remember my grandmother being there to hold me up when I crumpled at the side of her bed. The realization that I could not say good bye had sunk in. She was already gone.

I cried. I cried inconsolable for a few hours. I don’t remember how I got upstairs to my bedroom or who tucked me in bed but I woke up confused. The buzzing of the house and the tents that were being put up outside bring me back to reality. I was home, in the home where my great grandma passed and we were going to celebrate her life.

I got up from that bed renewed. I washed my hair, showered and rejoined my family. In that moment I realized that all of us would have to go at some point and what mattered was the legacy, the way you affected people that would live on.

So today, even though my mind is trying to force replay on that day, I choose to remember other days where she was full of life, with a smile, taking care of herself…planting her garden and going to market at 5 am.

Her random advice that never seemed to make sense in the moment but now resounds. She was an amazing woman and I am proud to have known her, spoken to her, loved her and I know that I’m a better person because of her influence in my life. I didn’t know for her for long, but her affect in my life is ever lasting.

I miss you Ma.

No writing errors found

There is nothing as satisfying as completing a blog post or a piece of writing and getting that message after you run spell check.

 

New Blog

I started a new blog specifically for my Gluten Free followers since I got a few questions and emails about what I eat and brands I like after I posted about it here.

Link: http://celiacsdaily.wordpress.com/

It’s a work in progress. Thank you in advance for reading if you are interested in Celiac’s Disease or Gluten Free eating / Lifestyle. I’ll be covering GF brands, GF Recipes and general information.

 

Inspiration: Chinua Achebe

The sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel before them – Things Fall Apart.

- Thoughts -

Things Fall Apart is one of those books that you read as a child that changed your life, especially if you read it in High School and had an amazing English Teacher like I did, but every time I’ve read it since, I’ve learned something new about the world and also myself. Those are the types of books that I consider Literature. Books that you read, year after year and it never ceases to open your eyes to culture, to the world, to think about yourself in a way that maybe you hadn’t until that very moment.
Chinua Achebe is my inspiration tonight.