I spent a little time the last few weeks worrying about how I would write this current blog. Not much had happened, I thought. Would make it brief, pithy, and call it a day. Then I was reminded of an ancient Chinese curse.
May you live in interesting times.
I could write about beekeeping and sunsets and humorous little anecdotes where the dinner ends up in the dust. I could write about that shit forever. And if nothing bad ever happened to me or mine, nothing momentous, and the only consequence was me being a poorer writer for it, I think we’d all be prepared to live with that. I know I would.
I’m doing wonderfully. My life is wonderful. I do not have one single, solitary thing to complain about, not if you compare me with just about anybody. The problem with this blog is that it’s by me, and it’s about me, and while I can (and will) dedicate this blog to other people, who are in far greater need of prayers and comfort than I, the very act of writing a blog post requires a great stretch of ego to assume that anybody cares even a little about your life...and it’s all downhill from there. So I’m great, to begin with. And that’s about the least important place to start.
This morning (Wednesday), my friend Natalie and I woke up, and went for a run by the ocean. We paused when we got there, and I did my best monkey impression, crawling up a little rocky island and watching the sun rise on the bay of Dar Es Salaam. We are in the capital for training, and though I got on a bus in my village, it might have well been a time machine. Washing machines, TVs, movie theaters...are these things real? Can this possibly be a single world, let alone country? For that matter, can this possibly be a single lifetime? Apparently the answer is yes.
We returned to the house we are staying at (with a delightful embassy worker named Andrew). We went shopping. At a grocery store. It felt like a game show. I put on some Kanye West, and started cooking, and turned out some of the best french toast this stomach has seen in quite some time. And Natalie, who is quite possibly the most positive person I have ever stumbled across, remarked what a wonderful morning this had turned out to be. Running, and groceries, and music, and jokes, and french freaking toast. This, she said, was just the nicest morning. So I guess what follows would be her fault.
Got a message from a fellow volunteer to switch phone lines (I have two), and call her. She had some problems with a project. Switched lines, got that sorted. Got a message from my counterpart, there is a problem. Can’t reach him. Get a call from my sister. It’s 4:30 in the morning in America, and like milkmen and rainy days, bad news wakes up early. My aunt Marilou has passed away, of cancer, after more pain and bad luck than such a wonderful and loving person, and such a badass aunt, deserved. I don’t know who handles these things well...not me. I simply get very quiet, and don’t really know what to do. I ombaed (requested...or prayed) a hug from Natalie, and got it. Finish the last piece of french toast. At which point my counterpart gets a hold of me and lets me know my house back in the village has been broken into. At which point I begin to laugh. I now have something to write my blog about. I’d rather drink poison.
There’s nothing right to write. Any attempt at eloquence feels like dancing at a....goddamnit... Any attempt to write it less than eloquent feels dumb. It’s like I’m typing with sticks instead of fingers. I feel incredibly stupid, and incredibly useless. Someone I love has passed away, and people I love are grieving and in pain...and I’m on the dark side of the moon. You are all in my thoughts, and in my prayers...but that doesn’t... maybe I shouldn’t be writing. But this is what I do now. This is how I deal with life now. I climb trees, and I write letters to friends, to students, and to all of you. I hope they’re entertaining, but the reality of it is that I’m on my own, and things have a way of bursting if they are overfilled, and I let myself out in this space, in this way. I wish I had more to do. I wish I had anything to do. To help. But I just finished a book in which a character piercingly comments, ‘if men don’t know a guy on Essex street who can fix it, they think there’s no help to be given’. There isn’t a guy. There isn’t even a street. I still wish I was there, rather than here.
I remember one night getting a similar phone call. I finished a show, got out of costume (which involved detaching a meat phallus), and raced back to Pennsylvania, and did absolutely nothing. Me and my friend watched a football game. Nothing was better, nothing was fixed, and maybe the very act of rushing home presumed a lot about my own importance in someone else’s life. But it wasn’t about that. It was about being there, in every sense of the word. I think it’s our right, in these times, to not be alone, to be the opposite of alone. I think people help. And I wish I could. But I can’t. So thoughts and prayers and blogs will have to be feeble substitutes to hugs and help and casseroles.
There are some other things I’d like to talk about, thoughts I’ve been having, but they don’t really feel appropriate. My aunt was a beautiful person, a wonderful wife and mother, and I miss her. As I’ve said, I have little, if any, consolation to offer. Just two small things. Monday morning the kids at my primary school received an unexpected present: a soccer ball and a volleyball (they play a weird combo of basketball and ultimate frisbee with it called netball). The school has fields, and children should play, but they had nothing to play with. Except little did they know that 9 months ago my aunt told me she wanted to help some kids she’d never met play soccer, and gave me the money to make that happen. And it did, because of her. And if that’s not magic, then it doesn’t exist.
One last thing. A couple of my friends have also dealt lately with losing people they loved. I wrote to them, and I write now, that I’m really not sure what I think about death and how all of that works, but I’m pretty sure it’s better to be loved than not, and to that end I guess we all did our best. I’m not sure there’s any more than that. But that’s a lot, a whole lot. Maybe everything. I love you all, as much as I can. Thank you all, for the same in return.
