To sit in the rocking chair of one’s feelings. Sleep in the bed of one’s regrets. Wake up in the house of one’s dreams. Tend to the fields of one’s history. Gather the smooth stones of one’s hopes. Alphabetize the memories of one’s many lives. I’ll start with the letter M.
Mama—how you called me from the lobby of a Landmark seminar with your scripted apology, how you sounded like you’d been held hostage by strangers, how that calm, sweet voice wasn’t you but someone hoping to find you, how you wished to make amends but had to go, a new session was starting soon, how you later told me you were washing toilets for discounted sessions, how you later said it was all in your head, how your Clearwater friends were murky.
Malaria—how you got so sick your muscles might have snapped in the midday sun, how you broke into a sweat during the night and woke up soaked and delirious, how your boyfriend walked you to the clinic at 8 a.m. and you read those medical journals from Muscat to distract your mind, how they poked you with needles and pumped you with fluids and smeared you with ointments and told you to stay a week; how you feared you’d never feel hungry again, the pungent smell of rotting garbage outside the clinic window made you gag, how you made it home but your mind was still maligned; how you swear you can still remember the exact mosquito that bit you.
Money—how you made it, saved it, spent it, resented it, hoarded it, scored it, shared it and bared it, how it’s not fair that you carried loads of it to and from air-con blasted banks on the islands while everyone around you clicked their coins for porridge; how you had to watch them count millions of paper shillings; how you waited for hours in lines at ATMs, stuffing those bills into your kitenge cloth pouch, walking through town hoping no one could sniff your wealth; how your ex got kicked out of one for waiting barefoot by the door; how you tried to give as much as you got but you didn’t have much, it’s all relative, right? how you watched your wealthy friends withdraw so much more than they needed and kept it all for themselves; how the requests kept coming, for funerals and weddings, graduations and trips abroad for pharmacy school, how you complied, how you lied, how you hated to need it, how you longed to have enough.
What about those “self-serving liberal illusions” we all suffered? It all gets revealed to the traveler who tries to make herself at home. Zanzibar changed me, and maybe I changed the lives of a few folks I met there, even if that doesn’t matter now. I’m sitting in the rocking chair of all my feelings, alphabetizing memories for the records.
You might ask me what my mom’s brief stint in Landmark had anything to do with suffering from malaria or my fragmented thoughts about money. Not much, I’ll laugh and say out loud if you’ll listen, not much! But that’s what’s beautiful about writing into the void. The editor can take off her coat and loosen her grip on reality. And when this happens, so much appears to us out of the infinite mystery—phantom feelings, a myriad of forms and phenomenon—all it takes is a bit of madness to catch it all when it comes flying through the mind-sky.
Transit Slips, #20
Mama—how you called me from the lobby of a Landmark seminar with your scripted apology, how you sounded like you’d been held hostage by strangers, how that calm, sweet voice wasn’t you but someone hoping to find you, how you wished to make amends but had to go, a new session was starting soon, how you later told me you were washing toilets for discounted sessions, how you later said it was all in your head, how your Clearwater friends were murky.
Malaria—how you got so sick your muscles might have snapped in the midday sun, how you broke into a sweat during the night and woke up soaked and delirious, how your boyfriend walked you to the clinic at 8 a.m. and you read those medical journals from Muscat to distract your mind, how they poked you with needles and pumped you with fluids and smeared you with ointments and told you to stay a week; how you feared you’d never feel hungry again, the pungent smell of rotting garbage outside the clinic window made you gag, how you made it home but your mind was still maligned; how you swear you can still remember the exact mosquito that bit you.
Money—how you made it, saved it, spent it, resented it, hoarded it, scored it, shared it and bared it, how it’s not fair that you carried loads of it to and from air-con blasted banks on the islands while everyone around you clicked their coins for porridge; how you had to watch them count millions of paper shillings; how you waited for hours in lines at ATMs, stuffing those bills into your kitenge cloth pouch, walking through town hoping no one could sniff your wealth; how your ex got kicked out of one for waiting barefoot by the door; how you tried to give as much as you got but you didn’t have much, it’s all relative, right? how you watched your wealthy friends withdraw so much more than they needed and kept it all for themselves; how the requests kept coming, for funerals and weddings, graduations and trips abroad for pharmacy school, how you complied, how you lied, how you hated to need it, how you longed to have enough.
What about those “self-serving liberal illusions” we all suffered? It all gets revealed to the traveler who tries to make herself at home. Zanzibar changed me, and maybe I changed the lives of a few folks I met there, even if that doesn’t matter now. I’m sitting in the rocking chair of all my feelings, alphabetizing memories for the records.
You might ask me what my mom’s brief stint in Landmark had anything to do with suffering from malaria or my fragmented thoughts about money. Not much, I’ll laugh and say out loud if you’ll listen, not much! But that’s what’s beautiful about writing into the void. The editor can take off her coat and loosen her grip on reality. And when this happens, so much appears to us out of the infinite mystery—phantom feelings, a myriad of forms and phenomenon—all it takes is a bit of madness to catch it all when it comes flying through the mind-sky.
Transit Slips, #20
