Sunday Morning ~ Coming Back Around

Bodza limabwerera mwini wake. ~ A lie returns to the one who started it.

~ Chewa proverb

January 31, 2021

Hi Everyone,

I don’t consider myself the most patient person in the world, but living in various cultures where waiting is the norm, I’ve become more accustomed to accepting waiting as part of life. We’re spoiled here. As a young nurse in Peace Corps I never went anywhere without writing paper or a book to read. I’d sit under trees for hours waiting for mothers to arrive with their children for mobile clinics. Our team would arrive in a village, hang the scale for weighing children from a tree branch, and wait. At first I was jumpy and worried we would not complete our mission to immunize these kids. I’d worried about the measles vaccine getting warm in our crude cold boxes. No one else on the team seemed to care. They sat and chatted with each other, went off to the village to do I don’t know what, or just looked around. Eventually, and by eventually I mean hours, the clinic would start just as I thought we should be heading back to the hospital. There was no cutting off the singing or the health talk. It did not matter how behind schedule we were, we’d start from the beginning: say the prayers, sing the songs, deliver the health talk, weigh the kids, give the shots, say the goodbyes, and then share a meal with the chief  after they caught the chicken, killed it, then cooked it. A two hour clinic took all day, ten hours at least. Sometimes twelve. I learned to wait. 

This waiting became a rich time for me. I talked with my Malawian colleagues in a way that became more relaxed and comfortable. They taught me more of the local language. We shared stories about our cultures. They would laugh when I explained how we have individual appointments for vaccinations and if people are late they might not get seen. This would evoke howls of laughter. They wanted to know how we could possible see everyone who needed to be seen in this fashion? It would take years, they marveled! I’d explain that we have a system where people can make an appointment any time during any day convenient for them. “Hah! Really?” they would exclaim in utter astonishment, “How can that be? People can choose whenever they want? How can you manage that?” I’d start thinking about the way we do things and as I sat there, it seemed more and more ridiculous. So inefficient. As more women started  arriving with their babies and children I’d watch them interact with one another, motioning to me, the strange mzungu. The children were afraid of me initially, some cried when they saw me. My colleagues laughed, explaining they tell their kids the white people will come and take them away as slaves if they don’t behave. I was horrified. The nurses laughed at my reaction. I’d look around and watch the women settle themselves on the ground, chatting, laughing with one another. The young kids would play around them, the babies sat on laps, suckling, or quiet. Rarely were babies crying and if so, then only for a moment as the breast was so ready and available. They sat and waited. No one got up and complained about having to wait, it was part of life. They chatted, they sang. I watched with respect. I wanted to show them somehow that a white person could be respectful and decent. 

I wrote a lot during those waiting times. I wrote hundreds of short letters on thin blue air-mail paper. It would be folded in thirds and stamped with Malawian stamps bought after waiting an hour in line at the post office. I’d mail them and the recipient would wait three weeks for it to arrive. I admired the team I worked with, midwives and nurses, ambulance drivers and community health workers. I started looking forward to the waiting times. I have no idea how they felt about me as we didn’t talk about that. I just looked forward to time spent with them. If conversation lulled or I ran out of paper to write on, or I’d finished my book, I’d daydream. I’d go through long scenarios of building a house, designing the kitchen, imagining children growing up there. I’d imagine a career as a midwife (I was a public health nurse then), traveling overseas again, writing books, raising kids. Skiing. I could entertain myself for a long time doing this. It’s fun when everything turns out perfectly in my mind. I’d get so absorbed in my fantasies I’d come to believe some of them.

When my kids were teenagers and our family crumbled I cried for hours to counselors and friends about what it was doing to them. The kids were angry and most of that was directed at me. I wailed and declared emphatically that it was so unfair, that I was not the one who left, that I didn’t deserve all this. Calmly, whomever was absorbing my grief and wringing it out, would say, “Give them time. In ten years they will see how you managed this, how you held it together.”  At the time waiting ten years was unthinkable. It was like saying never. But, I gave it up and waited ten years, maybe a bit less, and they were right. Over time the truth became evident and the clarity was healing. It’s hard to wait for an outcome that feels so urgent, so critical, so life depending. Waiting was effective and less damaging than the battering ram I’d wanted to employ.  Justice takes time and waiting for it is not fair or easy. In the meantime, we can write and dream and try to understand each other. The lie always comes back around eventually. Just wait.

Love to all,

Linda

Sunday Morning ~ Relief

Ladza dzinja ana anole mano. ~ The rainy season has come, children sharpen your teeth.

~ Chewa proverb

January 24, 2021

Hi Everyone,

Tuesday morning I woke to a smoke detector chirping, as if the battery needed replacing. No big deal, I put it on my mental to-do list for the day and rolled over to doze. It wasn’t light yet and I had no where to go. I glanced at the window to gauge how long until sunrise and it appeared to be foggy outside. I was still in that hazy, half-asleep, dozy, dreamy space and pulled my quilts tighter around my neck and snuggled in. Before dozing off I thought, it’s Tuesday; we made it to Tuesday. One day more. The words of the Les Mis song circulated my brain. I had that anticipatory glee on the eve of something great. Only two mornings left to dread turning on the news.

The cat came into the room shortly afterward, and meowed. It was early for her, just after six. She usually waits until she hears me stirring, but maybe the smoke detector had disturbed her too. I got up. When I put my glasses on I could see it was not fog outside but condensation inside the windows. I thought that was odd and wondered if it got really warm out. Then was a little confused thinking, wait, it is warmth inside that makes condensation. Have I got that right? It was before tea. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I made my way to the stairs, trying not to trip over the cat as she wove between my legs, careful not to fall down the stairs on my way to the usual morning routine: a scoop of cat food, water for tea, the news. As I descended I was more certain the house was warmer than normal and then saw the entire kitchen filled with steam as if someone had taken a very hot shower in the middle of it. I opened the basement door and heard water rushing. Fuck. I got half way down the stairs and could see water shooting everywhere, the basement full of steam.  Hot water? What the hell? It was dripping from the ceiling and there was an inch on the floor. Panic was an understatement. I was afraid to turn the furnace off thinking it might explode any minute and I was afraid to go near it. I ran upstairs to call the plumber, praying he would answer at 6:15. I got his answering service whose recording told me they were “experiencing an unusually large number of calls at that time and to please hold on.”  Ugh! I texted him, and God bless his soul, he texted back right away, telling me to shut off the main water valve and shut off the furnace at the circuit breaker. So, without donning a raincoat, I went back into the fray. Mission accomplished, I ran back up and opened the kitchen faucets to relieve the pressure. The flooding stopped. Phew! I looked outside at the temperature and saw it was eighteen degrees. I made tea and waited for the plumber. I didn’t even want to look at the damage until I’d had tea.  Just after seven the professional was here and I swore, if my plumber ever retired I would sell this house.

My anxious mind started wondering if this was auspicious omen? Would this be the start of a calamitous week? Repressing that thought, I drank my tea and was grateful I had been home when the circulating pump blew a hole. I shuddered to think what would have happened if I were away, or even asleep for awhile longer.  It was fixed in less than two hours and I went on with my day of frivolous activity trying to ignore the soggy mess for awhile and pass the ensuing twenty-four hours willing the country to stay balanced on the cliff for just one more day. I cleaned, I sorted, I walked. My house dried out, my hopes for the country hovered.

Wednesday morning I paced, waiting for midday. I prayed for faith in those entrusted to protect us. I dressed in my very nicest loungewear and lucky earrings. At eleven I settled myself in my comfy chair with my knitting and tea and, grateful for live-streaming, started watching. As  people arrived I felt calmer. Their poise and demeanor was comforting. I loved watching them be escorted to their seats, I loved their smiles and the confidence they emulated. I wondered what they were feeling. Were they worried? If they were, I didn’t sense it. They comforted me. I thought, this is what leadership looks like. For two weeks I’ve been terrified for them. I‘d wished they’d move the whole thing inside just so I could relax a little. I’d worried Biden would stumble over his words and Lady Gaga would look ridiculous singing the national anthem. Instead, she made me regard those lyrics in a new light. The song has always sounded to me like it glorified war. Wednesday, I heard it as a song of hope and strength. “The brave” in the song morphed from soldiers to every person sitting on that capitol stage. I thought, yes. This is what leadership looks like. I was so proud of them. 

I sobbed through most of the ceremony. It was so much more than I was hoping for. The organizers were brilliant, the speakers transformative, and the model a beacon for me, and I hoped, the world. I was overwhelmed by how many friends from around the world sent their well wishes. I felt like we were all part of a grand achievement. At the final benediction I thought of the words of Mother Theresa: “I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us, and we change things.”  I am so relieved. I feel happy. We know the mess is there but we can let it dry out a bit then get to work cleaning up. 

I saw the proverb and thought about what a relief the first rain was after the dry season in Congo and Malawi. Not only the physical relief as an end to the heat and humidity but relief as assurance that life would go on. I thought how important it was that people trusted it’s return. Believing the rain would come was as important as the rain itself.

Love to all,

Linda

Sunday Morning ~ A New Village

Ndi cilaka galu fupa la m’matongwe. ~ Even the dog fails to eat the bone from the abandoned village.

~ Chewa proverb

January 17, 2021

Hi Everyone,

In January four years ago a black curtain fell over many of the women I know. Our male partners, though they agreed the situation was bad, did not feel the same foreboding. The darkness clouding the future could not be described in a way that articulated our fears without making us sound hysterical. “Overreacting” was a term used more than once. At the time I thought it was only in my house, but the more I spoke with other women, I learned they faced the same fears, the same admonition––– “Stop overreacting!” But it felt like the abusive boyfriend, husband, father, brother, boss was coming home to roost, boast, and prey. The restraining orders were on hold. The fear was out there in our psyches, looming, gloating. Men who mocked our achievements, stole our money, forced bad sex, took our credit, belittled our strengths, were back and in charge, bolder than before. We thought we were rid of him. Though the restraining order was never really enforced, we’d trusted things were getting better. Our girlfriends who’d had our backs were scared too. Punishment for progress was in store. We could see it coming but couldn’t describe it.

What was it we foresaw? It was not a universal clairvoyance. It was more of a common shared experience we all knew could go very bad. One we’d fought years and years to extract ourselves from. Young girls waiting to turn sixteen to leave the house, wives waiting until they’d  saved enough money to escape, mothers staying because they believed he’d kill their children. The women in the world knew all this in our deepest selves. We knew the harm inflicted, we held our friends as they struggled to escape, knowing they’d go back because it was the path of least resistance, knowing that path would extinguish their light, but it was just too hard to keep the flame lit. At some point you stop fighting the wind; you let the candle go out. 

This is what we saw. Men could not understand it. They had their own demons to deny and faces to maintain. They got angry and insisted we deny our fears along with theirs. It was a time when we wanted, needed, them to hold us up, agree the future was scary, reassure us we’d get through it, let us talk, listen, listen! Listen to the stories we had about working so hard, being bone tired, fighting for fairness and dignity. We needed them to keep us safe while we slept, feed us, walk beside. Some shamed us, as if that would help quell their own anxieties. They knew they were in trouble, too. The village belonged to all of us and it was about to burn. 

We looked at others whose oppression was compounded. We saw them in a light we’d not bothered to shine before. We learned from them. We saw their strengths. We saw how they kept their candle lit, shielded from wind coming at them from every side. We saw it was possible to keep the flame alive. They welcomed us, though we didn’t deserve it. We followed them. We learned to survive. They told us it would not be easy. We said we knew it wouldn’t be. We grew and learned. We shared what we could  in return for their strength, their brilliant fortitude, their acceptance of such small bites of chewed progress. “Here”, they said, “eat with us.” We were sorry we hadn’t seen this before, this strength of theirs, this belief in the future on this difficult road. There was no turning around. They’d been waiting for us to learn we needed them. So we gathered what riches we still had, we sat and spread them out. We took an inventory of powers and divided them up: the wise women, the workers, the nurturers, the caretakers, the planners.

Many, many women suffered blatant abuse. Many had filed restraining orders and lived with constant threats of harm. But there were others: women betrayed by other women, family who’d cut them out, women denied a promotion, women passed for an award. It was a cellular memory of being treated as less than what we are, of a time when we only wanted to feel safe, be angry or sad and have someone make space for that, let us be, listen. It was watching a woman we admired maligned to a degree hard to imagine, and we felt it, because it had happened to us, too. 

We’d argued in late night kitchens screaming, “Listen to me!” Too many of us knew what it felt like to be silenced. We lacked those perfect words, the ones we were sure would break through. We decided protecting ourselves and our kids was all we could do in the end. Press submit. We’d been there. And that January we felt it. The world of women felt it. It was having our opinions disregarded, our progress belittled, our faces mocked, our voices shouted down until either the plate or our spirit would break. We felt it. We watched a woman we admired accept a decision with superhuman dignity, a true leader. We felt robbed. Again. We knew our house would burn with our cat, our kids, our grandmother, inside. 

We weren’t military strategists who could have predicted what events would unfold. It was more a collective wisdom, both comforting and terrifying when we’d hear other women felt the same. We were not crazy and we knew it. Maybe our foremothers were telling us to beware, prepare, unite. Our time for tears was short; we needed to watch for clues, stay alert, survive. We needed to wrap our children and our hearts in impenetrable cloth and hold on. We looked for steps, small but steady, and movement was slow, allowing us to take note of every clue. 

As the collective abuse, the feeling of dread, the darkness, no longer needs words, the boil has burst. We find ourselves intact. Watchful. Hopeful. We wipe away this infection as it oozes over us, again. What else can we do but spread out what we’ve got: clean cloths, antiseptic, nourishment, energy, spirit, and love. We’ll heal while we rebuild our multicolored village. And the dog doesn’t mind waiting. And the candle is still lit.

Stay safe my friends. We’ve got this.

Love to all,

Linda

Sunday Morning ~ Trusting Our Teeth

Kacirombo kofula m’njira katama mano. ~ The insect that digs a hole on the path must trust it’s teeth.

~ Chewa proverb

January 10, 2021

Hi Everyone,

I spent a restlessTuesday night worrying about the outcome of the Georgia runoffs. I was tortured by imagined images of two possible futures and my mind played a recurring loop of both. First I’d think of losing the two senate seats and living in a world where sad women in black coats with ill-fitting triangular head scarfs tied under their chins tromped through snowy streets to food lines. Their heads were bowed against the wind; they carried stale bread in their baskets and had thin soup on their tables. They had wrinkled joyless faces. The images are all in black and white. These were photo images I saw in my childhood of life behind the iron curtain, a strange and dangerous place. Then I’d imagine winning the senate seats and a future of  hearty meals in warm well-lit kitchens, summer vacations in short shorts and tank tops, rosy futures, first homes, career opportunities and good health, all in National Geographic color. I tossed and turned and wondered which it would be? I finally fell asleep by willing myself to believe the rosier future was in store.

When I woke a couple of hours later, I felt optimistic. I thought just maybe it was going to be a good day. I saw that Warnock had won, and though his opponent was a weaker one (I thought) it gave me hope for the second seat. When it started looking better and better for the technicolor future, I was able to focus on a sewing project and put the news aside. I was on pins and needles, literally and figuratively, and wanted to keep myself busy. I pulled out my new sewing machine. I threaded it and wound the bobbin. I gathered what supplies I needed and began to sew. I was actually happy. The kind of happy you feel when you realize the terrible sickness you’ve been afflicted with is definitely getting better. The way you feel when the fever breaks and you have an appetite again. The feeling of relief when you realize you will be able to take that vacation you’d been planning. That kind of happy. 

I went to get a cup of tea and saw a few messages on my phone. I read them and ran for my laptop to lifestream the news. I was shaking. All I could think of was first graders hiding in closets. The black, white, and grey future flashed before my eyes again. I thought about being a school girl and learning about governments collapsing, wars beginning. I could not believe this was happening. I had flashbacks to all the betrayal in my life, all the people I trusted to keep me safe, letting me down. I felt confused. I started panicking and needed to calm my heart rate. I took deep breaths. I paced. I wished I were with someone else. And this, I thought, is from the comfort of my living room. I’m safe by my fire. How are those people hanging on? My heart is beating out of my chest and they are hiding under tables?! Again, I thought of kindergarten students. I thought of teachers having to practice this drill. I started knitting to keep my hands from shaking. I prayed for them and everything I believe in to hold. 

Since then I have listened almost continuously to news reports, pundits, speculators, optimists, and fatalists. I’ve reread parts of the constitution. I’ve learned more about prosecution and conspiracy. I’ve thought about having a child-like faith in institutions I never really understood to protect me, protect us, my kids, my grandkids, people I don’t even like. I tried to list all past events we’ve survived that might have been similar:  Pearl Harbor, Cuban Missile Crisis, 9/11. I did all this to reassure myself we’d be ok.  I’m relieved when I hear a reassuring voice saying something I want to hear. We’ll be ok. We will survive this. I start to panic again when I hear the opposite. I think of the possibility my brother could have been there and that makes me shake again. I think of people in countries who live with this for years and years, futures uncertain, governments unstable, lives expendable. We’ve been so sheltered and coddled.

I recalled a poem I read years ago, a few lines of which I repeat to myself when I am confused and unsure. I tried to find it so I could cite the author but my internet search turned up nothing. The lines I remember are:

Two horses fighting, one white, one black

Which one will win?

The one you feed the most.

Again, the one you feed the most.

A black man and a jewish man won senate seats in a state famous for it’s racism, while white supremacists staged a coup on our government. Which future will win? The one you feed the most. Again, the one you feed the most.

Love to all,

Linda

Sunday Morning ~ A New Net

Ukonde uyambira ku bwakale. ~ You start weaving a new net using the old one.

~ Chewa proverb

January 3, 2020

Hi Everyone,

I’m at my desk surrounded by notes I scribbled at various meetings. I jot things on scraps of paper and later piece them together into a coherent report. My haphazard style of note taking consists of columns up the side of pages, fragments of sentences tucked in a corner, a stray word here and there. They’re a portrait of my brain trying to conglomerate factions. It’s like I dumped a jigsaw puzzle of thoughts around my laptop and piecing it together is oddly satisfying. Once a whole picture, I crumple the scraps, thank them, and watch them go up in flames as a second offering. My thoughts about the past year don’t seem as easy to assemble.

Walking through the woods, noticing the decidedly longer day (even fifteen minutes seems remarkable), I laugh, thinking the trees and animals just go about their routine without fretting about bad habits or new goals. This man-made mark on the calendar doesn’t affect them. They just adapt to the landscape around them. As I see more and more windblown trees on the ground I notice the saplings ready to take advantage of the open sky and improved light. The decomposing elders feed them and there’s no ceremony or regret.

Did someone plan to end the calendar with back to back celebrations or was this coincidence?  Christmas and New Year were certainly celebrated when I was young and I have happy memories of the week marked by such bookends. Looking back it all seemed so simple, though, I wonder if my mother thought so. Expectations were realistic. I felt the magic but it was modest. My most exciting gift was the girl scout uniform Santa brought when I was nine years old. I remember my mother laughing when I screamed “I got a girl scout uniform!!” like it was a million dollars. To me that uniform, which I had begged my mother to buy for months, was the absolute living proof that Santa was real. My mother had told me she wouldn’t buy a uniform until I had shown I would stick with the program. (Were they really that expensive?) But I was desperate for the gloves, the sash, the patches and badges. The beret! The longing was too much! When Santa brought the delight my mother had so ruthlessly withheld, I couldn’t contain myself. It lay so perfectly folded in the box, perfectly framed by tissue paper. The yellow bow tie was perfectly tied and centered. Even the Hudson Dress Shop box was beautiful. I remember jiggling the top with my fingers wedged underneath until the bottom fell out, peeling the tissue paper back revealing the absolute masterpiece inside. I was so happy. I loved that my mother loved I was happy. That was magic.

We did not travel for holidays. On Christmas Day my father would stand in the hallway, elbows resting on the bookshelf beneath the phone attached to the wall. He held the receiver to his ear and spoke loudly in Italian to his mother as we played nearby, ignoring his conversation, understanding none of it. At one point he would tell us to line up, hold the phone out to our little faces, and order us to sing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. We complied like little chipmunks but hearing no feedback from the receiver the size of my arm, were not inclined to prolong the performance. Obligation fulfilled, we’d turn back to our toys, praying there would be no encore. Throughout the day, the phone would ring as calls came from other relatives. My mother would dash from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron before taking the phone to her ear. In her wool dress, pearls, and high heels she looked as if she were on her way to a formal event instead of cooking for her family.  She’d smilingly greet the caller with a careless laugh and I’d watch from the living room, happy to see her happy. Kids were not allowed in the living room fifty-one weeks of the year, but the week between Christmas and New Year the colored lights and tinsel made it a sacred wonderland. Maybe such simplicity was my childhood viewpoint. A phone call was expensive and the calls were gifts from extended family. No one expected anything else. 

New Year meant football, a buffet, and the end of school vacation. No one spoke of resolutions or the joy of saying goodbye to an era. Even during the tumultuous 60’s of my childhood when social upheaval was the dish of the day I don’t recall a notion of changing the fourth digit meaning anything was going to be different. Is it really this year in all of time that people have suffered such? Or have our expectations changed along with Christmas lists? In the 1980’s the population of Malawi was nearly wiped out by HIV. I doubt they turned the calendar each New Year and thought how glad they were to start anew. It’s a continuous circle and we keep weaving with what we’ve got. I am excited by the youth and energy bubbling up to fix some ancient wrongs. There must be a way to hold on to what was good and true, acknowledge what was not, and create something fair and just. Making it a happy new year is up to us.

Wishing you all a fair and just year ahead.

Love to all,

Linda