The Courtyard

The silence of our backyard and the backyards of the neigbbours in our street is unsettling at times, especially now that summer is over. The sound of lawnmowers and the happy chatter of campfires and BBQ. dinners have stopped. My son and husband and I are no longer enjoying eating outside, talking together rather than being inside on our computers. The disquiet triggered a memory from when I was about 13, visiting my father's mother and aunt, who shared a small rental apartment in Oostende, in a very quiet part of the town, on a square called "Het Vlaams Plein". My grandmother, who became a widow at age 38, and never re-married, lived with my father's youngest sister, Lieve, who devoted her entire life to work in the social assistance sector and never married. I loved spending time with them, and my respect and admiration for my aunt stands to this day. They rented the bottom half of a row house which consisted of a very small kitchen, a small living room, a toilet in the hallway, a small bedroom they shared, and a dining room. There was a bathroom, with a bath and shower they shared with the couple renting the rooms upstairs. The one grace the place had was access to a small, walled backyard, with a few shrubs and flowers, and an almost surreal view of a field, edging the urban scene. The silence in that backyard was final, unnerving,enhanced by the walls separating the next door row houses. I would take a walk in the eerily silent walled enclosure, while my grandmother would busy herself making us lunch, and the memory of that abyss of silence stayed with me. I had not thought of that memory until recently, when the equally unnerving silence of our backyard, haunts me in fall and winter. No more children visiting our son, no more Birthday dinners and BBQ.s, very few friends coming over now that our son is grown. No family of course. My father's youngest sister says I  look like aunt Denise, my father's and her older sister, who has lived for the last 60 years very close to the village where she and my father and their other sister were born and grew up, Leke, in the west Flemish part of Belgium. Aunt Denise and her husband, my uncle Noel, have been married more than 60 years, and have three children, one of whom, my cousin Marc, who is divorced and 59, lives with them, and runs a beauty shop out of the big front room of the house, which used to be a deli my aunt Denise ran for many years until she retired. Her life and that of her husband and son is a very quiet one, as is mine now. As I am in my mid fifties now, and have a hair colour and smile, and even glasses similar in style to hers, I too can see the resemblance between my aunt Denise and I. A resemblance physically and also emotionally, a resilience in the face of challenges, isolation and frustrated talents. Like me, my aunt Denise has made her family her priority at the expense of an intelligent and creatively talented mind. It made me wonder about free will. Is there really such a thing? Or do we fall in to patterns long established before our births by family dynamics, circumstances and genetics? I have tried very hard, and still do, to break free of my family's traps and pitfalls, only to realize that that chain will give, but rarely break. I see that struggle also in my husband, and even in my son, the next generation, alert to stay free from the shadows of  both my husband and my families' dysfunctional codes and behaviours. So far so good. I feel best when I focus on each day, and leave the past and its luggage in their lockers. Given the tragedies locked in that suitcase, it is no wonder that the question of free will  tugs at my convictions certain days. The steadfastness of my father's sisters and their families gives me great hope. These  people are strong, determined and honorable in heart, spirit and soul. So, as disconcerting as that silent backyard, both the one from the past ,and the one I live in now may be, I will take it any day over the path of destruction my mother inherited and she so stubbornly denied, until the facts started taking over.  

The Little Mermaid

There is a fairy tale that left a deep impression on me as a child. I had a fondness for these imaginary tales that lasted into early adolescence. As any child, I was of course captured by the beautiful illustrations in the books, that only enhanced their magic. One story stands out to this day, " The Little Mermaid ". Perhaps because in the original version, she does not get to live happily ever after. She sacrifices being a mermaid to be with this human man she falls in love with, she gives up what makes her uniquely a mermaid, her tail, in exchange for her voice, with the help of an evil witch. What the little mermaid does not know is that her prince is in love and about to marry someone else.So, she perishes, reduced to a bit of foam on the ocean, as she watches her beloved marry someone else. She  sacrificed everything for love. She lost everything, but the mercy of a benevolent god, who took her spirit's broken heart into his paradise. When I was in college and graduate school, my world was open, with friends, travel, a family. Ten years later, my world closed. It was just what happened, marrying a loving but very solitary man. It took me ten years to open up that world again, when I joined my black Baptist church, became involved in my son's school, made friends, got involved in Scouts and Tae Kwon Do, and then both my sisters died, my parents' marriage became toxic and turned deadly, and I went into hiding. I went into therapy 4 years ago, and re-established contact with my church, my father's sister, I started writing, and became very devoted to helping the animals in my neighbourhood. Almost ten years later, again, I am struggling to break down the walls of isolation, as social contacts are not a priority for my husband. This isolation is hard to break out of, because I put myself there, and my husband is who he is as am I, and we are older now. The tiger does not change his stripes. So, I try each and every day, to be as loving and kind as I can, to take pride in my marriage and son, who I saved from the disastrous kind of marriage my parents had. I was so ashamed and disgusted with my mother's endless list of affairs, because of what they did to her relationship with my father, and her children. She encouraged her daughters to be promiscuous, with terrible results. I managed to get away without any permanent damage to my husband and son. My youngest sister went from one miserable relationship to another, with the exception of the wonderful, honest and kind man she was engaged to at the time of her death. My other sister had an unhappy marriage by her own admission, but stayed in it for her two children, and because she got hooked on the wealthy lifestyle. My mother stood by and watched these train wrecks, indifferent, because she wanted her daughters to be like her, to justify her own selfish choices. I escaped that fate, but only barely. So, I wanted to be clean, to wash away the filth of deceit, and I focused completely on making my husband and son priority number one. I know, sacrifice like that is not without complications, and what I could not foresee was that with the limited family  connections left, I painted myself into a corner of isolation. There are days that realization is very hard to deal with, but I do take pride in the closeness and warmth we have as a small family of three. A family that is real, without deceit, without hidden relationships, " All for one, and one for all ". I had to dig myself out from underneath the family rubble, and some of the bricks did land on me. By the grace of God, I believe, I got away from an abusive relationship I was terrorized by emotionally for 6 years during my marriage, with an emotionally violent and cruel lover. All because my mother kept rejecting her virtuous daughter. I was disgusted with what she turned me into, and coming clean with my husband was one of the victories of our life together for me. Who this man was is irrelevant, he was a useless person and a total waste of time, but for what it helped me understand about what happened to me growing up with a promiscuous mother who hated nothing more than innocence in her daughters.So, it is hard to break down the isolation I put myself in in order to get a clean break, but I will take the peace of mind and true pride and hard earned happiness it comes with any day over the cheap, soul deadening thrills my mother advertised her whole life. I feel I am at risk of being like the Little Mermaid some days, but like they say, a brave man or woman only dies once, and a coward dies a hundred deaths. Give me a clean, proud death any day.In the words of one of my most favorite American actors, Sylvester Stallone, in Rambo 5 : " Live for nothing, or die for something".  

La Tournesol

Debut octobre, et il fait deja froid les matins. La chaleur d'ete n'est qu'un souvenir en ce moment. Chacque annee, je garde une des tournesol de notre jardin quand elles commencent a se secher. Je choisis une qui est tres petite comme souvenir. Cela me surprends toujours comme les tournesol gardent leur couleur et parfum une fois sechee. J'adore leur parfum de miel, me rapellant l'energie des abeilles qui visitent les tournesol toute l'ete. Les tournesol sont pour moi un symbole de l'amitie. On a tous dans les souvenirs de notre coeur des amis dont la gentillesse reste avec nous longtemps apres qu'ils ne sont plus dans notre vie. Une amitie heureuse a les couleurs et parfums d'une belle tournesol, et comme cettes fleurs, les couleurs et parfums nous restent quand nos amis ne peuvent plus etre avec nous. Le parfum d'une fleur n'est pas du tout la meme chose que la fleur elle meme, mais dans l'absence de cette fleur, la tendresse qu'evoque ce parfum et la couleur encore vive et jaune de sa tete surement est agreable a l'ame et ses espoirs. La nature a sa propre sagesse, une patience qui est rafraichissante dans notre monde presse. Cela peut etre difficile de manquer des etres aimes, mais comme le poete libanes Kahlil Gibran nous dit : " La memoire est une facon de se rencontrer a nouveau" ( Ecume et Sable ), et dans cet espoir il y a une beaute et rassurance qui peut renconforter les coeurs les plus cyniques. La petite tournesol sechee restera sur mon bureau tout l'hiver, pour me rapeller qu'arrivera a nouveau le printemps et l'ete, avec des tournesol fraiches et vibrantes. Juste comme le souvenir d'une belle amitie peut nous rassurer que notre coeur reste capable de decouvrir des amities nouvelles dans le jardin de la vie. 

From Yesterday to Tomorrow

It seems there is no way around it. A friend of mine form my graduate school days in Austin, Texas seems to have become part of the threads of inspiration and perspective when it comes to my stories in "Lioness in Exile". He has an easy, calming charisma, the willingness to listen and a keen insight and perspective. Ambitious, highly successful, driven, he is kind, patient, tolerant and even though extraordinarily busy, willing to listen, truly listen, with interest and concern. No wonder he is the President of the most prestigious university in Morocco. We were friends in graduate school and somehow our connection survived, and was re-established courtesy of modern media technology. After he graduated with a doctorate, he returned to his country and became highly effective and successful in the education field. He lives the future, living each day building his country's next generation the solid foundations for optimal chances to succeed in the 21st century and beyond. I graduated with a master's degree, married an American psychology graduate student who finished his master's degree, we moved to Washington State, raised our son, who is now a junior in the liberal arts college here, Evergreen State. For the past 8 years I have been busy building a bridge between yesterday and tomorrow, trying to make sense of the present tense lost when my family imploded. A tough spot to be. Therapy finally made me turn the corner, but the present tense remains still elusive on many a day. My world shrank in self-defense, and apparently isolation is a feature of shock, trauma , and grief. So, I started writing on my therapist's suggestion who said : "... the way you talk, use words, you paint with words, you should write... " And as it turned out, I started writing in high school, so I was only to glad to follow up on her vote of confidence. My friend Driss is far away, on the other side of the planet, but it is fascinating to me as disparate as our worlds are, how the desire to build a solid tomorrow somehow is a common thread. My world is a micro-cosmos now, in spite of past international travels, and having lived in the US for soon to be 40 years, in spite of speaking and writing fluently 4 languages, and having intensely studied 3 more, in spite of having been a member now for  19 years of my African- American church, of being a first degree Tae Kwo Do black belt trained by a 9th degree Korean Grand Master. The isolation of the last years has made me invisible and unnoticeable. I am trying to break that wall, and writing is one way of doing that. From yesterday to tomorrow, that is my challenge, as the bridge needed to get there, today, is still very shaky and often invisible in the fog of yesterday. My friend Driss needs to know that his willingness to listen, to take seriously my concerns, my stories, my photographs of flowers, are building blocks towards re-structuring my sense of hope, self-esteem, purpose and self-confidence, so that I can start walking with assurance across that " today " bridge to a more solid future, to the benefit of my husband, my son and sure, myself so I can truly be  a worthwhile neighbour and friend, writer, and use the strength of lessons learned towards a future with a mind and heart open to new horizons and new lessons. I do not know if my friend ever has days where he gets discouraged. If he does, he does not let on, and if he can make a difference in my life with his encouragement long distance,  how much more must he be effective on a daily basis in the lives of his students, colleagues, and community members. I know how much more. Enough so that the King of Morocco appointed him President of the country's most cutting edge university. That is awesome. Everyone should have a friend like Driss somewhere in their life story. His world is a macro-cosmos, but he is wise and kind enough to make time for those whose lives are undeniable micro worlds. That is class, intelligence and heart. And when was the last time the world had an abundance of those qualities?   

Setting the record straight

A highly intelligent and very well educated friend overseas took a sobering point of view on my entry " Here I Go again". I was slightly taken aback as he wondered as to the relevance of sharing that story. I let it sink in a bit, then decided he made a valid point. The terrible boat tragedy in Italian waters that was reported on the news yesterday, as I have the habit of watching BBC America to get a more accurate international viewpoint, sure shrank my concerns to a shrivel. More than a 100 people dead, more than 200 missing from a smuggling boat loaded down with 500 people being brought in illegally into Europe from Northern Africa, once more brings the grim business of snake heads into the spotlight. It reminded me of a riveting book written by Patrick Radden Keefe, an FBI investigator who spent years of international efforts on finally bringing to justice Sister Ping, a notorious snake head operating a worldwide  human smuggling network out of an anonymous storefront in New York's China Town. The book spares no details on the unbelievable abuse and degradation these unfortunate illegal immigrants suffer at the hands of these ruthless snake heads and their minions who make millions by their hapless victims' suffering. It puts my own story to shame in comparison. But my story is mine, and real. My friend does not realize that even his rather restrained appreciation of my story and its perspective helped me. Why? Because it briefly connected us, it made me part of his world and point of view, just because I took a chance and reached out. Friends do not always have to agree, or see eye to eye. Communication is a flawed art and privilege, but I do feel better after sharing my story, and I do appreciate his point of view. My story is a walk in the park, compared to the people who ended up on that ill fated, overcrowded boat, many of them children, who died a gruesome death in an ill conceived fire on a desperate boat. People whose journey started as far away as Eritrea, who must already have been exhausted and hungry, before they got on that boat to Europe. A horrible fate, and a story that plays out all over the planet on a daily basis, often unnoticed or noticed too late to avert yet another human tragedy. It is not my story. At the same time, I can appreciate the longing for another shore, the dream of making another country yours in hopes of achieving something unique, in hopes of a new, hopeful start. I did not leave Belgium to get away from war, poverty and persecution, but I did and have to make an effort to make sense of my story, and the loss of my family and roots. I can only tell my story, because that is what happened to me. I can certainly learn from every one else's story, as I hope people can learn from mine. So, thank you, my friend, for allowing me to reach out, even though my story is one of a far, far lesser degree of gravity. Your suggestion to share this particular story with people of similar points of view and concerns is a wonderful thought, but perhaps the reason I write about it, is because in my world these people are far and few in between. Even though you are living on the other side of the planet, your travel and education experiences, and the sharing of friendships and connections in graduate school allow for an interesting perspective on your part, and in turn, being able to share with you my point of view and experiences as a Belgian transplant into the US, gives me just that bit of hope and energy I need to keep putting one foot in front of the other, each and every day, again and again.

Here I Go Again

I have always had a fondness for Bob Seger's songs. There is a melancholy to them that brings back my years as an undergraduate student at TCU in Fort Worth, Texas in the late seventies. On the way back from my son's college here in Olympia, the Evergreen State College, the Bob Seger song "Turn The Page", from 1973, came on the radio. The song is all about road weariness as a rock star traveling between concerts. It is heartfelt, honest and hits a nerve with anyone who has ever tried to accomplish a dream in the face of exhausting schedules, challenges and lob sided odds. "Here I go again, playing star again,... turn the page...", wearily sings Bob Seger. Yes, playing star again. Playing being the key word for me. I am so proud of our son being a junior at Evergreen State College, one of the best liberal arts colleges in the Pacific Northwest. I can share that pride with very few people, as my family shrunk considerably over the years. As an immigrant form Belgium, with no family left except a few kind older aunts there, and no family connection with my inlaws, there are many times I wish I could share my triumphs and challenges that may seem ordinary to many, but to me and my husband and son are the result of great discipline and effort. My father was a highly paid CEO and we lived exceedingly comfortably. He paid for all four of his children, that being myself, my brother, and my two younger sisters, to have a four year college degree from TCU. My life became very different after my family fell apart, and my life style is modest now. I am very proud of our son and how well he is doing, having graduated with honors from high school, with high honors from the South Puget Sound Community College here, and entered ESC now this fall with a tuition reduction because of his high GPA. The only person I can share that with back in Belgium, who can appreciate the context, is my father's youngest sister in Oostende, who has known me since I was born in 1957. I talk to her once every 3 months or so, and it makes me proud I can tell her what is happening, what our struggles and victories are. For those brief moments, I feel like a star. I do not feel like I am playing a star, which is how I feel most of the time , as I have very few references. That alone-ness makes things harder, and can lead to sadness and a longing for more than a very strong faith in oneself and one's own energy. I am glad I am blessed with my husband and son and even if they do not often verbalize that they appreciate my relentless efforts and encouragements, at least I see the rewards. But I suppose it is only human to want to share your triumphs and your goals. I recently saw that great movie again, "My Big, Fat Greek Wedding", ( 2002 ) a heartwarming story about a young guy who marries into a gregarious Greek- American family. It always tears at me, to see this guy falling into this great clan. That did not happen for me, and it did not happen for my husband, and our son. Our family motto is " All For One, And One For All". My son even did a drawing about that for us. We are a clan, of three, and I try to make it as cohesive and worthwhile and strong as possible. That is no game. But, there are times, when giving in to fantasy and perhaps illusion, that I wish we were part of a larger clan where our challenges and triumphs would go noticed, where we could go on stage, so to speak, and play the part where we get some praise and applause. So, Bob Seger's song is bittersweet to listen to. I am road weary on more than one occasion, like a traveling singer, and often feel unnoticed and even invisible, and his feeling of just going through the motions again, playing star, ring true to me. Except in my case, it is playing the part of the invisible, unseen, unnoticed, displaced immigrant, playing star again. Star, in my own mind, because if it wasn't for a bit of an inflated sense of self-importance and even a healthy dose of vanity, I might just want to bow out of  the show I put on for myself and perhaps a kind little fairy somewhere.  

Lady Chatterley's Lover

There is a quote from " Lady Chatterley's Lover " that cuts to the bone every time I read it : " And dimly she realized one of the great laws of the human soul : that when the emotional soul receives a wounding shock, which does not kill the body, the soul seems to recover as the body recovers. But this is only appearance. It is really only the mechanism of the reassumed habit. Slowly, slowly the wound to the soul begins to make itself felt, like a bruise, which only slowly deepens its terrible ache, till it fills all the psyche. And when we think we have recovered and forgotten, it is then that the terrible after-effects have to be encountered at their worst. " For each of us, that wounding shock to the soul is different and individual, depending on our life story. For some, it is the loss of a very young child, and the ache of regret and guilt that won't go away. For another person, it is the tragic illness at much too young an age of a loved one that took away the hope and dream of a life together. For yet another person, it is the wound and shock of betrayal , for someone else,the ache that never ends at the loss of country, due to war or other dire circumstances. Sometimes, it is the pain of  being in relationships that slowly kill the heart and soul and the inability to walk away from them, due to lack of resources or deep insecurity. We all walk around wounded, to varying degrees. D.H. Lawrence's profound insight into this most enigmatic reality of the human condition is worded exquisitely and so mercilessly accurate. They shed light on my own circumstances, and in spite of the clinical coldness of the observation, there is an undertone of mercy in them. My psychic wound is twofold, one directly related to a mother who forever pretended to care about me, the other tied to being in a country too vast to hold my soul's bruised roots. And yet, again, I do not feel sorry for myself. I am too analytical and rational in spite of my passions, to give in to that hypnotic drug. I am fascinated by the predicament, and the process I laboriously pursue to break free of the clutches of isolation this bruised soul of mine has put me in. My body has recovered from all the family trauma. The insomnia is gone, so is the perpetual monologue of rage, the aches and pains in back , neck and shoulders. So is the OCD, the nausea and anxiety. But what is left, perhaps to stay, is the silence, the absence, the cemetery like quiet that is never far away on days I feel insecure and disconnected. But, I can sing again, and hum, and laugh, and yes, cry, all of which froze in me for almost 7 years. I have hope again. That does not mean it is still not hard, but I have more good days than sad or bad. I realize that I am at the point now where I have to deal with the terrible after-effects of the wound to my soul. But I am ready to accept that and work through it. There was a time I thought my pain and wound were unique. Perhaps in circumstances, but not in scope. I am just one of many, many people who were dealt a nasty blow. A lot are dealt kinder cards, and a lot are dealt far worse. Sharing is becoming a way to re-connect. The fact that D.H. Lawrence's words ring so true and run so deep a hundred years later, is proof that the human condition has a stubborn streak in it regardless of country or origin, or time reference. That realization could be cause for concern, and it is, but I also find hope in it. If heartache and sorrow can isolate, it can also bring us together in empathy and enhanced strength. I have no idea of knowing for sure if I will succeed in breaking the wall of isolation I valiantly struggle against, but I will tear at it, each and every day, one stubborn mortared brick at a time. Hello there, how is your day going?