Pigs and Pretty Woman

I’ve been volunteering at a personal care home for almost two months now. It’s fantastic, funny and a bit unfamiliar. I’m learning a lot. And I hope I’m giving just as much back to those I’ve met.

Some highlights…

I’m waiting for my friend Eugene, as he dresses in his room. I’m standing in the hallway and happen to look into the next room. A woman is lying on her bed, snoring. Pretty Woman is playing on her TV. The volume is loud yet I can still hear her snoring over Richard Gere’s lines. I laugh. I think about watching that movie over and over until most of the lines I could recite before they were spoken. As I stand outside her room I wonder if someday I will be snoring so loud, the TV blaring, and in such a deep sleep dreaming of my boat ride down a river in Guyana. I didn’t want to stare, but I couldn’t help just watch her and then glance at the movie and think that life doesn’t get more peaceful than this. I imagined she was dreaming of flowers and fields and maybe a picnic with her children.

One of the residents has her room decorated full of pigs. I have never seen so many pigs in such a small space. A sea of pink everywhere. I always say hello to her whenever I pass by her room. The other day she had two pigs lying on her bed and they were kissing each other. The woman was reading the newspaper in her chair. As I passed I said hello and asked her if the pigs kissing were in love. She smiled so big and glancing away from the newspaper she said, ” Yes, even pigs know love. It’s universal.” I decided that I was going to go home and find two stuffed animals and make them kiss.

I am sitting in the dining room with some of the residents, chatting after they have had their breakfast. The nurse is giving out bananas, and my friend Ken takes his banana and puts it up to his ear. “Hello, who’s calling? You are looking for Christina? Okay she’s right here I will let you talk to her.” Ken hands me the banana and tells me the phone is for me. He gets a chuckle out of me. But it wasn’t just the banana phone joke it was his glasses that were crooked on his face and the arm was stuck down by his cheek that made me beam and think, I just want to be this simple.

I’ve learned to talk slow and loud to my friends at the care home. I can make great conversation about the weather and I am good at taking anything negative that anyone there has to say and turn it into something positive. I can hear complaints about the food, what’s on TV, the staff, the rain, and anything else and I will smile and remember the banana phone and Pretty Woman and never stop believing that life is grande, at any age. And that love is universal, thanks to one pig collector.

 

 

Strong Woman

I am strong.

I can bench press 80 lbs. I can survive a full day of work on little sleep. I am capable of running great distances. I can mentally and physically handle a lot. A whole, whole lot.

But I have a soft heart. I can be weak in love. I can trust everyone and accept everything. I would give the world to you, and you and you. I expect nothing. My soft heart is just there. It’s always been this way.

My outside is thick and tough. But everything inside is soft and squishy, like if I were a water balloon you could pop me with just a touch. Everything would come rushing out. Love would spill all over the floor.

My mother is strong. My grandmother is strong. My girlfriends are stronger than strong. I can count so many strong women that soon I would lose count and get bored. Strength is getting up in the morning and facing the day. It’s making a phone call to someone. It’s grocery shopping by yourself. It’s coming home to an empty house. Strength is a soft heart.

Our strength is always tested. Every minute of every day there is a measurement of strength. Sometimes small, but sometimes huge. We fill up the bottle to the very brim with all these sizes of strength and at the end of the day we could flood a football field. Do we always pass the tests? I think so. In the moment we may not feel it or see it, but time tells the story of strength and even a failure can make you stronger.

A soft heart can be strong. I can love and love hard. I can fight and fight harder.  This soft heart has given me more than I ever imagined. It pumped enough goodness into my life that nothing, nothing, can weaken me.

To strong women. I just wish for continued moments that challenge your strength and soften your hearts even more. This is it.

I Wish

That you were here to see my grandmother open her birthday gift and smile wide when she saw our photo album.

That I was there to help you make kites and then watch them fly.

That you were here to meet all your family, every one of them asking me about you. More wide smiles.

That I was there to help clean your house in preparation for Easter.

That you were here to meet my new friend Eugene at the personal care home.

That I was there to see you pack your bags for school. Calculator, ruler, pens.

That you were here to say good morning and hug me and hold me and wish me a pleasant day.

That I was there to go out for dinner with you and your friends.

That you were here to ride in a car with me for 10 hours across the prairies.

That I was there to make you tea in the evening and greet you with love when you come home.

That you were here to see all the things that I have in my room that are me and you.

That I was there to hear you play gospel music on a Sunday.

That you were here to lay beside me and tell me stories.

That I was there to run over the bridge with you in the morning.

That you were here to know that sometimes I talk to you as if you were here.

That I was there to see you smile and hear your contagious laugh.

That you were here to taste my baking.

That I was there to admire you in the night, watching you sleep.

That you were here to paint my finger nails.

That I was there to tell you about my dreams when I wake up.

That you were here to read to me.

That I was there to wrap my arm in yours and walk.

That you were here to tell me what earrings to wear.

That I was there to hear the crickets in the night.

That I was there. That you were here.

Anywhere. Together. I wish for nothing more and nothing less. I hold my breath…

 

 

 

 

New

New shoes. I like them. New clothes. I like them too. A new CD, a new book. Anything new is good.

I feel like I needed some new things in my life. And not material things, but things that would bring me a fresh feeling, a challenge. Meaning. I could wipe out my bank account on new shoes, however the newness at this point in my life is a way to feel balanced. To feel accomplished. To focus my eyes and my heart and my energy on something that would carry me. I need to be carried. But why?Why I guess because coming home from Guyana threw me into water with waves so high I felt like sometimes I was swimming steady and other times I couldn’t swim at all. The change and the adjustments to life here were, no are, hard. Time, you are a dear friend. Finally, just recently I can say okay, welcome new.

Maybe its welcoming something to fill a void.  But that word sounds so heavy and ugly. It’s not a bad void, it’s just a space. I don’t know, but a part of me used to feel overflowing with new. And now there is just a small hole somewhere that needs attention. Yes, a focus. I can focus on my work, my family, my health. But those are everyday, normal. And sometimes my eyes stare so intensely at those things that I forget to see every other beautiful thing surrounding me. The new.

Jermaine and I were talking about this idea of new. A focus. Right after I left Guyana last August he started back to school. He told me that he needed something positive to focus on. He felt he needed to do more. Accomplish things so that at the end of the day he could feel okay. Okay about being apart and about our future and everything. His focus was his new strength. He started going back to the gym, another new. Running the bridge in the morning, just anything. He is still in the new. And this is what keeps us strong and focused and driven while being apart. New just adds warmth to our lives.

My first new is this. Volunteering at a care home in my neighborhood. New because it will be challenging and different and I can meet people who will refresh me and keep me focused. I will start as a one on one companion. Talking, playing games, just being with someone and teaching and learning. The newness is that I have so little contact with elderly people. I just want to be able to laugh and smile with someone who has laughed and smiled a thousand times more than me. The new begins next Saturday.

I want to keep building up my focus and introducing the new to the hole inside that is yearning for something. A new fitness class, maybe a new hobby, even just a new recipe. It has to help. Help the change, help the fear, help the missing and the frustration. Help the waiting and the seperation. Just help with the everyday, so that at the end of day I too can  feel okay.

“Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. Between the two my life flows.”

Red Ribbon and Spice

A few weeks after being home, you send me a few things from Guyana, with a friend who is travelling back.

The contents of my package, so thoughtful and so you and so me:

- Air fresheners for my car. Red ribbon for my car. The ribbon is to tie on my wheels and on the back of my car and the front wiper. This is for luck. For guidance. For protection. It’s to eliminate the bad. For whatever reason I take off the old ribbon and tie on the new ribbon and open up a brand new air freshener.

- Spices, some all spice and cinnamon sticks. I will use it for porridge or baking spice buns. Or making tea.

- T.D Jakes DVD’s. A motivational speaker that you introduced me too. He’s powerful and uplifting and everything he says just makes sense. I remember us watching one about marriage and we laughed and we nodded and smiled and at the end we said, that just makes sense.

- A gold chain earring with the letter T. Tina, Toute (your nickname). I think it could mean a million things. Thanks, trust, timeless, together. Another piece of Guyana gold that I cherish.

- A card for me and a card for mom and dad for their anniversary. We read them over and over and we will put them on display until you can come see them for your own eyes. Thank you.

- Some cleansing tea. Senna leaf, I will never suffer constipation again. You will keep me cleansed for the whole year.

- Cassava bread and sweet bread from our favourite spot on Main Street. This was the most prized part of the package. I sat and ate the pone and bread and with every bite I sank deeper and deeper into you. Like you were right here enjoying it with me. I remember endless nights of going by the bake stand and going home to indulge together.

- A 70’s soul CD for mom. We put it on and we groove and move and I know the songs and she knows the songs. I imagine your mom dancing years ago to the same music and I wish I could have you and her here and all of us would be caught up in the love.

Thank you for it, and all of it. Amazing, really. I just feel so grateful that such a small gesture can give a girl a boost of strength.

I cannot help thinking about the stir of life you excite in me.

Joy, joy.

6 Months Later

Back home. 6 months later.

I still dream of Guyana. Last night I dreamt of a young boy climbing my mango tree.

I love to talk about it, but sometimes I don’t want to talk about it and it makes me happy and sad when I say the word to anyone. Guyana.

Snow makes me smile. I have a greater appreciation for the change. I embrace winter.

I catch myself saying things like ‘this time last year’ or ‘I was doing this on that day’ and I try to find my place somewhere between here and there.

I have had the pleasure of returning twice. And I had wondered when I arrived if I would ever return.

I am comfortable with Wal-Mart now and all its mega vastness.

I was not born in Guyana. But Guyana was born in me.

I still believe.

Saying the word ‘husband’ sends shivers down my spine to my big toe.

Canada flags are waving everywhere in Guyana.

I realize how much I missed my family when I was away.

I need more noise here.

Sometimes the loneliness can creep up fast.

I love my home.

I might still drive on the wrong side of the road or honk the horn a little too much here.

A song, any song will always remind me of someone. A place. A smell. A life. Happiness.

I remember vividly the feeling of him. My most favorite face.

6 months later I am honoured. Just simply thankful. Forever.

 

88975604

I’d like to share a story, about a number. 88975604. I have looked at this number many times. I wrote it out on a piece of paper. I memorized it. The number means so much. And here goes the story.

I’m sitting in the airport in Trinidad, on my way home from Guyana. Two hours earlier we said good-bye. I will never like our good byes. But the more good byes that we say the closer we get to where we want to be. So every good-bye is necessary. I read my email. I read my number. 88975604.

The email is from Citizenship and Immigration Canada. And when I open it I read a letter that is so powerful. I scan it. Identification Number: 88975604…Dear Christina Rae David…met the requirements…application to sponsor a member of the family class…on behalf of Jermaine Akeem David…forwarded to the processing centre in Trinidad…sincerely.

I stare at the screen. I look at my name. My name is powerful. I look at Jermaine’s name. It’s so powerful. Our number. I get so happy that we have a number and that just means this is real and happening and we are powerful. I take a deep breath and think back to the day we applied. We were running a race together and we made the first hurdle. Nothing knocked down. And this letter and this number is the next hurdle and still we run together and clear it. I imagine the finish line and even though there may be a few hurdles left, we finish.

I have read the letter every day since. I can’t help it. It gives me so much. So much of our past, our present, and our future. So much of Jermaine. So much of us. So much hope in 88975604.