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We are ten weeks into lockdown here in Manhattan.
It's been tough. Of course it's tough for everyone - no matter what each persons own unique circumstances are - but I can only speak from my own perspective. And NYC in lockdown, has been tough. One of my greatest challenges is how to find the space - both physical and emotional - to write. The physical piece is challenging as we simply do not have enough rooms for five big human beings to work from home. The kids each need a private space for cyber schooling, husband needs a private space for all the zillions of zoom meetings he does each day, and Manhattan apartments aren't big, so that leaves me... the bathroom. And not the clean 'girl' bathroom because that one is an en-suite which means it's disturbing to daughter, as the door is too thin, but rather, I work in the 'boys' bathroom - and yes we do have 'girls bathroom' and 'boys bathroom' in our residence because boys are smelly and they sprinkle. It apparently makes for a lot of humor when I'm on zoom calls. Then, there's the emotional space. For the first month or so, I was in editing mode and I found that the proof reading, and line-editing practice of working through a manuscript was actually quite cathartic in helping me focus. Especially on days when the fear and stress of being in the epicentre of the pandemic was enough to render me foetal on my bed. But now that particular manuscript is going through a pro-editorial workshop, and so I've been turning my attention to other works which are either early drafts, problem drafts, or OMG embarassingly bad drafts. And I've discovered that my creative output is zilch nada. I'm suffering from a vast case of creative-quarantine-block. I know - I'm supposed to go easy on myself. I'm encouraged to accept that though my output may be hindered, I can fully trust that my creative muse within is working away, concocting and building brilliant best selling concepts and plot-lines, subconciously developing voice and intuitive storytelling skills - even while I sip G&T and scroll through twitter for the seventy eighth time today. But we creatives are notoriously hard on ourselves. Plus time seems not to be sticking to the usual schedule, right? I mean, how is April already three and half weeks ago? That makes absolutely no sense. And so I have to admit, I've been feeling guilty. Like I'm letting myself down. Like my life is ticking by and I'm acheiving nothing. I'm frustrated all the time. I just want my head to work. I just want to feel that wonderful sublime sense of satisfaction that comes from having been lost in a creative blur for four hours or more - to have lost track due to absolute creative immersion, not just because the days have no structure and "oh, crap, I've been reading BBC news for 4 hours and now there's no dinner," kind of thing. Sigh. Anyway. I've decided to try something new this week. I've decided to switch gears and leave all projects that need my creative mind aside. Instead, I am going to engage that other side of my brain - the editorial one - and try research. BTW I hate research. I hate it because for some reason it reminds me of maths. And I have no good feelings at all, about maths. But I have decided that if editing felt productive, then I should try moving beyond my math phobia, because research might also feel productive. So this is my plan. I've been wanting to figure out and learn the craft of writing PB biographies for some time now. So I've pulled out some great mentor texts and tomorrow I shall begin looking for primary sources on my subject. How easy that will be without access to the library I have absolutely no idea, but I figure even if nothing 'grows,' I'll be learning something new and hopefully will spend less time 'scrolling.' Wish me luck.
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Original post published in NomadicWonderings.com in October 2017. Every day I ask myself, “What are we doing here?” Of course there are answers. Rational ones. We needed to find a consistantly stimulating and supportive educative situation for the kids. We wanted to let our kids experience living in a developed nation again. We wanted them to have more creative and academic opportunities. I needed to find my creative tribe. And to begin creating again with my creative tribe. We wanted to stay some place for a while. To not ‘need’ to move after three years. Maybe even feel at home. Plus our choices were limited. Husband can mostly only work in war zones or countries where the conversation oscilates around famine and drought. There are actually lots of really good rational reasons for us moving our family to NYC. But day by day. Man, It feels hard. And to those of you thinking “Gee Em get over yourself. You live in New York city.” I have this to say. Try it. For more than two weeks. Really. Then kindly comment. It was always going to be a discombobulating experience moving from Malawi to NYC. We knew that. And we knew that each of us would need to make our own journey, would have our own battleground to navigate through. We don’t get to always choose how our hearts respond. Not in the beginning anyways. We pull our hat down low, and our scarf up high and we plough into it. And it bites our skin and rattles our bones. A wild and unpredictable, elemental offensive. Onwards we go. But nothing could prepare us for the transition between two such extremes. The first weeks were almost comical. Not when we were in it – clearly, but in retrosect. How do you take three kids from the bush of Africa where they climbed mango trees barefoot, and whittled sticks til dusk. Where they spent hour upon hour chasing gheko’s and picking worms out of guava’s, to a symphonic backdrop of crickets and bullfrogs… How do you then drop them in the middle of an throbbing urban metroplis, where homeless people lay strewn across the sidewalks, discarded like trash (Esi’s question – Why are the white people sleeping in the streets mummy?) Where the subway roars like the very embodiment of rage, and they share the carriage with scantily clad women with rainbow afro’s and exposed nipple to nose, chain-linked peircings, drinking beer. It has made for interesting conversations. The children at school who have same sex parents – This was a new concept for our bush kids. The guys expressing themselves in womens clothing – This was confusing, to begin with. The beat box guys with their trousers slung low, breaking rules – They had to learn not to be intimidated. That creative expression is not intended as aggression. We like those conversations. We like throwing back the question ‘Well what do you think?” or “How did it make you feel?”We like standing on the edges watching our kids wrestle to make sense of life. Of people. These conversations help to remind me why we are here. They don’t make it easier, but they help me to remember. Husband and I are commited to raising strong, resilient, kind, open minded and wholehearted children. Kids who will stand in the gap and say ‘Not on my watch’. Not on my watch, through conversation. Not on my watch, through debate. Not on my watch, through Art and creativity. Not on my watch through non-violent acts of resistance. Not on my watch through making hard personal choices for the sake of a bigger picture. Not on my watch through choosing kindness in the face of the mean. We have chosen to show them the world in all its diversity, with its cracks and its astounding beauty. We want them to know that we can be smitten by the glory of an African sunset or lost in the sublimity of Moonlight Sonata – that these things are there for us, to inspire us, to lift us and to remind us of Love. To Love. And that because of Love we don’t step over the broken people. Not ever. Not. On. My. Watch. I promised myself I wasn’t going to get political here. But I guess I just did. In my opinion, the only way to not have opinions about what is going on right now, politicaly, is to be, actually dead. Enough said. I don’t think that when we chose this transigent lifestyle, we chose an easy path. Maybe we didn’t choose it at all. Maybe life chooses us. Or maybe it is not the choosing that matters but rather our response that matters. Whatever. Wherever. Perhaps. I live in New York City. For now. And It feels hard. Apartment living feels hard. The pace feels hard. The aggression feels hard. The competition feels hard. The lack of community feels hard. The communal laundry room in the basement of our building feels hard. The cold wind splitting down 1st avenue feels hard. Darn it, even the grocery shopping feels hard. And yes, the political atmosphere feels hard. But this is my now. And I choose my response to my now, daily. I struggle. I fight. At times I scream and pound. And then - I submit. We really don’t have a choice. And yet, in that submitting we do choose. Again and again. We choose to Love. Paradoxical really. This is my now. Despite the daily toil, I believe it has purpose. I have things I must learn. I have growing to do that is assigned personally to me. And so, I breath. I say “It’s okay’. And I tap into that small voice at the end of the day that says, I will try again tomorrow. Damn it. Originally this post was published over at Nomadicwonderings.com. But when I read it today, I wanted to transplant it over here, to remind myself of how far I've come. Endings are still hard, but as I read this post I realise that each ending has actually been so much more than a fullstop/period. Each ending has also been a new beginning. An fresh opportunity. Another step revealed.
Anyway, I'm in danger of this turning into a blog post all of its own, so here is that post from four years ago; Finishing is hard. I definitely have an aversion to full stops. That is why I like these dot dot dot things … You might have noticed I use them a lot… I like to leave things open. Open to possibility. Open to the winds of change. Open to mystery, a sense of sitting in the unknown and being okay with it… It is one of the many contradictions of my life. Because equally I like maps and to know where I’m going next and how it’s going to look. And I like to know that stuff in finely architectured, pedantic detail. But I don’t want to put a full stop on what went before… I think we are all complicated like that. Different kinds of complicated. But all complicated. As a child I couldn’t finish stories I wrote. My teachers would praise me on my aptitude and potential as a young writer, but would rebuke me for my inability to find an ending. Even today, most of the tatty stories I write have shabby and unsatisfactory endings. I just struggle to tie things up in a cohesive manner and end with a period… The past 12 weeks have been chaos. Where did I read that before great change there is always great chaos? It sounds like something Elizabeth Gilbert would say. It probably was her, cos I actually love her, and if I were just fractionally more insane than I am, I would probably stalk her, just so I could listen to the incessant flow of truth and wisdom that comes out of her mouth. Anyway. It has been a ‘batten down the hatches, get your head down, and plough into it’, kind of 12 weeks. Moving a family across continents takes a load of organizing. And of course the good thing about chaos is you don’t get time to think much. Because it seems that with external chaos, internal chaos accompanies. At least for me it does. I am not a ‘ride the waves gracefully’ type. Not yet anyway. But now it is all organized. It is all packed, paid for, sold or given away. And the chaos has vaporized. And we are waiting to leave... No chaos = Simplicity = Space to think = Process = Urgh. For the next 10 days, my only essential tasks are getting the kids to school on time, Picking them up on time, and filling their bellies with food. And the usual conflict resolution of course… But I am managing that with a new, highly successful strategy. 10 punctuation sentences per bicker, per child. Nice. But I kind of want the chaos back, because how do you do a “full stop” Goodbye? I mean without the grief that surely must accompany? And the truth is, some of these goodbyes are forever goodbyes. There are people in Malawi who we care for, who we will not see again. Some we will. Some we won’t. Malawi just isn’t a “passing through” kind of location. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of finance to get here. Plus, most of those we are leaving behind, will likely be moving themselves to obscure corners of the world in the next year or two – Such is the life of the international community. And just so we are clear; Social media is not the same as relationship. Social media is not the same as friendship. Saying “See you on facebook” does not appease the sadness and loss related to full stop goodbyes. So here I am. Waking up each morning with a tangible desire to climb under a rock. Because; I simply cannot face the full stop. The full stop makes me cry. A lot. Malawi has been a gift. Friends here have become sisters. Kindred souls. There are women here with whom I have shared sorrow and tragedy and deep belly laughter. Whose deepest fear and longings I have held in my hands and heart. With whom I have sat, shared silence, and said “me too”. Women who have shown up, at the exact right moment, and have been brave and selfless. Who have sat with me, held my hand, looked into my dark places and said ‘it’s okay’. Women to whom I am tethered, by the trusses of deep love and respect. So Urgh. I say to the kids, “It’s not goodbye, it is merely ‘until next time.’” Because, what the heck, I just don’t have the capacity for their sadness as well. Besides, it is not like I don’t want to leave. I know it is time. Feel it deep in my bones. We are all ready. It is just the full stop I hate. But then…going under a rock isn’t good either. If there is one thing I know for sure, it is that grief and other unresolved history don’t go away. They hide and pretend they’re not there, and then pop their heads out from under that rock at the most inconvenient time. And then bite you hard. So its not going to be pretty. But cry I will. 2nd June. NYC baby… |
This is where I share snippets of my life. Some of it writing related, some of it just - life. It will be mostly ramblings, but if you too are a storyteller and are very lucky, you might occasionally find something useful :)
September 2020
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