End of summer blues
What shall we listen to?
Mmmm, I don't know.
Well do you want to listen to Ella Fitzgerald? (I offer one of two options).
Who's that?
You know, (I start singing) "I've got you... under my skin... I try so not to give in... I say to myself this affair never will go so well, but why do I try to resist when darling I know so well... I've got you, under my skin..."
Yeah, Ella, she says.
I flick a switch and the New Hampshire scenery is whizzing by at breakneck speeds, it is Ella and Louis Armstrong in their famous duet, "I won't dance, why should I, I won't dance, how could I, I won't dance, merci beaucoup ..."
Is he African American? she wants to know.
Yeah, so's she.
She is? She sounds white.
Nah, you're just used to hearing mommy, and I tend not to sound exactly white.
She makes a face, well, at least I have been told I got soul...
She laughs at her mama, and I laugh at myself, and my little brown baby is smiling again. We had fun at the ocean, spent over 4 hours riding the waves in the frigid waters of the Atlantic. We went to see Joe and Abby and the boys, and of course she spent the evening swimming in their great grandparents' pool, even when the boys abandoned her for their bicycles she was diving around, a queen in her realm. Wanna race? she challenges, and they do, but they never win, "don't you know little fool, you never can win... use your mentality, wake up to reality... but each time I do, just the thought of you makes me stop! before I begin, 'cause I've got you..."
And my mind is wandering, out across the ocean, a thousand miles away, or more.
April in Paris. Why does it sound so easy when she sings it? Where exactly does the change come from being bewitched bothered and bewildered to being so no more?
Abby tells me the next day, at the lake, that on the way home C. said, "mommy, I'm not as smart as I." And she told him it was ok. There is some healthy sense of reality, when does it stop being ok to recognize talent in others that we don't have and to not feel somehow deficient. I ponder this, as the Sudanese boys race onto the scene, dirt flying from their bicycle tires.
Last week a little refugee boy drowned in the river by the Queen City Bridge. I sat at the kitchen table and read the newspaper, an act of self-affliction of which I rarely partake, and my chest grew tight with grief. But we nod, because there is no supervision. Carey points out later to me, when we are out drinking beers at Martín's restaurant (again-or at least again for me) that their parents are probably sleeping because they worked the night shift, and I am faced again with the double bind of poverty.
Hey guys! I call over in an authoritative teacherly voice, a firm but kind one, Guys! I get up, and walk towards them, Hey, you can't throw rocks here. There are little kids, and someone is going to get hurt. They are sweet and respectful, the ringleader calls to the others, ok, guys no rocks! and they recommence, this time whipping sand at each other. There is another guy who starts screaming at them to stay away from him, and I watch, not wanting to get in the middle of a violent and unnecessary altercation. When the sand throwing goes on for too long, I wade out to them, gently point out that it would be safer for them to move beyond the area where small children are playing, all the while I. is telling me, "I'm not a small child" and I am shooting her "callate" looks but she is just caught up on my use of language. They again oblige, and are later riding their brand new shiny bikes into the water, but I bite my tongue because it is none of my business if they rust their new bikes... but there it is, the cops have been called, not one, not two, but three police cruisers show up to deal with this innocuous band of 11-year-olds who are not even truant as school hadn't yet started, and I am struck once more with a deep rejection of my country and everything that it supposedly stands for, and at the same time a longing for something, something better.
Why do they come, I wonder, is it purely economic? Is loosing your culture worth the safety afforded by the uptight anal money-grubbing, I'm-only-in-it-for-myself, American form of laissez-faire capitalism? Is it worth the schizophrenia of no-longer ever being an entire being, eternally dancing on the hyphen? Is the hyphen so bad? I find myself less and less American each day, but I am also less and less anything else. Is it possible, I wonder, to erase one's own "identity" without entirely disappearing?
Mommy? Are we almost there? she asks.
Yeah, five more minutes. I pull into Carey's mom's driveway, in Milford. Noah answers the door. He is so tall and proud and beautiful. I can't believe that they were just babies when they met! She is on the floor with Riley, her nephew, tiny, not growing, but not failing to thrive. How lucky I feel, and guilty for feeling that way, that my child was born healthy, has continued to grow so. She and Noah catch frogs after we climb the falls, they splash around, she is suddenly too shy to take off her clothing. These transformations happen in a heartbeat. Weren't we all together, out on the lawn at their beach house just a few days ago? The sun beating down, and the century-old floorboards creaking to the sound of children shuffling around?
And the years pass, and we go to her new school today, she is so tall, and brown, my little girl. The sun changes her in an instant, she doesn't look like me at all, I see her and think this, but then she does, unfortunately seem to have inherited all of my bad physical features. But I try to remember that she doesn't have to be perfect because she is already happy and healthy and I should just be satisfied with that because I don't even realize what a blessing I have. And the summer is ending but there is no marker, no snap of cold air to tell me of its passing, and I am getting ready to get on a plane again, and then soon after, another, and the smell of Eucalyptus will be upon me, the trees spitting out their essence. But it will mean something different, I think, something entirely different. I want to believe this, like an old jazz standard, that can simplify the most complicated emotions down to a couple of well juxtaposed ascending and descending notes.
It could all be new, but for now, I'll just stick with the blues.
Mmmm, I don't know.
Well do you want to listen to Ella Fitzgerald? (I offer one of two options).
Who's that?
You know, (I start singing) "I've got you... under my skin... I try so not to give in... I say to myself this affair never will go so well, but why do I try to resist when darling I know so well... I've got you, under my skin..."
Yeah, Ella, she says.
I flick a switch and the New Hampshire scenery is whizzing by at breakneck speeds, it is Ella and Louis Armstrong in their famous duet, "I won't dance, why should I, I won't dance, how could I, I won't dance, merci beaucoup ..."
Is he African American? she wants to know.
Yeah, so's she.
She is? She sounds white.
Nah, you're just used to hearing mommy, and I tend not to sound exactly white.
She makes a face, well, at least I have been told I got soul...
She laughs at her mama, and I laugh at myself, and my little brown baby is smiling again. We had fun at the ocean, spent over 4 hours riding the waves in the frigid waters of the Atlantic. We went to see Joe and Abby and the boys, and of course she spent the evening swimming in their great grandparents' pool, even when the boys abandoned her for their bicycles she was diving around, a queen in her realm. Wanna race? she challenges, and they do, but they never win, "don't you know little fool, you never can win... use your mentality, wake up to reality... but each time I do, just the thought of you makes me stop! before I begin, 'cause I've got you..."
And my mind is wandering, out across the ocean, a thousand miles away, or more.
April in Paris. Why does it sound so easy when she sings it? Where exactly does the change come from being bewitched bothered and bewildered to being so no more?
Abby tells me the next day, at the lake, that on the way home C. said, "mommy, I'm not as smart as I." And she told him it was ok. There is some healthy sense of reality, when does it stop being ok to recognize talent in others that we don't have and to not feel somehow deficient. I ponder this, as the Sudanese boys race onto the scene, dirt flying from their bicycle tires.
Last week a little refugee boy drowned in the river by the Queen City Bridge. I sat at the kitchen table and read the newspaper, an act of self-affliction of which I rarely partake, and my chest grew tight with grief. But we nod, because there is no supervision. Carey points out later to me, when we are out drinking beers at Martín's restaurant (again-or at least again for me) that their parents are probably sleeping because they worked the night shift, and I am faced again with the double bind of poverty.
Hey guys! I call over in an authoritative teacherly voice, a firm but kind one, Guys! I get up, and walk towards them, Hey, you can't throw rocks here. There are little kids, and someone is going to get hurt. They are sweet and respectful, the ringleader calls to the others, ok, guys no rocks! and they recommence, this time whipping sand at each other. There is another guy who starts screaming at them to stay away from him, and I watch, not wanting to get in the middle of a violent and unnecessary altercation. When the sand throwing goes on for too long, I wade out to them, gently point out that it would be safer for them to move beyond the area where small children are playing, all the while I. is telling me, "I'm not a small child" and I am shooting her "callate" looks but she is just caught up on my use of language. They again oblige, and are later riding their brand new shiny bikes into the water, but I bite my tongue because it is none of my business if they rust their new bikes... but there it is, the cops have been called, not one, not two, but three police cruisers show up to deal with this innocuous band of 11-year-olds who are not even truant as school hadn't yet started, and I am struck once more with a deep rejection of my country and everything that it supposedly stands for, and at the same time a longing for something, something better.
Why do they come, I wonder, is it purely economic? Is loosing your culture worth the safety afforded by the uptight anal money-grubbing, I'm-only-in-it-for-myself, American form of laissez-faire capitalism? Is it worth the schizophrenia of no-longer ever being an entire being, eternally dancing on the hyphen? Is the hyphen so bad? I find myself less and less American each day, but I am also less and less anything else. Is it possible, I wonder, to erase one's own "identity" without entirely disappearing?
Mommy? Are we almost there? she asks.
Yeah, five more minutes. I pull into Carey's mom's driveway, in Milford. Noah answers the door. He is so tall and proud and beautiful. I can't believe that they were just babies when they met! She is on the floor with Riley, her nephew, tiny, not growing, but not failing to thrive. How lucky I feel, and guilty for feeling that way, that my child was born healthy, has continued to grow so. She and Noah catch frogs after we climb the falls, they splash around, she is suddenly too shy to take off her clothing. These transformations happen in a heartbeat. Weren't we all together, out on the lawn at their beach house just a few days ago? The sun beating down, and the century-old floorboards creaking to the sound of children shuffling around?
And the years pass, and we go to her new school today, she is so tall, and brown, my little girl. The sun changes her in an instant, she doesn't look like me at all, I see her and think this, but then she does, unfortunately seem to have inherited all of my bad physical features. But I try to remember that she doesn't have to be perfect because she is already happy and healthy and I should just be satisfied with that because I don't even realize what a blessing I have. And the summer is ending but there is no marker, no snap of cold air to tell me of its passing, and I am getting ready to get on a plane again, and then soon after, another, and the smell of Eucalyptus will be upon me, the trees spitting out their essence. But it will mean something different, I think, something entirely different. I want to believe this, like an old jazz standard, that can simplify the most complicated emotions down to a couple of well juxtaposed ascending and descending notes.
It could all be new, but for now, I'll just stick with the blues.
posted by ilana at 1:33 p.m.
2 Comments:
wow! more planes... Sounds you're having a good time. Reading how you write about your girl moves me.
I love the songs you mention, and though I like Ella Fitzgerald, I prefer them sung by Frank Sinatra. He is amazing.
Have a nice weekend!
Liliana, thanks... My fav Sinatra songs are "My way" and "Strangers in the night"
I'll give you a call once I'm back in DF.
Publicar un comentario
<< Home