I picked up my phone and knew from the 876 area code it was Jamaica calling. On the line I heard him singing to me in a recognizable voice that is never in tune, but always precise in its lyrics. The songs are usually 'oldies' but goodies from the 70's or 80's with a good island vibe. "Lady in Red. . . is dancin' wit me. . .cheek ta cheeeek". It makes me laugh because it is such a unique and charming gift of self to sing badly for another, know it and do it anyway. It takes a little swagger, confidence and internal happiness.
Every now and then I get real island reggae, "don't worry. . . bout a ting. . . cuz everlittleting's gonna be alright." I have heard that voice every day since last June and have come to rely on the rhythm and tempo of that sweet voice to make me smile. The songs come sporadically--we usually talk to each other--and I can say anything that's on my mind. He speaks earnestly and directly. In that, I think we are a little alike. Once in awhile I am greeted by a recording of someone else's song he likes but doesn't know the words to yet. Other times it's "what'sup sweetie?" "What's hapnin'?" "I'm in da kitchen cooooking fresh fish", or "I'm sittin' on da beach tinking 'bout ya".
Music, natural surroundings, fresh cooking, rum drinks or a little beer are staples of Jamaican life. Its simplicity is endearing and a reminder of how this woman living in a complicated city doing a complicated job requires more of me than what is most essential. Fresh air, music, beautiful landscape, sunshine and another's care.
They're moments I hold dear, that bring me joy and lighten everything in my world over thousands of miles, a satellite signal on a little pink handheld where I keep parts of my life--work e-mails, a phone book, random photos of my daughters, grandaughter, sunsets, my best girlfriend and other family members. It also carries ring tones that do not have an ounce of the same kind of charm. There is both swag and sweetness in that voice, gentle worry and kindness, optimism and or minor concern, "I can't reach you, what's up wit ja-girl?"
Before he had ever sung to me, he asked me to sing something for him. Stumped, resistant and nervous, I came up with "Silent Night" because it was one of the songs I used to always sing to my daughters. I figured I had nothing to lose. Mind you, it was June. I guess he liked it because he's still calling and still singing to me. Go figure:)
I am charmed. I am happy every time we talk. And we are in very different places with very different lives and miles away in other ways than geography. But one thing I have learned is that time gives answers; I am occupied, and everyone I know and care about has come into my life at that time for some reason because of something I needed to learn. I'm rolling with the moments, ring tones and charm because I have faith that there is a lesson in his joyful perseverance, clever charm and my ability to just be. Me.
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Ventures into virtual land
I admit I am a techno dinosaur. My laptop is slow and low on memory space. Maybe these first two lines parallel mid-life. Both of my daughters have recently married in the last two years. I am at odds with myself and contented at the same time. Is that possible? I began this blog in a technology boot camp that was our faculty retreat just days before the halls of our new building were filled with cute boots that college girls wear and the sounds of cellular equipment dinging, vibrating and rapping. Within the span of two years, I turned fifty, traveled to Africa, accepted a position as Associate Dean of a brand new School of Communication that had long roots in a small department I have been part of for eighteen years at an institution I love. I became a grandmother of a little girl, deployed thirty five students to mentor young girls, women and migrants from faraway places out of one of my classes, and traveled to two different states to stand in my role as proud mother of the bride. Alone. Their weddings were as perfect as my daughters are different. I cried unbridled tears at the ceremony where I felt like I was revisiting my former life with their father's family and loving them all, healing from an ancient divorce and regretting the unfinished business I have with the bride. The second ceremony signaled a "coming out" of shyness I had never seen in my younger daughter. I have not been successful in love, though I have loved and been loved; yet both of these beautiful young women, my daughters appear to have found their life's mates. I wish I could take credit for that, but I have no idea if any is mine and am grateful for their good judgement. My insides moved at the second wedding from fatigue, joy, a sense of completion, and overwhelming sentimentality at the simultaneous sight of watching my eldest nurse her baby, worry about a baby girl's fusses while cutting new teeth, and my youngest's embracing of her big, beautiful day that she had worked months to deploy with a budget spreadsheet, delegation of roles to aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents and her truest friends. I spent that day in two places very far away from each other--ecstasy and longing. I celebrated a beautiful couple's joy, likeness, practicality and sense of humor, watched my parents who are in their seventies dance for perhaps the first time in fifteen years. They came alive as if they had not suffered the loss of many dear friends over the past few years; they looked young and as I remember them loving each other in sweet and funny ways throughout my growing years.I felt the loss of my importance in each daughter's life as I watched my eldest fulfill her role as wife and mother, nursing her baby girl, feeling those early pangs of watching your daughter suffer, even if only from cutting new teeth. I felt like a woman cutting new teeth in suffrage and liberation at once. I was far away from my home in Chicago and close to the home of all that I knew as a child and young mother stranded between the whole of what I thought I might do with my life's future over five decades. I have failed miserably in some things and reached heights I never knew I was capable of. I finished a book manuscript over the summer that took me eleven years to write through the trials of tenure, raising teenage daughters and managing parts of my life that always seemed like bikes and ropes and water and steam that I tried to hold onto, but could never fully grasp.
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