Enkosi

Never in all my life has linoleum held such a profound fascination for me as it did on my first time volunteering   at the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital. As my eyes bore holes in the floor I found my feet shuffling uncontrollably while at the same time anchoring me to a single spot like a ton of lead.

This was a bad idea, a voice in my head announced.  I can't stand that particular voice in my head. She is a smug know-it-all who sounds like the narrator of Desperate Housewives and is only ever present when things are going badly.

She was right though. I am not a people person, I hate hospitals, am repulsed at the thought of germs and sick people and I am scared of real life children, particularly babies. I had no business being at a children's hospital and thinking I could be put to any kind of use. As one by one the other volunteers around me were assigned to various duty stations, some to sort through donations, others to play with sick children I became increasingly aware of the rapid and powerful thudding of my heart against my rib cage. I swear that traitor was trying to escape. My own cardiac tissue would have preferred to leave me for dead than witness the next few hours of what was sure to be a resoundingly disastrous attempt at doing some good in the world. Unbelievable!

The nurse handing out the assignments was nothing short of a force of nature. The magnitude of this woman was both terrifying and awe-inspiring like a raging weather phenomenon or an impossible geographical feature. She was massive and when her no-nonsense eyes locked with mine it became clear that I was doomed.

You. You're coming with me.

Oh heck no, I thought and slid behind a girl in front of me. There were only two of us left.

I realized she still had me on lock. Curse you skinny, short girl!

Tarryn, they are waiting for you in the garden. Wena (pointing at me) let's go!

As we walked through the corridors, me with my feet of lead and Sister Hurricane with the power of a gale force wind I began to nurture hope that perhaps I would be relegated to a windowless room at the back of the hospital somewhere and made to sort through old patients' records or some such innocuous activity. Anything but human contact would have been great.

We stopped walking. I looked up from the linoleum. A baby in a crib...barely audibly whimpering in a sea of soft fluffy bright yellow bedding. When I saw a pair of tiny feet clad in peppermint green woolen booties poking through the bedding I knew that I was done for.

The Hurricane handed me a feeding bottle.

The thing is, I- I -I don't really know how...

It's fine he knows what to do. I'll check on you later.

I gingerly offered the bottle to the baby.

Don't be silly. Pick him up and sit in that chair! 

Oh. Er. Yes. Of course. That's what I was about to...

Tsk! She was already gone as I lifted the soft mass of peppermint wrapped preciousness and then proceeded to freeze in mid air.

Do not screw this up. Do not drop the infant. What are you doing? Do not grip him so tightly, you'll smother him! Calm down. That's better. Everything is fine. Everyone is okay.

Little wrinkly hands reached up to my chin while hungry eyes drank in my apprehensive face and examined me closely. It felt like a moment between Gertie and E.T. I was definitely the E.T. Steadily the contents of the bottle were gulped down and as I looked into the eyes of this helpless human being who had trusted me, a total stranger, to provide him sustenance, I was humbled. I suddenly felt connected to the pulse of life and I was simply grateful to be a part of it. I marveled at him: such a beautiful, warm and peaceful baby...What could have brought him here and why was he alone?

Will my baby make it? said a frail, shaky voice breaking into my thoughts. She was tiny, drowning in what appeared to be hospital robes and she looked like a rag doll as she struggled to move her wheelchair closer to us. Her eyes were bulging giving her a look of bewilderment and her skin was covered in lesions while her hands shook uncontrollably. I immediately recognized the signs.

Is he all right? she whispered the words in Xhosa through her bright pink quivering lips. It wouldn't be long for her...

I looked down at him. His skin was the colour of savanna grasslands at sunrise in the dry season and as he stared up at me, oblivious to his impending orphan-hood he flashed a toothless grin that pushed hard against chubby, dimpled cheeks tinged with pink. Oh dear. It was my treacherous heart again, swelling against my rib cage and exploding with a feeling I cannot articulate...

I heard her lungs wheezing beside me. Argh! Why? Why, why, why was she asking me anyway? I wasn't a doctor, I was just a kid for goodness sake!

Yes, I mumbled.

You could at least have the decency to look at her... said the narrator of Desperate Housewives.

I turned and fixed my eyes somewhere in the middle of her forehead.

Yes, he will make it, I said hoping to God this wouldn't turn out to be a lie.

She sighed, Enkosi. I looked away.

Thank you? Why on Earth was she thanking me?

He likes you. Do you come here often? Her wheezing was escalating.

Y-yes. A lie.

Will you come back tomorrow?

Yes. Another lie.

Enkosi. 'Nkos' ibusise. (Thank you. God bless.)

Nothing wounds me as much as the gratitude of the poor and helpless. It pierces straight through my spleen and leaves my soul haemorrhaging guilt and a deep sense of failure and inadequacy. Because let's be honest. Can we ever do enough? Do we ever really extend ourselves as much as we could? I know I don't. I could definitely do more.

I do not remember what his name was. I don't even know exactly what he was sick with. If he did make it as I told his mother he would, he is ten years old this year. I imagine he can do fractions and decimals and loves playing soccer with his friends. I imagine he gets three solid meals a day and is happy and well adjusted. I force myself to imagine this because the chances are as one of over 2 million children orphaned by AIDS in South Africa, the alternative reality is far too dark and depressing for me to live with and actually be able to sleep at night.

Peter Pan, the immortal child. There is a statue of him at the entrance of the  Red Cross Children's hospital.

Video: Mary J Blige, U2 - One 

The Lost Years

I recently realized I do not have any photographs of myself between the year 2000 and 2007. Between people helping themselves to my prints and me changing laptops several times and losing data thanks to viruses even the digital record of my existence in those years is very sparse. Pictures are a great way of documenting one's life and are great for remembering what one was thinking or feeling at a certain point. While I do not really have much of a pictorial record I did find my "big green forever book" which is kind of scrap book I've kept since I was 14 years old and in which I have been recording the contents of my mind and the things that interest me over the years. The Lost Years is a timeline in which I have selected some of my writings from the big green forever book. I may not have visual evidence of what I was doing, with whom and what I looked like during those years but it does give a glimpse of what I was thinking about around and during my coming of age.

Photo credit:  CSU-Pueblo Today

Always you wrestle inside me...

Life. Gotta love it.  You've just got to. Like when it gives you a taste for certain things and then proceeds not to equip you with the tools you require to enjoy them fully and abundantly. Do you know what I mean? It gives you the kind of hapless personality in which you have an insatiable affinity for certain things but throws in an aversion to the manner in which those things are acquired. And you're always aware of the tension, always aware of your weakness and you are always confronted with choices. Overcome this cognitive dissonance or watch the these things pass you by and spend your life in a state of inertia and dissatisfaction. Yep. Gotta love it. Always throwing illogical curve balls at you just so you don't just cruise through feeling like a million bucks, so you're always feeling a little bit on edge, a little off balance and so you don't get comfortable and arrogant. Life. It keeps you humble. And in awe. And grateful.

So life has given me a penchant for human beings, a deep interest in their welfare and a desire to know their stories, to give them a voice and a space to be heard and seen. I get a kick out of discovering the stories of strangers, my natural inclination is to recognize people and help them know that they matter and are worthy. The things they have experienced, what they want and need and who they are matter. I love that. Here's the problem. I am an introvert. I have a rich and solid inner life that energizes me and I'm largely put off by large-scale social interactions, my definition of large-scale being anything involving more than two people. But in a world that idealizes extroversion this is seen as a weakness of some sort, a thing to be overcome. So I struggle on many fronts. On the one front I genuinely care about people and I am apparently a decent listener and good to be around; but I find it draining to spend time with people and often feel a sense of having lost something when I over socialize (by my standards) so that battle rages constantly. On another front I reject the societal notion that everyone should be an "out there" people person, that group brainstorming is the best way to foster ideas and creativity and that extroverts make good leaders. I reject  "group think". It's not for me. I think teams only work when people have clear cut roles and responsibilities and are given space to just run with them. I think when everyone is supposed to think with a collective brain we miss out on the potential that is sequestered in individual brains afraid of disrupting "group dynamics." But this is the world I live in and I want to move ahead in it so many times I fake extroversion. I can get away with it too because I'm high in empathy and I'm good at reading people. 

So I am a system in dynamic equilibrium, a pendulum oscillating to and fro. The original me is Version 1.0 and the extrovert is Version 1.1. Whenever V 1.0 loses and I force myself (kicking and screaming) out of my head and actually give people my attention I am surprisingly good at teasing out the thing about them that makes them special. And I'm often glad I did. Because the stories I've discovered are astounding and inspiring. V 1.1 is emotionally responsive and fun to be around. She is good at winning people over. Be that as it may it still feels like I'm stabbing myself in the back when I let her take over and sideline the needs of V1.0. While I appreciate her usefulness, I have a stronger affinity for V 1.0 who is an eccentric and deep, analytical thinker who works with machine-like efficiency and a fair bit of creativity when left undisturbed. She is a very interesting character and is probably the only reason why anyone's even remotely interested in getting to know V 1.1. 

And so it goes on. I live on a precipice, a tug of war raging with no end in sight. Sigh...

"Always you wrestle inside me; always you will..."