Kinship

Do you know when you have those days? I was having one yesterday. Things were falling off shelves all around me, I almost started sucking my thumb, I felt self-conscious and insecure with a ferocity that was sickening and pitiable. These days have not been totally infrequent lately, in adjusting to this new life, outside of the strong gravity of the Land, the structure of my days there.

Actually, because of my fairly major problems with anxiety, these days have not been totally infrequent during the course of my life, but that's beside the point.

Anyways, a day like this. And do you know how, when you attempt to talk to your husband about how you're feeling, and you're all- Please tell me I'm not crazy- he looks at you like he's wondering which boulder you overturned to crawl out from the bowels of the earth and pretty much says- No, you really are crazy?

(This is not to put down the absolute caring and overwhelming love of your husband, who would stand on coals to help you, either that or just juggle work and kids for eleven days so that you can take a trip to Africa, all without ever mentioning a word about the sacrifice he's making, which, you should mention, is soooo much better than you would do or have done in his place. It's just that he doesn't always understand your particular brand of insanity.)

So then, misplaced and feeling abused, you drag your feet around your carpets and then finally call your good friend Tammie, that friend who lives on an incredible ranch in your old stomping grounds to the north. The Tammie who gave you this- which arrived in the mail right before you left for Burkina Faso, replacing the one that died in the car accident.


And you have been using it every day but because you couldn't upload the picture of it when you wanted to blog about it, you didn't mention it to her until she asked you yesterday (YESTERDAY) whether you had received it. And you know that you are a lout (LOUT!) because good golly already.

But the point is that you tell her all about your feelings and it is as if you have been trying to speak French all along, and things keep getting missed in translation, but now you have found someone who speaks the English you speak, or maybe the Russian you speak, if you speak Russian, and she understands! And she tells you that you are not crazy, which is important, or maybe it is that you are both crazy, but there is kinship there, which is the most important. It's that kinship of women who have a language that is unintelligible, at times, to the men who love them. It emotional, it's not logical! Sometimes it's not even right, but it's understood.

Thanks, Tammie. Please come and let me make you coffee.