+ The Postman and Other Fairytales

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9/22/08 12:16am Journal Entry

I am finally cracking open the lined notebook I bought in Ghana for 1 cedi, a patterned school composition notebook, the label now reading:

Name: Mama
Class/Form: Life Tour
Subject: Poetic Sex

It just seemed appropriate to honor it with insignias and jokes from this city. I just finished my post-hot tub chat with Tonya and the Meissner house is still. I wanted a few minutes alone with my notebook, even though the sun will call early tomorrow morn, it's been a few days and my spirit was thirsting for it. This weekend has been as special as each moment here has proven. I arrived Friday night after parting ways with Baraka on BART and a long bus ride on my account of being Cali-ride ignorant. I was in a cold thick haze but pashed through the evening long enough to hear my cousin's music, Ivy on guitar and vocals, singing despite her own congestion, beautiful wise-songed and the high school boys drooled, me with a proud heart filming with camcorder. Maya cool on the drums, bursting out these contained, impressive, I'm-way-chiller-than-you drum solos. They chose perfect covers, Goldfrapp, Beatles, Cat Stevens to accompany the haunting originals and closed the set with a song their Dad wrote for his rock band over ten years ago when they were just wee things sleeping during his gigs. They are a living manifestation of all my 15 and 17 year old rock band fantasies and how right it feels when they introduce me as their cousin. We come home and I read them select entries from my blog, Ivy wide eyed and begging for more, and how good it felt to be "cool" on the other end of the looking glass.

Saturday the girls traipsed off to a festival on Treasure Island, adorning the cutest careful coordinated pixie outfits and the day was spent quietly completing work. One of the most incredible parts about this trip has been connecting with Rick. Of course, it is silly to recount the conversations shared, besides, they are private but honest and touching and infuse my heart with that genuine connection kind of happiness. We close the afternoon with an exchange, I read him my latest poem and he shares a moving song written for a friend. Ouch, says my heart, in a good way. The sharp pain reminds me how much I will miss my new found family.

The evening finds Rick, Grace and I over delicious Indian food and a night of dancing to Zimbabwean highlife music at Askenaz Dance Community Center. The floor is an unlikely menagerie of characters and we exchange laughter, our eyes directing one another to random specimens of hilarity like hidden secrets. I share a dance with an old man who guides me with force into fast circles until I peel away with a bow to solo it out. If I lived in Berkley, I would be here all the time. Reggae, highlife, afrobeat and other world music, housed in this incredible space that is also an activist center I mean... um hi? I'm Caitlin, nice to meet you. The end of the night finds us spent at a table, hanging back for a moment before retiring. I catch the eye of a beautiful man in the corner, laughing and dancing like a misplaced rasta, all by his lonesome. He is wearing board shorts and a short sleeved plaid button up shirt and flip flops, looking way more Island than Berkley and lifts his drink to me across the room. An invitation, if any, I make my way over to his light. V is from Mozambique but has been here for eight years. He works construction but is a painter. He laughs incessantly and it is a joyous infection. We exchange numbers and a half promise to hang out that I don't really take seriously. Disappear into the night, relishing being the mysterious poet from Brooklyn who leaves question marks and stars in her wake. (Little does he know about my goofiness. It's hard to hide for long.)

And this morning. I woke to pancakes and eggs. The girls lumbering in, high off no sleep, dramatically sighing and recounting tales from their life-changing music festival experience. Grace arrives home with her five year old daughter Sophie, who has been with her Dad for the weekend. Brilliant and hilarious in that I-can't-help-but-dance-while-I'm-talking-to-you way that five year olds are, Sophie lights the room with her jokes and interpretative movements and small nuggets of innocence. After breakfast, Grace agrees to cut my hair after all and gives a $60 cut for zip on the back deck, Rick bringing his guitar out and free style writing songs with Sophie about all sorts of silly things in the world. Grace and I add a line or two here and there, my best being "who's nose is pierced" to rhyme with "she is fierce," is a song where I miraculously became a purple lion in disguise.

The night closed with watching "Il Postino," which Rick couldn't believe I'd never seen. Please, please see this sweet movie. It's about a simple postman who develops an unlikely friendship with Pablo Neruda in Italy. My good god, please just see it.

The sweet life.

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