Tag: travel

Sickness and the Stars

I walked outside the other night and saw Orion. The three bright stars making up his belt twinkled brighter than I’ve ever seen. They seemed almost to scream at me, trying to catch my attention so that I would look up and see that they had followed me all the way to the other side of the world.

The piece of my body that is made up of star dust has always seemed to pull me forward, guiding me through the nights where nothing seems to be real or make sense. I blame my mother in the most highly regarded sense, because when I was small and sick, she brought me out to the stars. She is a firm believer in starlight, just like me. Wrapped tightly in a blanket, my feverish forehead bare to the cold winter evening, we sat on the front stoop and looked up. Craning our necks to see ever last bit of light beaming down from the sky, wondering how far it had traveled and if the journey had been easy. That’s when I started learning the sky, by following my mothers outstretched finger as she named the shapes the cosmos had made completely by accident and that humans had named after their myths.

Today I have laid half-asleep on my bed for the majority of the day. I’ve been struck by the kind of sickness that I’m sure I’ll experience more often than not in this unfamiliar climate. While the knives twisted in my gut, and my stomach churned bile over and over since I had not fed it yet, my mind wanders to every corner of the Earth my feet and hands have ever touched. Remembering each green mountainside or dark grey-blue ocean lapping at my toes. Places I plan to return to time and time again once I have outstayed my welcome in my beautiful, tiny town. I hope this place eventually joins these others and that I will return to walk the dusty road again. My dry mouth cracks as I open my lips to take the smallest sip of water, trying to trick my body into thinking nothing of the cool liquid dripping down the back of my throat.

I stare up at the netting several feet above my face, I notice it is covered in the small bugs which were overpowered by the chemicals it holds in its fibers, they remind me of the stars. While they spell out no pattern, I can’t find a hunter or a mother bear amongst them, they give my tired eyes something to try to focus on besides the window calling me to step outside into the fresh air. There is a herd of cattle moving outside the same window, the small boys who control the beasts shouting short chirps at them which they obey despite weighing more than the boys several times over. The sun is beginning to fall, so I can only assume they are returning to whatever mud and clay home they rest their eyes in each evening, listening to the sounds of mice in the thatched roof that keeps it cool enough to rest well.

My body is weak and my legs are heavy from the weight of the sickness. It holds me down, pulling me back to horizontal quickly if I ever try to sit much less stand. I am tired and shaken but not discouraged. Slowly I will heal. My feet will once again stand firmly where I plant them, and I will hold my arms high above my head. It will be some sort of victory, mind over matter, proving to myself once again that I am stronger than I had once thought. Step by step, bit by bit, just as the rest of this adventure has gone. Just as the rest of my life has gone.

Tonight, I may go out and see the stars. Wrapped in several yards of fabric I’ll turn my glazed eyes towards the heaven, searching for three bright stars that have always guided me home.

Mornin’

This morning there is a woman riding through town shouting greetings from the back of her bicycle. She wears a pink head scarf that matches the long skirt she somehow avoids catching in the rusty chain that spins as she peddles. I try to picture myself as her, replacing her accent with my own (which sticks out even more when I speak Dagbani), and her scarf with a bulky helmet. While most of the community members sitting in their various gathering places have probably been up for hours, I have only just managed to pull myself out from under the bug net that encircles the small mattress that stands as the only furniture within the four neon green walls of my tiny home. It is 7:33am. Still yet to happen this morning are the sound of the goats wailing on the path outside my window that looks out across the road at the town I am supposed to be becoming a part of. The physical presence of the road standing in for the mental and emotional block I face most days. Trying to take the eleven steps (I counted late one afternoon while most of the potential onlookers were occupied by their prayers) to cross the dusty, potholed expanse first involves climbing the small mountain of anxieties my mind has conjured up about how and why I should not be where I am.

Also still yet to happen is the voices of the three small boys who play with drums and sticks in the wide expanses behind my house most mornings. As they head off to whatever battle they have conjured up to face that day, they wander past my window and shout good morning to the white madame inside who has captured their attention and most times will even respond to their assessment of the morning even if she hasn’t been awake long enough to make that decision yet. I thank whoever is watching out for me that they have realized that if they do this morning ritual before the sun is high in the sky, they won’t be treated to the response they so desire.

Eventually I may learn to wake with the rising sun that streams through my curtain-less windows, to fetch my water when the sky is still coming to life, to rise with the heart of the community. But for now, my head still hangs heavy above my shoulders as the kettle in the corner brings to life the whistling water that will turn the brown grounds I coveted all the way from America into coffee. As I sit and sip from my one metal mug, taking stock of any new aches and pains that have arisen overnight, the fan spins wildly overhead in an attempt to take an edge off the humidity which lays over everything like a heavy winter blanket. The sky is slowly darkening, the third rain storm in as many days looms just to the east, creeping slowly along, people ready their buckets alongside their houses where they know the rain collects, building up their stores for when the sky is nothing but blue.

I should do the same.