Sweating eyes.

Eyes sweat. I discover this a few years ago when I been visiting fambly in Florida.

I been cosy-up on the fat settee in me sister and brother-in-law living-room, watching Kal Ho Nah Ho, a light, romantic movie in New York. Brother-in-law pass by. “Are your eyes sweating as yet?” he ask and crack heself up at he joke.

“Huh?”

He explain how one day, me sister and me two li’l nephews, five and seven years old, been watching the movie, sniffling when they reach sad parts. Brother-in-law tease them. Me younger nephew, wiping he eyes, say, “Daddy, I’m not crying, it’s just my eyes sweating.”

Last night me eyes sweat copiously. Couldn’t let me mother see though, I woulda feel shame. Because, tough- talkin’ me, I don’t let me eyes sweat that easy.

Yeah, tough-talkin’ me. Couldn’t keep these eyes from sweating when they light upon them li’l Mumbai chil’ren at the Oscars. Li’l brown boys with black suit and bow ties and the girl-chile in a blue frou-frou frock, a proper li’l girl dress. I mentally will the cameraman to focus even half a minute on she but he didn’t get me signals.

This morning, on MSN chat brother-in-law tell me it is a’ excellent movie. I ain’t see it as yet but I hear about the controversy - who in India ain’t like it yet plenty folks there celebrating now. Online, I read the opinions of Mericans who resent the film and cuss it. I wonder what they make of a Muslim musician going onstage in they country, winning awards so freely.

In one big ocean of division, that is where we seem to live, running into separate islands of beliefs, cultures, unconscious of the fact that what happen in that vast ocean does affect all of we.

Yet, despite that space, despite bad history, India and England pool talent to tell one story. Ocean does unite too as it wash from this shore to yours. When you spin the globe, all you see is one body of water linking lands.

Before the Oscars, one o’ them boy-actors who grow up in a better-off home did get interviewed by NBC on Sunday Morning, they show he playing cricket. This chile, very articulate, speak perfect English, describing he reaction to he first exposure to that hard, mean other life in Mumbai, a life he never know exist before. I wonder how working on this movie gon change he. On stage at the Oscars, he smile been like sea in sunshine. Me eyes sweat.

Then I ketch a glimpse of the smallest boy. He face look like they light a lamp inside he. He couldn’t contain he excitement, it pouring from he big, bright eyes. He remind me of all me nephews. I wonder what he been thinking, what he gon go back and tell he friends and family. What he gon grow up to be. Me eyes sweat a li’l more.

Now---where was I? pt. 2

You ain’t know you going there until you get there.

Some though, never realise that they’s really, truly in there. In fact, they think that that is what life is all about, they ain’t know it can be different. So they accept it as their kismet, their fate, to be in a place like that, and they do nothing to get out.

Others know but they ain’t got the skill or the will to get out. Inside, they don’t see the bits ‘n’ pieces of paper, plastic and dust huddling behind settees. If they notice, they might think, tomorrow they gon sweep. Tomorrow, of course, is a never-ever time. Outside, they let fall-down green leaves turn brown and dry on the front patio then cobwebs stitch them leaves together to keep them still.

And you got other folks who, on a subconscious level, recognise that this ain’t a good place to be; they do whatever they can to haul theyself out.

Every now and then I slip into that place but I haul meself out. Looking back, I then realise exactly where I been.

Emotionally, everybody experience this place differently. Some eat more than usual; some go into starvation mode. Some just get numb and move through the days in a daze. I experience it on two planes.

On one plane I eat, laugh, play, chat, work on craft, go about me chores as per normal. On another plane I sit quiet on the settee facing the tee vee which is switched off. I stare at the tree outside, thumb and forefinger pinching me top lip, folding it in a crease, unfold. Sometimes, anxiety does nip like them almost-invisible li’l sugar ants. Nip, itch, scratch. Scratchety. I does get scratchety, snapping about li’l things. Pick a fight, any fight.

I ain’t know the name for this place. Ain’t depression or the blues. It is that dull, dreary place where things grind to a halt in your head, things doing nothing, going nowhere. It is that place where fallow-land don’t mean rest until you’s ready to sow, reap again; there, fallow mean dry, hot, empty. Even though outside of your house the rain pouring so hard the land flood.

I guess you can call it the doldrums. Stasis. Limbo-land. I end up there through a series of mishaps, after the visitor enter we house mid-last year. Murphy, he name was, making everything that can go wrong, go wrong. Bad jinn, bad spirit, bad vibes some would say he bring.

While I try...

...to find the right words to describe where I been, I want to say thank you to them sweet folks who choose me for the Bloggies.

xx Mwah xx

WHERE WAS I? Pt. 1.

The late-November rain bust down as if somebody did slit the sky every which way – crossways, sideways, longways. Water pound down like sledge hammers on zinc roofs. Mosquitoes, hiding since August from scorching heat, come out like bad gremlins. Yard flood to we ankle before we could say Slip-slap-slippa. We get li’l breaks from the rain for one hour, and if we lucky, half of half of a morning or afternoon.

It was during one o’ these breaks, after the mini-flood in we yard recede, that I venture out to we road. I full-up me lungs with the fresh, cool air and contemplate me fate, wondering how long I gon be housebound.

A jeep pull up, skrrrks, right in front of me, a rough, man-jeep that look as though it see plenty deserts. The driver been jaw-dropping gorgeous, light-tanned an’ lanky with dark hair. I couldn’t breathe no more.

“G’daiye possum,” he say with a smile that flash bright like lightening.

I open me mouth to answer but only a li'l eek come out.

Suddenly, before I could haul out a proper sound from me insides, a thick, black swarm o' mosquitoes, humming like a small plane, buzz down and grab the man.

“Help me,” the man holler.

“Don’t worry Hugh, I got you,” I shout as I grab onto he ankles. What a good thing handsome men don’t have smelly feet because he shoes fall off and barely miss me face..........

I pause in the telling of my story to munch on me roti and stew fish.

“Who was the man? Where them mosquites carry y’all?” my mother ask with a dry expression.

Me and she been eating early dinner at the kitchen table, that faded pink kitchen table that hear every tale conceivable. Teen boys adventures; women complaining about husbands; rice-picking tales and country-life with murders, betrayals, love and idealism; girls about boys tales and Dickens and Chekhov and Readers’ Digest tales. Me wild story, the one that I concoct weeks ago, to tell bloggers where I disappear to all this time, ain’t nothing new to this table.

“He was Hugh Jackman. One o’ them mosquitoes was Maisie the Mozzie, wife of Ozzie the Mozzie. But she is in love with Hugh Jackman and she is a jealous wretch, so she come to take he back to Oz.

“Them mosquitoes fetch we all the way over the Amazon jungle, native Indians try to shoot we down with bow and arrow, but that wouldn’t help we, if you see pirai with long, long teeth in the river, waiting for we. We go all the way across the desert and when we reach the Sydney harbour, them mosquitoes drop me, whaps, in the water and fly go ‘way with Hugh Jackman.”

"Which desert?” my mother ask in the same dry tone.

I shrug. “I dunno...some Australian desert...don’t know the name...”

"If you fly straight south from here, you wouldn’t have to go over any Australian desert, you would end up in Sydney anyway.”

"Man, the trouble with you is, you know too much.”

So where I been all this time then?

The truth is too mundane to talk about.