 | Entonces que? I woke up one morning recently flat on my back with my left hand clenched into a fist on my heart. I had been in the middle of an intense dream (the details of which are now evading me) and apparently this is how the stress had manifested itself. I've never been a normal sleeper. When I was a baby my parents took me to the doctor because they thought something was abnormal with a child who screamed bloody hell all night every night. According to my dad's story, he told the doctor, "Either you give drugs to her or to me. SOMEbody is going to sleep."
The night terrors stopped happening on a nightly basis when I was about 3 or 4 years-old, but they have never completely gone away. I rarely have "good" dreams; it's not atypical for me to wake up in tears or with every muscle in my body clenched - only to come to the realization that it was a dream, that I'm safe, that none of that actually happened. It really doesn't bother me so much that this is the way I sleep. I'm used to it and don't know anything different. Besides, I would much rather dream of bad and wake up to good than dream of good and wake up to bad.
About two weeks ago I came home from work to find a little brown box sitting at my door. My name was addressed in old-person handwriting but no return address was listed. The postmark read "Clemmons, N.C." It took me a second but then it occurred to me: Uncle Leon.
Uncle Leon is actually my great-uncle - the younger brother of my grandma on my mom's side - and I have only a small handful of memories of him. We reconnected, however, during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend this past year. He and my great-aunt Louise walked through the door of my Gran's 80th birthday party and from the moment he entered I was his shadow. Hanging on his every word, cackling at his every joke, enthralled with his every story, I wondered how I am 23 years-old and have never really put Uncle Leon in my life. He was just this old southern guy living with his old southern wife in a very small portable home in this town nobody has ever heard of in North Carolina. No kids. If I lived a few states closer it would be a lot easier to put him into my life, but living three thousand miles away makes it hard to suddenly begin a relationship with an extended relative. Still though, something is better than nothing and so shortly after Christmas I sent him a belated holiday card with some pictures of the two of us from Thanksgiving.
So I get this unexpected box about two months later and wonder what my precious uncle with hardly a dime to spare could have possibly put inside. Well... a white baseball cap with pink cursive embroidered writing that said, "To Meredith. From Uncle Leon." And a black and white glossy of him in 1952, sitting on his Harley Davidson (or, as he wrote on the back of the photo, "Harley Daverson") with sunglasses on and a cigarette dangling from his mouth. It's beautiful. I need to get a frame and figure out where I want to display it in my apartment. As for the hat... well, the hat will definitely be something I wear the next time I see him. Other than that, I need to find a respectful but discreet place to put it. (It will probably go alongside the glass clown of my late great-Aunt Cleta's collection that I also recently acquired.) But the photo is really something. It's perfect.
We called Cintia at La Lecheria for her birthday last week; Jonathan was there as well and I got to speak with both of them in halted Spanglish. I didn't even recognize Yoni when he got on the phone. The words he said were his, but the voice he used wasn't. He didn't sound like my little brother that used to rock out to Hollaback Girl with me in the car ("ees my sheet! ees my sheet!") or meow at girls on the street he thought looked like tramps. No, he sounds like a man now. He has just begun a two-year program at a chef school, and Cintia is studying to be a primary school teacher. They both apologized for their poor English. They both sounded happy. I thought speaking with them would be the bright moment in my week but instead I got off the phone and burst into tears.
Ruth and Maria leave in five days and my stomach ache from the separation anxiety has finally begun to subside. They are ready to go back and I am ready for an emotional break. I have realized that my life - particularly my social life - gets put on hold as I become more and more emotionally attached to these kids. My "mama bear" mechanism gets ignited everytime Cintia's shitty host situation or Jonathan's shitty visa situation get brought up; I panic at the thought of Ruth possibly giving up an opportunity because of an insecure, threatened boyfriend. I can't keep taking this on. I'm going to have to take a step back the next time Conduit of Hope brings new students in. I just don't know how many more times I can put myself through the emotional ringer.
Walking with the girls along the Waterfront on St. Patrick's Day is probably my favorite memory I have with them. The weather was warm and serene, the company comfortable and familiar. And as we sipped on Starbucks that Ruth likes to lovingly call "the contamination" and took about a thousand pictures, I saw my hometown through the eyes of a fascinated tourist. At some point while we were walking I noticed that my left hand was unconsciously resting flat on my heart.
Every now and then I have not-so-bad dreams. Last night I dreamed I was really hungry and then found a bag of goldfish crackers. That was kinda cool. |
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