I Bet Frida Would Understand

I am sitting outside the internet cafe of my hotel. I am hiding from passers-by that I am crying... again. I say again because I cry a lot. I have ideas about my prolific crying which are conflicting.

On one hand I love the fact that I cry. I allow my emotions to flow and take advantage of natures method of dumping chemicals produced during intense experience, this keeps me healthy. I feel much better after a good cry.

On the other hand when I am at my most vulnerable, tears dripping, snot bubbling, I judge that I let my emotions rule me.

Why am I crying this time? I am frustrated, angry and sad. I am noticing a pattern re-emerging in my family that I haven’t had to deal with for quite some time. This pattern had pretty much disappeared because I disappeared. I took a year off last year, or maybe it would be more accurate to say I worked part time. I had become so frustrated with how the dynamic saw me either dissolve into a puddle of tears and/or pounce with fangs dripping that I just opted out. I was still there in my home, raising my children and being a wife, but I found ways to always ‘have an out’ so that this dynamic couldn’t rule me.

Well now there is no way out, we are together all the time. We are usually doing things which require planning, organizing and follow through. My frustration comes not because as mother planning and organizing generally fall to me, but that once the organization and planning are in place it is often not respected. Not to mention that the follow through sucks! Worse yet there is rarely any acknowledgement of the effort put in. When I end up in either in tears or with bared claws I am met with looks of stunned silence which seem to say,“What is mom’s problem?!” What is most maddening is that the activities are organized around what everyone says they want! It is not as though I am draggin them along to do only the things I want to do... ARGH!

I can imagine at this point mothers everywhere are nodding their heads in sympathy and aggravation, my story is not a rare one.

I won’t bore you with the gritty details except to say that after trying to rationally and calmly explain a number of times that I was frustrated, I decided to catch a cab back to the hotel by myself.

I wanted to cry in the cab, but the drunk driver who kept asking me if I had a husband likely would have been thrown. Given his state I thought it prudent to not distract him. I would have got out to seek a sober driver but I was miles from my hotel and only had enough for his fare. I considered refusing to pay but that seemed more dangerous than staying the course. I prayed a lot instead.

When I arrived at the hotel I had a bath hoping to bring on tears of release, but I was still too angry. Just as they began to bubble up I heard my family laughing and running down the hallway. They tumbled over each other rushing into the room to get their swimsuits, they seemed to have forgotten about what happened and were now focused on soaking in the hot tub. They wouldn’t make eye contact and got away from me as quickly as they could which many a mother will tell you is par for the course when we get upset. Tell me, am I the only one who feel so hurt when this happens?

In order to restrain myself from tearing their heads off, I decided to go down to an internet cafe in town. I walked out of hotel and was met by an armed soldier so I reconsidered. It is not as scary as it sounds. I learned later there was a government official staying at our hotel, it is customary for the military to accompany him. It is meant to instil a sense of safety. Funny, a man in camo with a big gun doesn’t bring me a warm fuzzy feeling of safety, a cultural difference to be sure.

I then went into the internet cafe at the hotel, only to be told I can not use my own computer there. I swear the universe was working really hard to push me into a Kali moment!



I finally found a place to sit and use my computer. I was too shaken to write so I watched the following video by Chameli Ardagh called The Fierce Face of the Feminine. The tear finally began to flow.



She speaks of Kali becoming intoxicated with anger, how not even Shiva could stop her rage with force. It was only when he showed his belly, lay before her vulnerable and in complete love, accepted her anger as Divinity, that she stopped. It was the understanding of how she come to a place of rage from not feeling heard, when enough was enough and nothing else would stop the injustice, when he gave THIS his presence she was able to regain her own.

I would really like my anger, frustration, and sadness to be met with presence. Better yet I don’t want to get to the Kali place to conjure presence. I don’t want things to get ugly before I am listened to. When it happens this way as a dynamic, as an ongoing pattern we all have to suffer first. There is an easier way.

For now I will just go find somewhere with no family, no drunk taxi drivers, no armed guards, no internet lounge attendants and continue to let my tears flow... I will find presence within myself for right now and trust that it will come from my loved ones soon. I trust that we will find a way to face this dynamic so it can dissolve. That my Kali will rest more often, laying side by side with Shiva cuddling rather than going at his neck with a machete.

I came up with so many question for this entry, but settled on. “What helps you regain presence when you are angry?”

This post is dedicated to my friend Deirdre who cheered me up while I was writing this entry trying.

“I write about myself because when I am alone I hear the voice of God and because I am the subject I know best”
~ Bernice Raabis

(a rip off on the Frida Kahlo quote and my friend Deirdre’s facebook status)

"I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best."
~ Frida Kahlo