Filed under: Humanature, Motherin'love | Tags: Child, Love, Motherhood, Spring, Sun, Sunny Day
You giggle as you run. The quick pitter-patter of your feet echoes on the warm deck. Blue blur at the top of a pink shadow: nothing on but your hat. Before I know it you’re on the other side of the railing, picking a lemon. You almost fall backward into the sulky bush as the stalk finally gives. You laugh and hold it up to me for a lemonade. There’s so much sun on your skin, in your eyes, in my heart. Thank you for another beautiful day.
Filed under: Humanature | Tags: Calm Abiding, Happiness, heart, Home, Home-coming, Homecoming, Joy, Love, Now, Poetry
My sky is mostly blue nowadays. Many a time I feel the heart skip like a girl on a rope: ‘At long last’ said in a sing-song voice. Here is the place of calm abiding. Earthquakes and storms pass around, I notice. Sometimes they bring a cloud over perception but a joyful wind swiftly dissipates it all. Love is present the first person singular and plural. The now is home, wherever that may be(come).
For the sake of appearance, some of this posts publication dates have been altered.
For the sake of truth, take it as a puzzle.
It took an eternity that I my memory has bundled in a moment, not unlike I have him, in a soft white blanket. I didn’t know I could love so much. He has come with an infinite amount of peace and anguish. I look at his sleep. His breathing irregular yet tranquil. He’s out here now. Well come, Little. You have my eyes – may they show you the world as beautiful as I see it.
As part of induction training for work in prison, all new staff is shown around the premises. Presently, we are in the video-surveillance room of the visitors centre. The wall in front of us is covered with TV monitors. The screens show different tables, around which people are sat, talking. There are two officers monitoring the screens. One, at the console, is talking to us. The other is sat to the side, silent. The console officer is putting on different tapes: recordings of the many times people have been caught smuggling in forbidden items. What we see is both sad and shocking. On the wall, people continue to silently chat away (the cameras are silent). One family in particular grabs my attention. Soon, I am not listening to the officer’s presentation anymore.
A man and woman are sitting opposite each other. He wears the prisoner’s obligatory orange vest. She holds a small child on her lap. I notice that, although her torso is facing him, the leg on which the child is sat is opened outwards, her foot pointing to the exit –indicating the direction in which she wants to go (and take her child). She is bending backwards slightly, as if trying to get away from him. Although there is no sound, I notice that the woman’s speech is fast, her face grave and animated. Her eyes are wide open, the brow raised, in a mixture of fear and submission. She keeps one arm protectively wrapped around her child. The other arm is in front of her, defensive, her hand nervously waving in the air as she speaks. Sometimes, she reaches down to her waist and moves uncomfortably in her chair, looking down at her belt.
The man opposite her is looking much more relaxed. His legs are spread apart, dominantly. He is leaning forward over the table. His elbows are touching the table and he uses his hands to try and keep hers pinned down, in an obvious attempt to control her agitation. He glances frequently to the sides and behind him, which is his only gesture indicative of alarm. His broad smile appears only slightly forced. After she touches her belt again, he leans further across the table and briefly looks down at her cleavage or crotch –which is not unusual in that setting, but seems out of context between them. He also makes some attempts at touching the child’s cheek, whom every time she pulls away, almost imperceptibly. Eventually, she puts the child down and they stand up. The man tries to make the child come to him, to no avail. Then he takes a step forwards, his arms opened, grabbing her at the waist underneath her long coat.
In the control room, the silent officer stands up to look more closely at the screen. He says to his colleague: ‘Number 9 is dodgy’. The console officer stops talking (he was now showing us a video where a prisoner was smuggling drugs out of the prison). He grabs a handset, pushes a button and orders that ‘number 9 and visitors be searched’. After hanging up, he adds that if they found any forbidden item on either of them, he’d get additional time, may be banned from visits… and she an automatic six months jail sentence.
Later, as we are leaving the premises to go back to our class, I see the woman again. She’s waiting at the gate, under police escort. A policewoman is holding her child. My last thoughts go to him.
* Excerpt of an essay on body language, written for my counselling diploma course.
