Somwhere over the Rainbow - you'll find a job

“Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, there’s a…..lulaby”

When I woke up today, after my usual wondering around, I turned on the radio-phone and I heard the voice of Judy Garland singing this song from the Wizard of Oz.

I loved it and with it I moved stretching out my arms into the heavens, peering through the glass of my window at the tree outside, collecting together the my blankets of the floor (where I sleep).

Thank you Lord for this beautiful day! Thank you for Judy and the songs she sang

“…somewhere over the raindbow...”

“When I wish upon a falling star…..” she sings quickly, with a bouncy melody to slow down and stretch out the words “…that’s where you’ll find me!”

Judy, I am glad I am writing about it! The last time I heard this song was in my head a few months ago when I was walking back home from the city center and there was a rainbow, c’era un arcobaleno magnifico che sorgeva da una parte, alzava verso l’alto dei cielli per lo spazio sovrastante e poi scendeva per incontrare la terra dall’altra parte. Che bellezza!

I now heard it again

This post is about thanksgiving.

Thank you dear Lord for that song.

Thank you for my birthday dear Lord that I could live another year! Thank you that you put the people in the right place and I was there at the right time.

I went to a meeting I dressed for it, because I felt it would look bad for the HIV Clinicians’ Society if I just showed up in shorts and a T-shirt, and I took the minutes. We met with Pharmaccess and by the end of the meeting, the lady from this NGO asked me to call her about chatting. As I walked out of the door I turned once more to say goodbye. And then she said “Yes, please call me, not only because of the health facility census [my last job] but because we are short of staff”

“Can I send you my CV”

“Yeah do that.”

This was about a week ago Wednesday.

Yesterday was my birthday and my new colleagues at Pharmaccess treated me to a cake! They also gave me a birthday card. And that lady I met last week, she is my boss.

I am a research assistant/intern and the best part is I am doing what I was doing at home – studying statistics and aiming to analyze data collected in Namibia – but I will be paid for it. What a blessing!

So what’s the moral of the story? Always dress well for a meeting.

Lemon Fell yesterday

The drop of the lemon – Thud! It came just as I put down the phone after my father spoke to me. “That’s a good answer” he said (I translate from the Bulgarian, our secret language so he could ask without much fear of being heard za6to si gay?) The lemon green with one side yellowing came down just as in me the desire for tears was swelling. The fall came so abruptly like Newton’s apple. I looked outside my window and decided to go and collect that lemon just next to another one I had seen earlier. So I went round the house, and I walked towards the tree, round the back, I could feel how picking up those right lemons would be like therapy. Inside me, the ebb and flow of my emotions meant I was dealing with this. What was it? Relief? Satisfaction? We had finally spoken about it.

My mother had called him earlier “Your mother is annoying with these messages, saying I am the reason for your orientation, but you must tell her, tell her this is the way I am, but leave daddy alone. She thinks I hate gays. I do not have a problem you are my son. I cannot ask you, ‘ why are you gay?’ why are you not a man? I cannot punish you like that. Why are you gay?”

“Are you asking for real?”

“Yes”

“I don’t know”

“That’s a good answer”.

So there were the too lemons, nearly ripe yellow and I could tell that more were coming. This was just the very beginning, the start of it all. I know my relationship with my father will continue to ripen and mature, after all he considers me to be all grown up now.

“You’re a big person now, we can’t be seeing each other all the time.”

“But when was the last time we saw each other? Last month?” I pleaded.

“OK, we’ll see” he said, as always

Avenue of Desire! (based on what happened last weekend!)

The Avenue of Desire

I took a walk on a Sunday day, down a street in down-town,

and there across the shop that dresses men,

I met, I accosted, I said

“ I like your style, would you teach me?”

“Red Shirt, brown pants and sandals to match your hair” I said

And that led to more talk about shopping and your bag:

“I got it from the guy by telecom”

“How much?”

“A hundred dollars”

“That’s decent (for a black bag with a reggae flag)”

All I wanted to to do was wave my PFLAG, and utter

“You’re gorgeous, yes you are!”

Maybe that’s why I saw you approaching from afar,

But there was nothing in your tred

There was no flutter

It was like that of a man,

But that’s not say you don’t have a rainbow fan

(at home, in the closet or wherever it may be)

See!

I followed you after we parted

My heart, because of your guileless nature, was darted

And I, as it bled, said

“I’d like to see you again”

Some hackneyed phrase I’d read or heard

But was it just from a song?

Was it absurd?

A man for another man to long?

You are beareded and black haired,

When God made you, nothing did He forfeit

In drawing your portrait,

“Nothing’s gonna work (but it did!)”

You said, somewhat overwhelmed,

“All of these strange people talking to me, but I just want to be one my own

After I read you and called you “Ruan!” (not you another-one)

Maybe it’s because you are gorgeous

I should have said

And pled that we meet again

Instead,

I laughed as I walked away, ahead of you,

What does it matter if you not are gay?

It’s just that it was so fun!

To walk and admire

And kindle that fire

Does it burn for you as much as for me

in my open furnace,

burning with bliss?

(Is dit rooi? Ja dit is!)

Ruan, do you yearn to meet me again?

Strolling down-town on the avenue of desire?

Sandals Extreme

The straps of the sandals slit open and the beads fell off

To hit the ground,

Click click, tick tick

Do you hear the sound?

On the ground I sit, crouched and my fingers roll bead after bead

As I pray “Ave Marie…”

Now its all over

…madre di Dio…

I had my turn to cry

I still remember

And I sigh

The sandals you slit (brother)

Why did you have to kill them?

Yet no-one died in my house that day,

Lord was this a becoming end for a man?

Mr Kato died,

A death as sudden as the drop of beads on the floor

He was hammered

Those sandals were not build for me,

“These are women’s plakkies”

I knew that when I bought them, silly,

But I took them not so they could die

And it would be my turn to cry

Thank Lord for mother Mary,

With life (and Lord) I am still enamoured,

The Rosary

The prayers

Set us free!

But some of the pain still lingers

And there is (or is they not?) a way for it to recede,

Can blood return to the wound from whence it came?

Can we just go on, all the same?

I’ll never wear a pair of those again,

Till become like those singers

Who sing where thou shall not step

Tick tick, click click

Do you hear the sound?