Michael, I Want You Back!

I'm really very grateful that I was in America on June 25th. EXTREMELY grateful. This day last year, it was kind of eerie to be in an environment where most people kept going on about their business, and carried on with life like the very foundations of their childhood hadn't just been ripped out by the roots.

I'm not saying Kenyans didn't note the passing of Michael Joseph Jackson. I probably got the most comfort from the radio; everywhere I went in taxis during the week after Michael died, all I heard was his music. But there was no shared mourning, no reminiscences, noone to feel comfortable shedding a tear or two around.

I really think that was the zenith of my rather late life encounter with the daunting spectre of "Intense Loneliness." I've always considered myself a bit of a loner, more introspective than the average bear, but prior to this Kenya stint, I've also always felt like I never really been lonely per se. I've always been pretty cool with my own company, and never been the kind of person who called people just to talk about...nothing, really, or who needed to go to the club or to some sort of public venue to make human contact, even if only peripherally.

But there's something about expat life that can break down even the most stalwart, self-contained person. While I'm not a TOTAL hermit, I have my moments. I believe I've already detailed my challenges in that regard....as a single woman of a certain age, there aren't any "running buddies" in your age cohort. By 48, most Kenyan women are married, divorced, widowed, or grandmothers....every demographic category that I'm not.

I thought about that a lot in Atlanta, hanging out with my good friend and former mentee Jamila and and her friend Sabriya. Jamila is 13 years younger than me; Sabriya is 16 years younger. And it totally didn't matter....I had a blast, giggling and carrying on like a teenager. After all, we're all single women looking for love...a topic that leads to hours of drinking, gabbing, and rumination. Things I don't have as much access to over in Nairobi.

In fact, the people I'm closest to over there are--get this--TWENTY YEARS YOUNGER THAN ME. And they consider me a mentor and role model more than a friend. In fact, I'm older than the mother of one young woman, and yet I behave like a total mental case whenever she and I hang out, giggling and talking about men and career hopes and dreams, when her own mother is after her to produce some grandchildren.

So I guess you could say I'm slightly retarded. But I'd like to think I'm just eternally youthful. In fact, while I was in Atlanta, my sister Marilyn and I watched one of the Michael Jackson biopics on VH-1, and when "I Want You Back" came on, Marilyn straight up boogied! We laughed and sang along, and recalled that we had watched the Jackson 5 debut on the Ed Sullivan Show back in '69.

Now, I don't really want to turn back the clock to 1969 for obvious reasons, but I would love to have Michael back among us--but whole, and healthy and less tortured. I'd love to feel like I felt about him when "Off The Wall" was released, and I was totally in love and hopeful that one day I'd meet him, and he'd realize how much we had in common, what with the whole 9 brothers and sisters and Jehovah's Witness thang, and we'd fall in love and live happily ever after.

But since none of that will ever happen, I'm just so very grateful that I was here during the first anniversary of MJ's passing, amidst a whole country full of people who "got it" just as much as I did. So much so that when I started singing and dancing all by myself to "Wanna Be Starting Something," playing in my headphones at the Greenbelt Metro Station Friday afternoon, nobody batted an eye.