Here's one more thing my time in the Mara helped me grapple with. I was bouncing around in the back of a suburban Nairobi taxi last Thursday, looking for the workshop of the most clueless Ethiopian tailor I've ever had the misfortune of placing a clothing order with, when "IT" suddenly hit me, like 49 tons of bricks:
I am in love. Deeply, profoundly in love. With a man I've never slept with, only been out with a few times. A man I barely know, and what little I DO know should send me scrambling for the hills. A man who will probably never know that I love him. Like most of the men I've relentlessly pursued in the past few decades, he is unavailable. Emotionally, and this time "legally"...inasmuch as Kenyan men ever consider the laws of holy matrimony when it comes to pursuing women besides their wives.
I surrendered to that reality when one of the most corny yet achingly beautiful songs ever written seeped through the speakers in the back of that aimlessly roving taxi. Say what you will about Lionel Richie, but 30 years later, his lyrics can still hit a home run. And he nailed what's been going on in my heart and mind over the past year, in a way that may have never happened if I hadn't heard that song in that precise moment.
“I've been alone with you inside my mind
And in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times.
I sometimes see you pass outside my door.
Hello, is it me you're looking for?
I can see it in your eyes,
I can see it in your smile.
You're all I've ever wanted,
And my arms are open wide.
'Cause you know just what to say,
And you know just what to do.
And I want to tell you so much,
“I love you.”
I long to see the sunlight in your hair,
And tell you time and time again how much I care.
Sometimes I feel my heart will overflow.
Hello, I've just got to let you know.
'Cause I wonder where you are,
And I wonder what you do.
Are you somewhere feeling lonely,
Or is someone loving you?
Tell me how to win your heart,
For I haven't got a clue.
But let me start by saying,
“I love you.”
'Cause I wonder where you are,
And I wonder what you do.
Are you somewhere feeling lonely,
Or is someone loving you?
Tell me how to win your heart,
For I haven't got a clue.
But let me start by saying,
“I love you.”
The only way you will ever even come within 20 MILES of finding out who I'm talking about, and how this drama eventually ends, is if I get my very first book published. You see, I've decided to start writing it today, while I'm in this amazing setting of the Maasai Mara. I've also decided to do as much international exploring as I possibly can over the next 12 months, before I turn 50. Now, you might think I'm trying to cash in on the whole "Eat, Pray, Love" hype, but trust me, that's not the motive. Mostly because within American publishing circles, Black women don't have “interior lives.”
There's no emotional, intellectual nuance to our existence. We're either popping our fingers, popping our hips, or popping out babies. We're Nell Carter sassy, or Oprah-esque nurturers, “Phenomenal” Poetic Divas like Maya or Alice, or Caramel Sex Goddesses like Halle or Vanessa, or curlers-and-houseshoe-wearing Welfare Queens, or just blinged-out Hip-Hop Hoes. But we don't go on adventures to try and discover why we came to this Earth and what we might have to offer the world. (Like I've been doing the past three years). We don’t possess quirky neuroticism, or sardonic wit, or hormone-fueled reveries.
“We just ain’t that deep.”
For my part, it’s not for want of trying. Hell, back in March, I even submitted a rough book proposal about my African sojourns to a DC literary agent I’d met in the US over the Christmas holidays. Her assistant replied, saying she had read some of my blogposts and found them funny and extremely well-written, but that there was no interest within publishing circles in a manuscript about expat life.
Which is precisely what "Eat, Pray, Love" was all about. I just picked the wrong continent...AND the wrong skin color.
So, no, I'm not trying to be the Black Elizabeth Gilbert, or the Black Bridget Jones, for that matter. I just wanna write about who I am and where I am, emotionally and spiritually, in this year before I turn 50. It’s something I never really expected to do, for a whole raft of reasons. I want to poke and probe and unearth and vent and expunge in ways I simply can't do on this blog.
And one of the things I'll explore is why for the first time in my life, I may be in love with the wrong man for all the right reasons, and why embracing it and moving through it just might take me to the next level! Now, PLEASE don’t worry that I’m over here depressed, or pining away like some lovesick calf. I am 98 percent certain that nothing will ever occur with this guy, yet it actually feels like a victory!!!!!
I’m in such a great place right now about my prospects of finding my Divine Right Partner! And this “Unattainable Man” is taking me there. Because if this insane level of physical attraction had been dangled in front of me 5 years ago, I’d have dived in head first and worried about the collateral damage later. I’d have been cookin’ and waxin’ and Vicky’s Secret shoppin’ and cyberstalkin’ until I bludgeoned him into submission—while he waited for who he REALLY wanted to show up.
At age 49, I’ve learned that I can be in this moment about this man, but remember that throughout my entire life, ALL of the career-related opportunities and gifts that were meant for me came without being forced, as well all the beautiful friendships I’ve been blessed with. My life has proven that what is meant for me cannot be withheld from me, ever. Which means he’s not mine because he isn’t trying to be, and therefore this experience is not meant for me.
This is an EXTRAORDINARY revelation! It’s the Nobel Prize of Emotional Maturity! It can’t help but prepare me for the man who IS mine!
Like I said, I'll explore it in more depth and more often in my book, which should be available by 2012. If I finish writing it. And if I find an agent. And if it gets published.
After all, who in their right mind would believe a story about a 50-Year-Old African American Princess and her Magical Journeys in Far Off Lands?
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