Another Day of Waiting

For shamanic magic, money, and the ends

We took your sister to see a shaman, indulging the people around us who have more faith than we do because they have more luck. Could we borrow their hope and see how it shines upon your sister, to make her talk?

Your sister has climbed more mountains in her three years than I have in my entire life. We resort to acceptance, of the shaman’s powers to “heal” her when she doesn’t need any healing, to fix something we don’t see as broken. Will I lose the baby that is mischievous and clever, adventurous and brave, once she starts talking? Will I lose the mother that I am to her once I no longer need to decipher her grunts and moans and cries, once I no longer need to over-function so she could communicate with the world and stay safe?

When she starts talking, we shall not credit the man with no hands whose only manoeuvre was to massage her mouth with the stubs on his arms. When she starts talking, we shall not credit the insistence of society having the need to be doing something to change her. When she starts talking, even after seeing this shaman, we shall not credit anyone else but her. Her efforts, her trials, her choice. She will talk when it is her time.

We are waiting too for what little money we have left to deplete in its entirety so we could finally say within ourselves, now what? Our now-whats that are now appropriately timed and synchronised to tell us the efforts we had put in for the past two years, surviving, struggling, not living, has come to nought too.

I write everyday and am waiting to be finished. What lessons am I missing if the end has come and gone but I’ve missed it trying to write everyday? I ignore them because I want to push through, need to push through, as has been reiterated to me over and over. Stay positive, smile more, be grateful for…

Can I acknowledge the negatives too, cry and smile at the same time, be thankful but still find the holes that have been intricately woven like my grandmother’s crocheted tablecloth? Am I allowed to be human?

Am I allowed to talk too when it is my time?

Life feels like a doctor’s waiting room, the line at the post office when you’re wanting to send just one postcard, the checkout line at the supermarket behind the old lady with two trolleys filled with one-minute microwaveable meal boxes. One minute dinners she still will have to wait to consume and let consume her.

We took your sister to see a shaman.

If life can get any more ridiculous than this, writing about it should be a breeze.