CC : car crises
On normal school days the girls come home by bus. But there are those days during the school year where for one reason or more I’ll go with my car to pick them up at school. It’s planned in the morning during our early traffic hours that I will do the extra drive later in the afternoon. I’ve learned that it could be a trip where I’ll bring back all three girls, only two girls or even one. This was how it was last Thursday and I happened to have only my eldest daughter in the seat next to me. It appears that I wait at the campus and that the girls just forget the appointment they actually made with me and I’ll drive home, in the empty car in which I arrived little moments before. When the children do join me, it’s a moment together. It’s a nice way to reconnect and for me it sometimes turns out to get a report of the school day that lies behind them. Hours of separation and lives who seem no longer interfered or be part of a constellation. Like small parts catching away from a meteorite. Between the storylines I know I can try to discover some deeper understanding of my girls. I think I hope to find out if they had a good moment with one of their friends, if something interesting or hilarious happened in class. Their explanations come with bits and bytes. Explicit, original, colored, a spontaneous message and the ink they use to describe their thoughts differs all time. I appreciate these tiny hardly visible and noticeable experiences. My drives back home change with the personal filled news they share with me during these late afternoon moments, snapshots, stills, I catch them and filter but feel that the lines of our hearts are strong and yet their lives seem already tighten with al kind of circles and settings. I think of what I shared with my mother at their age. I feel secured by their mutual love and friendship, ‘the power of three’ as they like to mention when life is beautiful or tuff while we change schools and country. I wish I could film in my head and keep track on my thoughts instead of trying to write now and focus the flashback and I feel that I am at distance already. I need to keep my diary in my purse. Her allergist did ask me last summer to keep updated with allergic reactions, because it will help her and makes her job easier as for ourselves we could find during our summer consultation the moments back when there were reactions during the last ten months. I remember some, she for sure has the mental and physical souvenirs but the doctor was right to ask me. I don’t feel guilty now about not obeying the specialist it’s too late anyway. With all plans and projects, the true’s is that I forget some, be inattentive or I think I’ll cover it with the blog, which is partly done. Last Thursday she sat next to me. She felt hungry and was disappointed that varsity was cancelled again. When I closely observe her, while driving and turning left on the large roundabout with the Ibn Siba Hospital, I see her skin is quiet fine today. It’s late already and I decide to park quick at the French bakery. She can make a choice for a small ‘gouter’ (snack) and I’ll buy some bread for her younger sister. The parking place is crowded as its usual at this time of the day, all Moroccans seem to visit the bakeries just around this hour and I need to leave the car on the edge of the pedestrian area, but the guard doesn’t seem to start an argue with me so we leave the car and walk some meters up to the entrée of the fine bakery. She likes a small pound cake serving and I’ll bring the large baguettes. I am astonished still when I only need to pay 30 euro cents for a baguette. The Swiss bread prices we have been paying the last years were so outrageous. But of course the bread price in Morocco is subsidized in a way that even when world harvest prices raise the individual price for a loaf of bread will stay the same. It’s a pleasure to walk along the assortment of patisserie and it’s a seductive visit every time we come here. She plays no risk by her choice; we tried those small pound cakes a lot of times. The lady who hands us the paid goods, smiles and I see her looking up to my daughter. The girls do know the ladies in this place. As she opens the small paper bag, we’re still inside, to take a bite I see the lady watching her again, a lovely open smile that lifts her face, as she feels empathy with her and envies her in a very positive way when she intensely absorbs the pleasure of the flavor that enters her mouth while taking the tiny bite. She smiles back and I remember I kind of looked back to her and thought at the same time about the moment that passed already, I felt like she understood that there was something special between the piece of pound cake and my daughter. That there was a story to be told and a secret within this bite she took just in the seconds goes by. I waved, said bye and see you soon: Au revoir, bonne journée, merci.We walk outside and I ask her if I can have a small bit. She looks at me with her true blue eyes, the breaks apart a small piece for me and shares her cake with me. It feels so special when she looks up to me, just a little bit, as she is getting my length. First she hands me the small back but then she reset her mind, pulls her arm back, we don’t need to explain, she just takes no risk, she gives me a piece which she takes off. I open my mouth and put the grumbles and some more into my mouth:’ this taste almonds’, is my command. ‘But you can have that now, so that’s fine’. When I pronounce this phrase I feel it’s a kind of sentence which doesn’t come out in the right way, while I articulate the syllables ambivalence flees into my veins and I am convinced that my one-liner is just not Ok. We did the testing, she had the skin test and it was hardly anything anymore but the blood tests did give an indication that there is still a very tiny allergy. It’s confusing in my head. The moment I feel that my heart is in conflict with my rational thoughts, my voice sounds not sure in my ears, the taste on my tongue is my sense that I believe the most and it’s wrong. Next moment we drive up the car, we take off from the pedestrian area back on the road straight on and right up to the auto way to go home. The traffic on the M6 seems dens, this will take some time before we head home, I presume. She starts talking, louder, screams: ‘I don’t feel good, this is wrong, there is something in it, I need my medication, I feel awful Mommy, and I need my pills.’ ‘You see I’ll never able to eat something anywhere....’ She pulls her bags over on her lap, sport bag as well, she can’t find her medication right away and continues talking that’s she feels so terrible. ‘My mouth, my lip, where is my medication’. Sport shoes fly through the car, I receive a bag in my face, I start feeling very uncomfortable and she takes finely her tablets, one, two and even a third one.’ It doesn’t help her. ‘She screams, she cries, I panic, I feel completely useless, she is thirsty she likes water now, but there is nothing in the car, as the M6 is packed with cars I can’t move away from the auto way. ‘Take the epi pen if you feel so sick’. Her face gets almost scotched to the small mirror half hidden by the late afternoon sun. She turns her face and sends a clear sense of fear , she nods , opens her mouth’ no never’ I could never use that’ her voice is going up, the anxiety pushes her energy and angry , her unbelief in the medical help here in Rabat’ never where can I go, there’s no hospital, where they can help me’. My eyes shift from direction, listening to her and stay focus on the traffic situation, in my head I start making lists: water bottles, medical appointments, hospital check, blood research, snacks for after school. ‘I don’t feel well, I’m thirsty’, ‘When we’ll be home?’ ‘I’ll buy water darling, there will be water in the car from now on’. ‘We’re home, here we are, come I’ll bring you up, you put your pajamas on and I’ll take care of you, I’ll help you, you’ll feel better, you’ll drink water and I’ll be with you, your sister is home she’ll be happy to hang out with you.’ Door opens, she’s out, runs, falls, gets up, enters the front door and spurts into the kitchen, she needs her water. I feel exhausted. She drinks, benches over, she looks upset and extremely tired, her face his pale her voice sounds softer than in the car. ‘You need to tell daddy, this is why I like to life somewhere else, a country where there are hospitals where I can go, feel safe’. ‘I think I need to throw up now, I drank too much water, my stomach hurts, I feel sick‘.
(march 2011)