Jungletwins

I’ve always found this a freaky concept; at least in the western world. I assumed it was for hippies, or people who don’t like sex, or people who do like sex but also inexplicably want to mess up their children by getting their groove on in front of them.

Now I’m living it. The family bed. This is NOT by choice.

I have tried everything.

I have supernannied, holding vigil at the door and putting the girls back and back and back in their beds until the sun came up and the other tenants revolted.

I’ve had them run laps on the beach until they begged for mercy, taken them to three straight playgrounds, fed them enough for quintuplets. Fatigue is not the issue (well, not for them). Hunger is not the issue.

I’m still with them round the clock, and now that Jungledad doesn’t work on a volcano, he’s home every night, far more than he ever was in our previous life in the tropics (the life where they slept) so parental quality time cannot be the issue.

I can only conclude they are trying to kill us.

And they are succeeding. They are terrible bunkmates. Don’t believe the Earth Mommas. I am not living some beautiful, new age-y experience. Our family bed is not a temple; it’s a goddam frat house. There’s always someone burping, snoring, farting, singing, laughing, tossing and turning, falling out of bed, talking about froggies, shoving me out in an attempt to sleep horizontal, over-heating and waking up soaked in sweat, screaming about penguins.

Help me. Please. Someone. What the hell can I do? And just how immoral is it to drug children…

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3 days. 3 magical days without my children. Without my husband. Without my responsibilities.

With my best friend in the world, whom I’ve barely seen in the last decade.

It. Was. Glorious.

“What do you want to do?,” she asked, from her groovy Brooklyn apartment. “Do you want to see a Broadway show? Or the Statue of Liberty?”

“I want… I want… to sleep. I want to sit down, and drink coffee, with no one asking me to do anything.”

She laughed, and it was settled. Her Mom had told her in advance she mustn’t ask me to make any decisions during my visit– that motherhood called for endless decision-making, and I deserved a break.

That was the best advice ever.

Of course, we didn’t do nothing. We sat on the couch and drank buckets of wine and looked at her amazing photos of India and Bhutan- and who knew that people in Bhutan paint enormous pictures of penises above their doors to ward off bad spirits? How practical! And how delicious to drink our wine and eat our enormous wedges of  Trader Joe’s cheese on crackers, and be 13 again.

And in the morning we drank coffee in a laid back Brooklyn cafe, where the adorable server wore thick black-rimmed glasses and sang loudly to the radio, danced, and tickled up our pan au chocolates with lots of extra nuts.

And the days went by this way, walking all over the city- watching kids ice skate for the first time at Rockefeller Center, their little limbs flailing, their parents laughing. Watching scores of runners whiz by us in Central Park while we strolled at a leisurely pace. Having peachy cocktails in a tiny, swanky bar in the West Village, then big plates of steamers, calamari, and fish tacos at Mary’s Fish Camp (with perfectly paired wine) before hitting the Magnolia Bakery for very yummy, very purple, cupcakes.

Out and about with not a care in the world. Pointing at the window displays in all the fancy stores, dying at the skimpiest, sparkliest garments. Walking through the secret neighborhoods, by the gorgeous red Brownstones, ducking into courtyards, side streets, gardens.  Around the block, over the bridge, through Chinatown and back.

And everyone we met was friendly, everyone gave directions, smiled. There was an optimism in New York City– everywhere I went in New York City– I didn’t expect, and really loved.

And when we were exhausted from all that walking, we headed to Hell’s Kitchen, ducked into an Ethiopian restaurant, and ate a meal that blew my mind. And at the end of the meal, a little boy toddled over, and looked up at me with his huge brown eyes and talked my ear off in Ethiopian, and I wanted to scoop him up and take him home with me, along with all of NYC.

And then we were done with the city, back on the couch, talking and talking and telling stories we hadn’t told, and when my friend left for bed in the wee hours, I laid on the couch, and tired as I was, I still stayed awake, laughing and laughing until I couldn’t breathe, remembering the stories she’d told me– nobody makes me laugh like that girl makes me laugh.

And now I’m home, with a graveyard cough I should really get checked out, piles of laundry, and manifold things I won’t get to today. But I don’t care. I had a marvelous time.

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I recently read a very cool memoir, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, by Alexandra Fuller. The author was born in England, but raised in Zimbabwe and Malawi. Her parents made their living as farmers, just barely scraping by. Her childhood was a hardscrabble existence, filled with tragedy, but also humor and adventure and a thousand interesting details that kept me enthralled.

But now I can’t stop thinking about the author’s parents- why they moved to Africa in the first place, why they stayed even when things got terrible. They were British, and had they stayed in England, they would have probably had a typical, stable, middle class existence. But they wanted something else. They raised their daughters in an exotic, often dangerous place, and in the process- made them interesting. Their lives were exciting because they was unstable, unsafe. Would I be interested in reading her story if it was just a run of the mill middle-class memoir of suburbia? probably not. Which explains why I lost a lot of readers when I moved from the central Pacific to the North Shore of Massachusetts. People liked me better in the jungle, where my life was more different from theirs.

Which brings me to a particular bit of guilt, the fact that jungletwins are no longer, in fact, jungle twins. I took away their jungle. I took away their bragging rights as the only twins on the island. I took away their minority status. I took away their banana trees, volcano view, and upbringing on the most remote island on earth- all the things that on the surface, made them interesting. I crossed an ocean, enrolled them in school, bought them shoes, and in the process made them ordinary. Will they one day hate me for it? Oh probably.

But now it’s up to them, and me, to make our lives interesting- the scenery and locale no longer do it for us. And as for that author, Alexandra Fuller; she ended up marrying an American she met in Africa, moving to Wyoming, and starting a family. I think she made the right choice as a mother. And hopefully, so did I.

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