I hate the way his mouth slurps on the edge of a can and then, holding the liquid in his mouth he is swishing it round the gaps in his teeth.
I wish that I didn’t. On his national ID it says that his eyes are miel. Honey-colored. It’s true, they are.
He drives these winding roads on a hairpin. His sister sucks on a lemon for nausea. Her family laughs at her when she asks to stop the van. This is her first pregnancy. Their mother was pregnant 14 times at least. In this green place where my husband was born, where mists ascend over purple mountains, the ubiquitousness of orchids, everyone is always pregnant. Why stop for it? Why empathise? Do we empathise with each other for living?
The baby has chocolate all over his face, my little cherub dumpling, and he’s smearing it on the wall. He really is the Michelin man. Sweet face, sweet rolls of fat. Where did he get this chocolate from? All this chocolate? There is no chocolate in the house. Oh God. It’s not chocolate.
Later, much later, we visit the island of Hawaii. On eight legs, we descend the steepest road in the world. My young sons, this husband and I. Vines, flowers and guavas if eyes could have orgasms overlay a tapestry of views. Find a way to the black beach that isn’t pebbled with sorrows. When I was fourteen, I came here with my parents. We took the long way round. Salt-stung, tall grasses cut my legs. Our feet sucked at mud whilst mosquitos sucked our calves. Afterwards there were stories to be told. A night in which food, no matter how plebeian, ambrosaic.
Children need encouragement to do the difficult. Immune to the garden, my husband with the gaps in his teeth and the bubbling rage is saying they won’t make it back up. As soon as we hit the muddy bottom, I turn around and climb up the steepest road in the world by myself. If the down is taxing, the up is truly virtuosic.
Arriving at the top, “My-husband-is-angry-please-give-us-a-lift.” Who says this? Not me. Telling stories of asthma and other weaknesses, I ask the Hawaiian ranger if he can collect my family in his jeep. “That’s not gonna happen,” he says, in a face speaking volumes.
No more Alohas who the fuck do you think you are?
I descend on two legs, alone. At the bottom of the tallest hill in the world lies a beach, untasted.
The task of barefoot mothers: find the joy in Sisyphus. I like using my body and I like climbing. I have a difficult relationship with high heels. Just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean you should. I watch women in Korean dramas running in heels at impossible speed. I could walk in heels once. Some days I am pregnant with orchids and this is the happiest day of my life.
Shall I be outdone by the ladies who wear platforms and nothing else? I will wear them. I will wear them lying down.
My pregnant first wife was in a clinic in Piraeus, Greece, getting ready to give birth to our first child. I'd been up all night and went for a walk to get some air. I climbed a steep hill overlooking the harbor, sat on the grass and fell asleep. A couple of hours later I awoke with a start and thought, "the birth," and ran down the hill, reaching the clinic in time to assist with the delivery and catch my son sliding out of the the birth canal. I'll always be grateful to Dr. Tsgounis for allowing me that moment. An interesting man, he studied with LaMaze in France and was the only Dr., at that time, teaching the method in Greece.