There is no home like the one you've got...

Updates from Rwanda, Part 3

You know that scene in Almost Famous, where William Miller is getting further and further into life with the band and farther away from his home and life before he got the gig with Rolling Stone Magazine?

 He's on the bus, and he's freaking out because he is sort of feeling the last of his normalcy slipping away, and he turns to Penny Lane and says, “I need to go home!”

 And then Penny smiles, slow and wide, holds up her empty palm and pretends to blow something out of it into his face, waggles her fingers, and says, “You are home!”

That is what the last few days have felt like.

The ex-pats here keep trying to get me to stay longer...or permanently. They keep proposing options, both ridiculous and realistic. They have offered to pass me around as a live-in counselor and cook. They have suggested I teach at one of the local tech schools, and even offered to get me a tour. One particularly alcohol-soaked night, it was suggested I learn to distill vodka from potatoes on the internet, and then start Kigali's first distillery. I even have a backing offer.

I've only been here about twelve days, but strangely, I could see it. Of all the things I thought I could imagine when I not only left home for the first time, but of all places, went to Africa, I did not imagine liking it enough to be able to imagine myself living here.

And yet...I could see it. I could imagine taking in generation after generation of Peace Corps. volunteers who wanted a safe place to live with hot running water. I could imagine working here, living here, even driving here, which has to be one of the scariest endeavors available. Kigali, for all its problems, is beautiful. It's decently well-organized. It's relatively safe.

There are things I would miss: easily accessible and wide varieties of cheese, for one. Any hope of decent internet. Western healthcare. American television. Obviously I would need to find a way to get my perfume collection here in one piece.

But there are so many things here I can already see myself missing when I go back: fresh and plentiful fruit juices, glass after glass. The beautiful countryside with its lakes and mountains, which I am only just starting to explore. The art, the music, the dancing, the textiles. The flowers that grow everywhere, in more kinds than I have seen outside botanical gardens, all fragrant and bright. And I'll tell you this: I eat a helluva lot better in Africa than I ever do in the U.S.

I knew that coming here was going to be an adventure. And that was good. I needed a little adventure in my life. A smidgen of upheaval. Some mild shakubuku. 2014, the year of doing things I never imagined I'd do.  It seemed like a theme worth embracing.

I did not expect to come here, look around, and think, “Yes, I could live here. I could be okay with getting my own electricity and water. I could adjust to the less than reliable internet. I could be happy here. I could learn French, and even a some Ikinyarwanda. I could live this life.”

I realize a huge part of my feelings about this have to do with the relative safety of Kigali, my high amounts of contact with other Americans, and the general high quality of life I'm experiencing here. Nonetheless, I did not expect to find myself thinking, “Yes, I could like and even love living in Africa.”

I miss my friends back home, but I don't miss home itself in the way I expected. It's an interesting, discovering new things about myself.  It's nice to know that even well into my thirties, I am not done growing, changing, becoming who I am supposed to be.  Any reports of my death have been exaggerated, even in my own mind;  I am still, very much, alive.

And this feeling of fitting, of being bigger than I thought I was, more capable of embracing newness, chaos, change -- it's wonderful. It reminds me again how often we live our lives small, thinking we are only capable of navigating a thimble worth of experience, when inside we are vast oceans of being. At the end of the day, our boundaries are defined more often by our fear than by our own capacity.

I would like, very much, to be less afraid.

Today I am wearing Lavanila Laboratories Vanilla Grapefruit. Available at Sephora, Vanilla Grapefruit is described as follows:

An uplifting citrus, this addictive blend of juicy pink grapefruit, fresh lime, crisp cedarwood, and warm Madagascar vanilla is fresh and inviting. Kissed by sunshine, this unique scent lifts the spirits.

Each fragrance starts with a warm base of Madagascar vanilla and layers on a unique blend of pure essential oils for an exquisite expression of nature that captures a mood, a memory, or a moment in time. Hailed as the world’s first healthy fragrance, natural technology infuses organic sugar cane alcohol with skin-saving botanicals and antioxidants for a modern twist on the classic art of perfumery.

Notes: Pink Grapefruit, Lime, Bergamot, Orange, Cedarwood, Madagascar Vanilla.

Sephora describes Vanilla Grapefruit's style as “Exotic. Sensual. Addictive.” Maybe that's why I keep respraying it. On application, the grapefruit note is strong, but fades quickly into a mixture of grapefruit, vanilla, and lime that smells more like those chewable fruit candies than actual fruit to me. That isn't a knock, by the way. I love those things. I just wouldn't reach for this one looking for a realistic fruit scent.

After about an hour, a lot of that candied smell burns off and Vanilla Grapefruit settles into a scent that is more woody and powdery than foodie or floral. The bergamot is very faint on me, but I get a nice balance of cedar and a vanilla that reminds me of the big tins of puff powder with giant pink powder puffs I used to get as holiday gifts when I was a little girl. Those things only ever smelled like one of two things: roses or vanilla. (Honestly, it's a wonder I love both notes so much. I guess I figure I'm spicy enough on my own that adding a little sweet certainly can't hurt.)

Vanilla Grapefruit is decently long lasting. I can still smell it faintly over six hours along. In terms of sillage? Moderate. I wouldn't take a bath in it, but if you're a careful sprayer, you can wear it without giving anyone around you a toothache.

I'm sure all this sugar is going to make everyone who sniff this feel like Vanilla Grapefruit is the province of fifteen year old girls.  Well let me tell you, I am no teenager, and I get a lot of compliments on it, so don't right off it's light, fizzy fun as too youthful for you without trying it out first.

Vanilla Grapefruit is available from Sephora in a 75ml spray for $58. I feel like this is a pretty good price for what you're getting. As always, I recommend trying before you buy.

I could only find one other review from Musing of a Muse.  Too bad for you fumies out there.  Vanilla Grapefruit is a nice little scent and I will always remember it as part of my trip to Rwanda.

I have got so much to give.
I swear, I do.
I may not have nine lives,
but this one feels brand new.
Yes I've lived a good one.
I have tried to be true.
There are some things I never realized
'til I met you.
How the wind feels on my cheeks
When I'm barkin' at the moon!
There is no home like the one you've got
'cause that home belongs to you!
~ “Barking at the Moon,” Jenny Lewis

Big Time Sensuality.

Updates from Rwanda, Part 2

Dear reader:

Maramutse! Good morning!

Kigali smells amazing.

It was actually the first thing I noticed when I hit tarmac. I stepped off the plane, took a breath, and thought, "Wow. This is new and lovely." I noticed it even before the stars.

It rained all day the day I flew in, so the entire city has that wet world smell. Since I live in the Pacific Northwest, it's a smell I love. There's something about that way rain changed the world that I will never stop loving. To the eye, it washes things clean of dirt and grit so everything sparkles and seems new. But for those of us who tend to encounter the world nose first, it does something even more magical. When the rain falls, it mixes with oils on leaves, resin on bark, dried juices on fruit flesh, pollen in flowers, and it brings them to life. Like turning a television, the world goes, not from black and white exactly, but maybe a washed out pastel, to vibrant technicolor, it turns the olfactory sound of the would up to eleven.

Rain-kissed Kigali, on first blush, smells…in a word? Tropical. It is fruity and floral. Bananas and guava and passionfruit and avocado trees grow everywhere, and the scent and taste of fruit flesh straight from the yard makes for one delicious early morning snack. I haven't figured out what the floral notes are yet, but its not one of your big traditionals -- not roses, lilies, or irises, or even the magnolias and gardenias which is what I associate with the tropical wetlands of the American South. Underneath there are ripe green notes that give the air a feeling of rich, pungent….life. Full, rich possibility just seems to drip from every leaf and stem. Being here, I can see where some of the notes for Hermes Un Jardin Sur Le Nil came from. It has a sensuality to it that is hard to ignore.

Everything seems so alive. For a country currently in mourning for the mass genocide that occurred here twenty years ago this year, a country where they are still finding the bodies of those who were massacred, it must seem cruel, sometimes, to live in a place that is teeming with life and overshadowed, at times, by death and ruin.

Ashley, the lovely woman who brought me here, and her friend Bree were surprised and amused by my love for the smell of the air. They seem to be used to it. Perhaps after a few days here, I'll stop noticing, too. I hope not. There's something about the smell of the world newly encountered that I would like to hang onto for a little while.

Now I'm off to an ex-Pat Easter Saturday brunch. For those of you wondering, I'm wearing Le Labo Iris 39.

More soon!

I can sense it:
something important
is about to happen.
It's coming up.

It takes courage to enjoy it,
the hardcore and the gentle.
Big time sensuality.

We just met 
and I know I'm a bit too intimate,
but something huge is coming up
and we're both included.

It takes courage to enjoy it,
the hardcore and the gentle.
Big time sensuality.

I don't know my future after this weekend --
and I don't want to.

It takes courage to enjoy it,
the hardcore and the gentle.
Big time sensuality.

~ "Big Time Sensuality," Bjork

These Fictional People I Have Known

Updates from Rwanda, Part 1

So…

I'm on the plane.

The plane.

To Africa.

Okay, technically, I'm on the plane to Amsterdam, which will land and I will walk over to another gate and a few hours later get on another plane, and then I'll be on the plane to Africa. We've already passed Spokane, and they just announced: nine hours and fifteen minutes to Amsterdam.

I'm watching August: Osage County on the plane, which is about the least Africa appropriate choice on the available list of options. FN1. It is, however, perfectly Diana appropriate. Not only is it a southern-tinged interpersonal drama, which is always up my alley, on top of that, the film opened with a quote from T.S. Eliot, who may be my favorite poet. If that doesn't scream Diana, I don't know what does. Already I have laughed with the gallows affection and pain of familiarity four or five times and I'm only fifteen minutes in. Every single line is something someone in my family or our neighbors growing up could have said, and might still say, if any of them were still alive.

"At least one of my girls stayed close to home. In my day, families stayed together."

It's funny how much more real that thought becomes as you get older. None of us get another chance at any of this: to be happy, to have adventure, to love and be loved. As risk averse as I am, it's that thought driving me forward: toward change, toward danger, toward life. I don't want to look back and wonder why I waited, why I wanted, why I was afraid.

And that, dear reader, is why I am going to Africa. Because I can sit on this plane and watch this movie about these fictional people I have known all my life and see them living their pain, pain that is all too familiar, right here on this tiny screen. Or I can stay home, stay safe, and be one of them. I can live a quiet life. A well-kept, well-ordered, predictable life. A life that makes everybody happy and comfortable...but me.

Or I can do something different.

"This madhouse is my home."
"Think about that statement for a second."

About a month ago, I went to New Orleans with one of my best friends, frequent Feminine Things. featured player, the Kate. And something happened to me over that weekend.

Maybe it was because I am thirty-six now, and I remember my own momma when she was even younger than me, being one of the most miserable people I have ever known. FN2. Maybe it's because I know my daddy died at fifty-two, and that feels scarily closer to me now than the misty and watercolored days of youth do these days. Maybe it's because my grandmother beat it into me that she wanted me to live a life she wanted and set me on this path before she died, also far too young...

...but when you really think about it, who doesn't?

Anyway, something happened to me in New Orleans. Some part of me...unspooled. I think it's been happening for a little over a year, starting right about the time I decided to quit law for good and do whatever it took to start enjoying my life. By the time I got to my birthday in New Orleans, I think the last of whatever it was that I've been hanging onto, whatever it is that's been holding me back, just fell away.

I drank like I never have. I danced in the street. I ate good food, and lots of it. I bought all the prettiest perfumes I could find: magnolias and honeysuckles, leathers and mosses, and I have been wearing them ever since. And when the little old Irish men paraded by asking for a kiss on the cheek, I kissed them twice and took their roses and and then I took some more.

While I was there, I just…woke up. I was happy. I was alive. It's like I was under some terrible spell I hadn't even known had been cast, and something about the briny Gulf air and dark roux and sweet rum and loud music woke me up inside.

I don't wanna go back to sleep any more.

"Well, genocide always seems like such a good idea at the time."

So here I am on my first plane, which will land in Amsterdam, technically, tomorrow morning. My grandmother never got to go to Europe. My Pawpaw did, for the war, but they never went back. I don't think he ever wanted to. That's usually how these things go in a life. Men go; women stay home, or if they're lucky, like when my grandmother was when my Pawpaw got stationed in Guam, they get taken along for the ride. But they don't just go -- not by themselves, not alone, not out into that great wide unknown. Chalk it up to traditional child rearing roles or women having less personal wealth or some sort of cultural impetus that makes one think that this is the way of the world, but women don't go.

I am not going to be one of those women.

I am going to Africa, and I am going right now, right as I write you these words. I am going to see someone like me: someone brave and amazing, a woman I love and adore, who has moved to Rwanda alone, just her and the cat and the dog. And next year, with a little planning and luck, I am going to go see another woman I love in England, and with her I will finally get to go to Paris and visit Grasse, which I think is what perfume people think heaven must be like.

"Thank God we can't tell the future. We'd never get out of bed."

I am going to Africa, where the women I come from, like my grandmother, have never been. And I will laugh. And I will drink. And I will dance. And I will live for my grandmother and every woman before her and hope that she would be proud of me, even as I fail. Even when I fall. I am going to see gorillas and walk through trees and help navigate as Ashley drives us across the country.

I am going to Rwanda. I wonder if my grandmother would have liked it. Knowing her, she would have complained it wasn't enough like home. But I like to think that whatever part of her lives on in me is going to have a good time just the same. And in the end, that's the best gift you can give anyone you have loved and lost. You can take them with you and give that little part of them the chance to keep right on living with every breath you take.

"Listen to me. Die after me, alright? I don't care what else you do, where you go, how you screw up your life. Just... Survive. Please."

I may not get everything right in my life. I may die still heavily in debt. I may never be notable or accomplished in my professional life. I may never have a family. Those are all things I may not be able to control.

But if that's the way things are going to go, I say -- let it. Let me die young. Let me die penniless. Let me die alone. Only let me live first. Let me laugh and dance and sing without fear or caring about how I look to other people. Let me feel something, anything, for as long as I am able.

Then when that inevitable day comes, at least I will be able to look at it and say, to paraphrase Connie Willis:

"Death. Now that would be an awfully big adventure."

_________
FN1. For the record, it was this, Frozen, or Philomena based on my tastes. I think I chose well.

FN2. I am only just realizing as I write you these words that she was thirty-six when she left us. That's new information for me, consciously at least. I wonder if I've been unconsciously thinking for a while.

In which Diana goes to Rwanda...

Dear reader:

I'm going to tell you a story. 

One of the worst days of my life was the day Luvine Martin Wiener died.  Though it's been over a decade, I can still remember every terrible moment of the day I put my grandmother in that soggy, tar choked earth.  It was early July.  I remember because I had my first starring role in a musical opening the week of the Fourth and she was going to come see me.  

Then she wasn't.  

So it was July, early July, high summer in Texas. I had to drive a long way to get to the graveside service, which was held in Batson Prairie. Batson Prairie has got to be the most godawful boring places in the world. Part of the reason is, much like the contested land between Israel and Palestine, Batson Prairie is a place that doesn't exist, really.  The closest you can even get in terms of geographic acknowledgement is Batson. 

Batson, Texas is an unincorporated community located on State Highway 105 in southwestern Hardin County. The entire sum total of Batson's history can be found on Wikipedia in no more than four lines: 

This community was originally settled by the Batson family sometime before 1840. In October 1903, an oilfield was discovered to the north of the town, and soon after the population would boom to about 10,000 residents. The oil production would decrease by the mid-1920s, resulting in the population decline to about 600. In March 1935, another oil discovery would boost the population slightly, but over the next several decades, would decline again.

This is a place that only ever existed for the exclusive purpose of pulling crude out of the ground.  Even in the best of times, it was a hard scramble place, one where, in the good years, kids got a pair of shoes for Christmas, and in the bad ones, a single piece of fruit.  I know, because my grandmother told me once, how they got oranges in her stocking one year and how special it was.

This is where my grandmother is buried.

She grew up in the neighboring town of Saratoga, Texas. Once known as New Sour Lake, the town was renamed in a failed attempt to draw tourists to the hot springs of East Texas by echoing the name of the famous New York resort.  Saratoga, was -- if you can even imagine it -- even smaller than Batson, where the population fluctuated from 1000 in 1925 down to 350 in the early 1950s.  

This is a notable period because my grandmother was born in 1927 and lived there until 1945. In a world of small town girls, she was a tall strikingly beautiful girl in a town made for Thumbelina's smaller sisters.  Then she moved to Houston, married my grandfather, and before too long found herself living in Guam while my grandfather was stationed there during Korea. She flew on planes. She sailed on military ships. She lived on a tropical island and worked in the secretarial pool.  For a woman from no where, this must have been quite an adventure.

I've been thinking about her a lot lately, about how it must have been to go to Guam and live there on the base with my grandfather.  I think about how strange and exotic it must have seemed, both to her and the people back home she sent postcards to.  I've been thinking about how much she must have seen in comparison to the kids she grew up with, how her life must have taken her farther than she'd imagined as a girl, to places more remote and strange than she couldn't have envisioned.

I've been thinking about this because in nineteen days, I am getting on a plane to Africa. 

Through the generosity of a close friend, I have been given an almost free trip (airfare, housing) to Kigali, Rwanda.  This trip will include a volcano safari to see the gorillas in the mist.

I will get there flying through Amsterdam, where I have a few days to spend on my way home with a coworker to see a little bit of The Netherlands.  I will be gone for almost a month, some of it as a working vacation.  Thanks to my terrific employer, I have the ability to leave for this incredibly long amount of time and still keep my job.  Not only are they allowing me to go, they're excited for me, which is a testament to the wonderful people I work with and how much my life has improved with my new circumstance.  

Until now, my travel abroad experience has consisted of a single day spent in Victoria, British Columbia.  As it stands today, I don't even have a stamp in my passport.

But in a few short weeks, all of that will change.  I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous, but I'm more excited than anything else.  All my life, I've wanted adventure.  If this doesn't qualify, I don't know what does.

So if I'm a little absentee over the next few weeks, dear reader, I apologize.  I have a lot of ducks to get in a row before I leave, but I promise, there will be updates aplenty, and some of them will even be perfume related.  Because this is part working vacation, you can even expect some updates from Kigali in May.  

So stick with me while I'm away, will you?  We're about to have a wild ride.