AUNTY SHAI AND THE SLEEPING MYSTERY

There is a mystery that lies at the heart of Aunty Shai. It baffles and befuddles. Why, oh why, does Aunty Shai of the non-stop games and stories, stay awake at night and sleep for hours in the day? What a waste! What a shame! Think of the lost games! The nonsensical rhymes...

Last December, in Singapore, my niece Bella could be heard puzzling this out, just beyond my bedroom door, 'Why Aunty Shai always sleeping, sleeping?' And this Christmas, my niece Eva: 'Shy-star, why do you wake up in the night and sleep in the day? Why wake up at night and sleep in the morning? Why Granma, Papa, Mummy, Daddy, Ellie and Eva wake up in the morning and sleep in the night but Shy-star doesn't?'

This is what I cannot tell my nieces, but what I hope they will read one day when they pick up their aunt's memoir:

What does it mean, having lupus? It means spending more of your life in bed than out of it, not asleep, or even resting, but engaged in invisible battle with the monster under your bed who slimed up over the covers, ate part of you very quickly and then paused, mid gorge, panting, contemplating where to devour next. His paws are resting on your belly while he uses your ribs to pick his upper incisors clean.

What does it feel like? It feels like fiction.

The only one of the children who doesn't ask these questions is Raf, because he had the mystery solved for him a long time ago. The answer was no less of a head scratcher. Apparently there was a wolf out to get his aunt. A wolf called lupus. Very odd business, but this part he comprehends: Aunty Shai is sick, and he needs to take care of her, watch over her. At four, he was encouraging me up steep hills ('You can do it, Aunty Shai! Just believe you can do it') and holding my hand in the dark, or on steps slippery with swimming pool puddles.

Of course he'd much rather that the lupus would simply take a hike up those steep Portuguese hills and  leave us all alone for good, but so far the only way I truly let him down is by not being ever-present. If only I could reside in a small cosy hut outside his house. We could walk to school together. We could catch Pokémon together - he could finally bring my paltry level 11 up to a respectable 22. 

It is January of the new year. I am more wolf-bound than ever. But like Peter Pan or Tinker Bell, determined to believe that something intangibly permanent will persist. Hope, I think we call it, on a good day. Meanwhile, since it is Chinese New Year...

Gong xi fa cai!

And here is a beautiful little tale by artist Jeanne-ming...

'On the Threshold of Something New' by Jeanne-ming Brantingham Hayes

Beautiful Grace sat in the doorway of the Door of Hope Girl's Home waiting for something to happen. She had made a careful list of all the wonderful small blessings that might follow her to this threshold. By night fall, when she was called to come in for dinner, Mei En was convinced that none of her dreams would hatch, at least not tonight. But tomorrow was a new day.

TIGERBALI!

Exactly four years ago, I was on retreat in Nottingham with Thich Nhat Hanh and the monks and nuns of Plum Village. April sunshine, daffodils and myself walking mindfully amid hundreds of peacefully paced humans. Thây offered me a daffodil from the stage (well, perhaps he was offering it to all of us, but like all great charismatic beings, Thây makes each of us feel personally invited into his presence).
In my less saintly moments, I remind myself that once upon a mindful moment, I walked in time to the rhythm of a Zen master.

There is another type of Zen I have been practising for five years. The Zen of Children. From the moment Rafael was born until this moment when he is a Grand Five Years Old, I have been accruing rivers of joy, peace and something resembling bliss. Perhaps it is bliss itself. He no longer demands stories sadly. No longer am I commanded, 'Tell me a 'tory, Aunty Shai!' His social life is comparable to any busy twenty-something.

And I barely get a look-in. Never mind, never mind, I console myself. I still have three Under Threes to contend with.

Here in Cambridge, The Twins tear about the newly sprung daffs, try to climb the silver birch and get stuck in veils of creeping ivy. Daily commands include: 'Do Owl! Do Rabbit! Do Pooh!' and I oblige, morphing into the animal of choice. The animals of Shelford are rawther genteel on the whole, with Raf's Gruffalo keeping a safe distance at the bottom of the garden, behind The Gate That Is Never Unlatched. In Singapore, it is quite another story. Bella the Bold has a new catchphrase.

'I'm strong and tough! I'm Tigerbali!'

This said, with all her characteristic ferocity, hair tangled and fingers fisted. Eyebrows drawn low in case you misunderstand and think her only a little girl. No, no, no. You are in the presence of the great grand daughter of Chief Justice Tigerbali himself, and one day she may hold his Sultan inherited sword to prove it.

Meanwhile, I, wilting from endless infusions and immuno deficiencies, intend to make this my new mantra. 'I'm strong and tough! I'm Tigerbali!' All I need is a companion tigress like Princess Precious has with Temujin the Terrible...

ABOUT A HORSE

About a Horse

The reins put me off. That direct link to slavery. 

A master designing a halter especially for his slave. Adjustable.

And I think the mare knew this. And sensed I was no leader. 

Or maybe she forgot about me, light-boned girl child on her 

inverted lap. All she heard was the lowing of a distant cow, 

and some nascent memory of her own made her bolt. 

It’s always been this way. I signal weakness.

You don’t need to be human 

to know I am scared of you. 

You can be animal too. 

There were many of us there that day.

But when it was you bolting, and me 

clinging on, my fingers in your mane, my thighs 

gripping your haunches, where did they go? 

Where were you going? 

How did we survive?

The irony was this: we had come to the end of our time 

together. We had had our neat and tidy

trot around the rough red tracks, and now we were gathering 

to part. My brothers had had their gallops (they preferred 

gallops, I did not; you were chosen for your sedate pace)

and I was ready for solid ground

but

I was tied to you: my feet in your stirrups. I was already leaning, 

arms outstretched for the lifting up, over, down

when you decided to run.

How long do horses live? You were a hill station, holiday 

treat horse. You were real; there is a picture of us. 

I was always scared. You were always gentle. 

Until that day. 

I wish I could remember your name. But what then? 

You never knew mine - did you?

Did I call out your name when I begged you to 

stop? You heard nothing, it seemed, only wind,

and whatever was driving you on. Did you hear

me scream, Bachao! Bachao! because I could see 

hill station women, babies wrapped snug, safe 

in their mother’s arms, and I was, you were,

thundering further and further from mine?

It wasn’t my mother who saved me. Or a stranger’s. 

It was you. All I had to do was hold on

until you ran out of fear, and I heard your heartbeats

allargando, adagio, adagissimo. Last week, I thought of you 

during a Beethoven concert, and talked about you 

in the interval, and tried to convey something of our ride 

into nothingness and how everything became clear 

when you finally cantered to a halt.

He found us there, your trainer, but I can’t remember my rescue. 

You were docile by then, chewing wild grass by the verge, 

acting as though nothing had happened,

as though you often ran for your life, and to your 

death: a ritual

you practiced for some final victory.

© Shaista Tayabali, 2015

Entered in dverse poets pub for their Open Link night and will also be published on herstory blog.