At any rate, Meg is back, and with her return comes yet another memory, one of a song we used to sing back and forth to each other. Switchfoot sings, This is your life; are you who you want to be? This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be when the world was younger, and you had everything to lose? We used to grin at the oddest moments, the times when the strangest things were happening, clutch our imaginary microphones and serenade each other. It's been stuck in my head all day.
This is your life.
I dashed across the ward while Maomai was getting a bath, planted kisses on her fuzzy little head, and patted her slowly-getting-plump rump. Pelagi, Maomai's mama, threw me a smile warmer than the summer sunshine and spoke her only two words of English. Thank you. Thank you.
This is your life.
I triaged the steady stream of patients who showed up at the dock. Some had old wounds that had gotten infected. Some just wanted a little attention. Some had come from a far place and shouldn't be admitted until tomorrow, but please could we have a bed to sleep in tonight? We have no friends in Cotonou.
This is your life.
I wove my way through the fabric market after work, the sun burning away the clouds and turning the sky to cobalt. The street was lined with shops, yards and yards of fabric in every colour in stacks that reached the ceilings. In every doorway, a man or a woman, calling out in French or English. Come. Come look. Venez, s'il vous plait, venez. Designs swirled and mixed and I bargained in English and French until I got the one I wanted for a price that didn't completely reflect how white my skin is.
This is your life.
On the way home through the dusty streets, we stopped by a stand at the side of the road. Glass bottles lined the wooden shelves, each one filled with some delicious treat. Roasted peanuts. Candied almonds. Cashews and oyster crackers and trail mix. I chose a bottle off the shelf; the cap said Johnny Walker, but it was filled with sweet, crunchy toasted coconut. I handed over my two dollars and claimed my prize, savouring the sweetness on my tongue as we headed back to the ship.This is your life.
Out to dinner with friends to sit under the moonlit sky and feast on pork and whole fish and relish that tasted like summer, all fresh tomatoes and onion. Walking back through the darkened streets, the wild single headlights of zemidjahns often a little too close for comfort, my hand tucked tightly inside my husband's. The cool breeze from the ocean as we reached the dock, the lights of the ship guiding us home.
This is my life. And I am absolutely, exactly and completely who I want to be. Because this is so much more than I could have dreamed it to be.
