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(Dr Niama Leslie Williams)

DETECTIVE FICTION CHAPTER ONE
Niama Leslie Williams
Copyright July 2006

Long time since you all have heard from me I know, and I do deeply apologize. It has been a rough two weeks. I’ve just come out of, or am rising up from deep within, a serious manic phase. My psychiatrist/analyst wanted to test my diagnosis of bipolar disorder and sure enough, I am indeed one of those blessed/cursed ones. It is both, I now see.

I understand anew that old adage, that piece of information that came swimming to me from the ether about the time of Streisand’s film, Yentl, the first which she directed. The plot, if any of you saw the film, involved a young Jewish girl from Yanev, her older brother had died young, and she was intellectually gifted. Her father, a rabbi in their local village, with, apparently, his own deep understanding of the world, taught and trained her in all the ways necessary to truly understand the Torah, and because she was a bright woman, she desired, upon her father’s death, to go to yeshiva–but in those days, yeshiva was only for boys. She decides to masquerade as one; the entire film is based on a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer entitled, “Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy.”

Yentl, once she buries her father, is truly alone in the world as her mother had preceded her father in death. She decides to risk everything and goes on a long journey, by foot, to the nearest shul/yeshiva to enroll. She is frightened because she knows that if she is found out as a girl in the yeshiva she will be deemed a devil and an outcast, but her intellectual hunger is such that she simply cannot resist. She travels long, far, and alone, the spirit of her father the only comfort on those nights out in the dark and the cold.

The girl hiding out as a boy does makes it into yeshiva–no small feat at the time; there were tests to pass, etc.–and manages to continue to hide that she is a girl. She learns all that her supremely intelligent mind was craving to know about Kabbalah, from what I remember of the film the ultimate knowledge for a rabbi to master. Turns out it is mostly, or so one of the characters in the film says, about how to court and keep and make love to a woman. That was why yeshiva and the deepest knowledge of the Kabbalah were exclusively for men.

However, Yentl, thriving as she finally is among her intellectual peers in an environment that deeply nurtures her brilliant mind, is happy as a clam until—whammo–she falls in love with the other most intelligent student there. Problem? He is in love with a beautiful girl, played by Amy Irving, who was then, and probably still is, a strikingly beautiful woman, and this girl loves him back; the young man was played by a very young, with very attractive long and curly hair, Mandy Patinkin of most recent Criminal Minds fame. Mandy and Amy’s characters are madly in love, but there will be no marriage because Amy’s character’s family disapproves of him. Why? Patinkin’s character’s brother committed suicide, and it was felt during that time that any sign of mental illness in a family made one unmarriageable.

The important tidbit of information relevant to me, an African American woman in 2006, many, many years later? An article came out sometime around the film’s release stating that eventually the tribes, Yanev specifically is in Poland, discovered that refusing to allow those with mental illness in the family to marry others in the tribe resulted in genius becoming “bred out” of that tribe. In other words, the mentally ill, whatever genes they may or may not carry for mental illness, also in some way contribute to the potential for genius. This, way back then, seemed only a curiosity to me. I stored that piece of information and kept moving.

Flash forward to 2006, and my first trip to Europe. It was beyond exciting. I was to attend a “residential course” at The Hurst–The John Osborne Arvon Centre in Craven Arms, South Shropshire. It was everything I could have dreamed: the absolute deepest, most scarcely populated English countryside. Ever since seeing that documentary The Burning Times, whatever its many inaccuracies so some claim, I have wanted to see, not London, but the deep English countryside. I was blessed with a wonderful tour guide who drove me all over Shropshire and Lydbury and my goodness, my dear Black sisters, I was immediately at home.

I put my feet on those South Shropshire hills and Martin (the friend of a friend of the coordinator of the course) drove me everywhere, to a medieval church even–and get this, sistafriends–the door to this ancient church, right in the middle of nowhere, was unlocked in the middle of a Sunday afternoon with no one around and no locks or nuffin! I could have had a heart attack.

There were these wonderful box pews, one of which I immediately wanted to claim, but the spirits warned me they were haunted, and my South Central-raised self said, unuh, these white people are not going to let you buy no house in Lydbury. There was also something hanging from the ceiling of the church that had the Anglican Creed, something else, and the Ten Commandments. What got me, sisters, was this hanging was dated 1615 and was authentic!!!!!!!!

I looked around that church, and as Martin, my tour guide, discussed some of its history, I felt my spirit moved. I wanted to expatriate right then and there to South Shropshire, am planning a way to get Martin to leave me his beautiful, and yet so wonderfully modest roomy country house instead of leaving it to his two lovely, quite healthy, and perhaps biracial daughters. I was so at home there. I have never felt this way about Africa. I don’t understand why. Well, actually, I do. Some ancestor, a white male ancestor, has been pushing me, pulling me, to get back to England for the longest time. It began with Sherlock Holmes as a young preteen; Agatha Christie just could not keep up with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Nancy Drew? Forget it; BORING!!!!!! Plots never changed, same story each time. But let me not segueway into a critique of modern detective fiction; this was about mental illness and me and Pat Conroy.

I watched Streisand’s early directorial efforts with great devotion; they were some of the best films I’d ever seen. Films of depth and courage and deep intensity. I love a good, complex plot with lots of tension and complexity and stress, just like the home I grew up in, fortunately or unfortunately. Coming from such a home, it has taken me until 44 years of age to realize that although my older (but not oldest) brother was highly gifted too (my brothers and I came along during the time of what was then called “tracking,” meaning they tested us in school at various age/grade levels and then put us in the appropriate classes), I was probably the genius child. I remember asking my mother one time what my IQ was, and she said, “oh honey, they don’t allow us to tell you.” I asked my trusted high school speech and debate coach, my first real surrogate father, the one I clung tightest to for the longest, and he said, “oh, probably about 142.” Not knowing much about IQ scales or their meaning–I still don’t–my behavior though, recently, upon my return from what I understand is my true ancestral home, tells me several things.

One, that, indeed, I am one of those bipolars who shares the Pat Conroy experience. Pushed into a manic phase, and I have to be pushed, I have to be manipulated into it, I was diagnosed at 19 with schizophrenia and around 30-something was told no, it is bipolar disorder (sometimes medical and psychiatric science has to catch up), but pushed as I was so recently into mania by my current analyst wanting to test my diagnoses, I realized that in deep mania I start pushing back. I start dropping any guilt I may have been carrying and I start giving people back their secrets.

I have read people well, amazingly well, since at least 5 years old, if not younger, and I could see their secrets, things they had no idea I could see or understand. It would confuse me because, as a deeply abused child, and perhaps as a modern version of a saint, the other person always matters more than I do, and so I would not want to hurt their feelings by confronting them with what I see. Thus I carry their burden, the burden of whatever hidden emotion I see in their face or in their spirit. Sometimes, if it is something I don’t want to see, such as their sexual desire for me, I literally blind myself to that energy.

It was the powerful experience of touching my feet to my ancestral home ground that opened up that door for me; I landed in Craven Arms, Shropshire, and suddenly I began to open up, to unmercifully tease a beautiful Indian boy and then, shock of my life, by the end of the week, I will never forget that Thursday afternoon, for the first time felt a mutual sexual heat.

It made me quite dizzy. I mean, this beautiful boy was HANDSOME (Let me make something very clear here; this “boy” was born in 1974; he just seems young to me, making him, therefore, even more dangerous). It never occurred to me that he would be interested in 393 lb. fat and sassy me. I teased him quite unmercifully the entire week of the residential course, we morbidly obese Southern women tease unmercifully when we are attracted to someone we know intuitively we have no chance in hell of capturing, but it was not until he walked into the room in which he was to do an evening reading on the last night, Friday I do believe, and stretched himself out on the couch to relax and catch a deep breath before having to perform that evening, that I went, oh my God. I knew I was attracted to him, and that Thursday when he brought Jack Kerouac’s On The Road into our workshop (he was the fiction instructor), well, I nearly couldn’t breathe for the sexual heat. And I’m dizzy and confused because I’m thinking, this couldn’t be mutual. I mean, I’m the 400 lb. fat and ugly black woman who doesn’t put lotion on her legs; what do you mean I’m feeling sexual heat from him.

But that Friday, when he came into the room where we held readings and stretched out oh so casually to relax before having to run the evenings’ activities, I watched him lay down and once again, could not breathe. I knew it was serious when all of us said goodbye that night and I did not cry until I hugged him, and he was the last I hugged. The tears startled me. Again, deeply abused children learn to be hard of heart; we do not cry easily. But as I went to hug him goodbye the tears welled up uncontrollably. I patted his shoulder; he never seemed to really deeply hug me in the way that we Southerners do, you know, that wrap yourself completely around somebody, hold on tight and rock side to side kind of hug of deep joy? Probably the kind of hug Leo Buscaglia would have taught the world??? This Indian boy’s hugs were always sideways, half-hearted, as though protecting himself from touching me too hard, too deeply.

So I patted him lightly that Friday night, afraid of what was causing my own tears, and we did not see each other again until I returned from The Netherlands to visit a good friend there with whom I had attended graduate school here in Philly.Now how did this turn into a love story?

But I decided, after a conflict-ridden trip to The Netherlands in which my new senses did battle with stressed spirits in the home of a beloved friend who soothed me with visions of water-beladen Amsterdam, both by boat and casual stroll, a friend who never left my side as I spent hours in the van Gogh museum doing everything but touching the paintings of an artist I have loved my entire life, that those three days ended too soon, and I deserved a treat, a reward, some fun before returning to the States. So I called my beautiful Indian boy, and arranged to have dinner before I caught the plane back home the next day. It was the oddest dinner. Repression, distress, me looking off into the distance, him looking at me with deep and focused attention, and me going, what the heck is this? He could not be wanting me.

I may never know. My beautiful Indian boy may have been Arundhati Roy in disguise, so my spirits tell me, but I’m just coming out of mania, what do I know? I know so little as a typically undereducated American; is it Ms. Roy or Mr. Roy? I have interviews with her saved on my laptop that I have yet to read, but what in the spirit of this beautiful boy keeps screaming to me A. Roy? Could this boy be her son?

All that I do know at this point is that there are three spirits competing for my affections, and for the first time in my life I am aware that as a woman I must choose my man, and there is a certain television star, those of you who know me know exactly who he is, and for some reason I am holding on, am waiting for him. Though it seems impossible, and though I have no idea if or how we shall ever meet, I know that I must hold on and wait for him, that he must be my first kiss.

It makes no sense to anyone except me and my Uncle Rob (Brezsny, the astrologer), but I know, manic phase or not, manic phase illumination or not, that I must wait for Saint Vincent, I must hold on, and I must do whatever necessary, at whatever cost, to get myself back to those South Shropshire Hills.

More about Dr Niama Williams:
http://stores.lulu.com/drni

MY BLESSING IN PARADISE:
A Story About Rainbows and Hope

(Paulette Johnson, St.Kitts)

Lately I’ve been humming a song about rainbows. Thinking back on where I know this tune from, I remember it from an 80′S Television show called? Muppet Show? Kermit the Frog would plaintively and sweetly croon…”Why are there so many songs about rainbows and what’s on the other side? Rainbows are visions, but only illusions, and rainbows have nothing to hide…Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection. The Lovers, the Dreamers and Me.”

You see recently I found my rainbow. Actually it was gifted to me from God. I was walking one morning in Paradise. The twin-Island Federation of St. Kitts-Nevis. While living and working there during 2006 my morning ritual was a morning walk from the hillside condo I lived in to the Beach. Quite a journey, it entailed a steep uphill climb followed by a careful downhill trek before winding up by the Sea.

This particular morning I had to be more cautious than usual for it had been a windy rainy night and the path was a bit rocky and full of debris. When finally I am by the seaside, I cast my eyes for my usual morning feast of seeing nothing but sky meeting ocean, and the round circumference of the earth.

And I am amazed at what I see! Originating from the center of the beautiful, calm blue Caribbean Sea is a gigantic rainbow. It arches high towards the heavens before descending over Mount Liamuiga, the Island’s volcanic mountain that lies in its center, ending I can only imagine on the far side of the Island where the Atlantic Ocean flows. A quick glance around reveals that unlike most mornings there are no sunrise swimmers or walkers about, I alone am standing here by the Sea enjoying God’s magnificent work of Art.

The sight is such a humbling experience that I am immediately brought to my knees in disbelief. The colors of my rainbow are so vividly powerful and clear that I can make out each individual color of the spectrum. As I kneel, I slowly clasp my hands and lower my head in prayer. I offer heartfelt thanks to God for this special gift.

It was then that I had the first of many epiphanies while living in St. Kitts-Nevis. You see for most of the past 10 years I had experienced deep bouts of clinical depression. It seemed most of the time that I was swimming in a vast gray sea of sorrow and despair. Battling with my ex-husband in a bitterly fought divorce that resulted in our only child, a daughter Hope, suffering most from our blind anger at one another. Even worse the turmoil resulted in my being estranged from my daughter for several years.

My glorious Rainbow was God showing me that I once again had joy back in my life. Had conquered depression, and was blessed with the renewal of my relationship with my daughter. No longer swimming in a sea of sorrow, I was walking ashore now and continuing my life journey, now seeing and experiencing all life’s blessed and vivid emotional colors.

At the same time my Rainbow revealed so much more. It was a manifestation of God’s continuing love for me and his unfailing forgiveness. You see for most of the past year I had been seething with deep anger at God. Why would it be his will that my little grandson be diagnosed with Leukemia at only six months of age? When my daughter had finally found such happiness, how could you? Marrying a young, phenomenally talented Cuban-born classmate, Alberto, they were so excited about starting their family. Moving to live near them prior to my grandson’s birth, when we would dine together, I remember their joyful talks about wanting a big family, at least four children.

Why God, I asked should this young 20-something couple, who are so faithful to you, so responsible and loving of one another, why would you hurt them this way? And my beautifully innocent little grandson, so eager to explore life and communicate with the world, why must he be forced to suffer through this disease and its comprehensive medical treatment and procedure? Indeed, for months I had been burning with anger against the Creator.

But his gift this morning was like him taking me in his arms and saying “Daughter calm yourself, it’s alright! I understand what you have been thinking and feeling. “And I forgive you. Look here; look at the magical vibrant colors of this Rainbow. Is not life like this? For every high there is a low! Your daughter and her family are in my omnipotent hands and I will take care of them just as I have always taken care of you?

Slowly I rose after thanking God once again for loving me and for taking out his palette of colors to paint the sky with a rainbow just for me. That morning’s rainbow was followed at mid-day with four consecutive days of monsoon like rains all across the Island. People complained for days about mudslides, flooded roadways, and just plain miserable weather. As for me, I kept smiling and humming my little song about Rainbows.And a few days later my daughter phoned me to report that the test results came back indicating that my grandson’s bone marrow transplant had been most successful and he was leukemia free.

This Caribbean destination is lesser developed than most of its Islands. Less than 40,000 populate St. Kitts, and the Island of Nevis is inhabited by around 10,000 people. There are few nightclubs, and most of the resort hotels have less than 100 rooms, with the exception of one large resort hotel on each Island (the Marriott on St. Kitts and the Four Seasons in Nevis). Instead guests are treated to secluded relaxing beaches, lush green hills, majestic volcanic mountains, and the warm hospitality of the country’s beautiful and proud people.

I encourage you to this healing paradise which offers a…”uniquely relaxing Caribbean experience”. If you welcome a get-a-way that will give your body, mind and spirit the rejuvenation it deserves, St. Kitts-Nevis is waiting. Thanks to this twin-Island Paradise I made my Rainbow Connection.God blessed me by putting “Hope” back in my Life literally and physically – and with the passing of time, life continues to be full of vivid, colorful moments of Joy!

More about Paulette Johnson:
Island Rejuvenation Tours