Whatever...Love Is Love (8 page)

As the boat was about to turn around, Jack's hand shot up and pointed toward a cove. “There they are!” And indeed they were. A whole “breeding” pack of moms and babies. We pulled into the crystal clear water and Jack was the first one to the back of the boat in his flippers and mask, ready to jump off. But when the gate was open, he looked back at me a bit afraid to jump in. I was right behind him, “Come on, Buddy, we can do it,” I said. And we jumped in together, holding hands for a few minutes as we swam out. When we got our bearings we put our faces under the water and saw the most magical sight. There were 20 or more dolphins swimming not only underneath us but also beside us, so close that we could reach out and touch them. He jumped at first and held my hand tighter. But as he got more comfortable, he let go and started drifting farther and farther away. I would stick my head up every now and again and yell for him, always the concerned mom. And he would pop up with a smile and give me the thumbs-up. He soon started swimming with one of the dive instructors, a girl of about 17 with shiny blond hair and a beautiful spirit. I caught up to him to ask if he was okay, and with our masks under the water he gestured again with a thumbs-up, as if to say, “Yeah, Mom, don't worry, I'm fine.” And he looked in the distance to the beautiful girl and started to swim away. I watched as he disappeared into the horizon.

My heart broke in that second, but I knew the rightness of it all. He did not belong to me anymore. He was his own being, swimming in the world, and having to make choices at every corner about where to swim and with whom. His father and I could guide him, but he was old enough to make his own decisions. I had to let him go. Of course I cried. I'm supposed to. I'm his mom.

He was in the midst of a transition now.

We don't always see our children as separate human beings. Jack and I are figuring out what it means to hold on and to let go. He probably knows much more about this than I will ever know. The fact that he has the confidence and the desire to strike out, on his own, means that I've done something right. I am a good enough mom for my son, and always will be.

7

AM I A HUMANITARIAN?

Deye mon gen mon
, or
There are mountains beyond mountains.

A
re you a person who lives to promote human welfare selflessly?

I had a mistress once. For years I thought of her every minute of every day. I would wake in the middle of the night and she was the only one I could see. I would lie awake for hours trying to think of ways to soothe her, bring her relief, and how better to love her. During the day, I spoke to her. Now, four years later, I think of her much less. But on our anniversary, January 12 of every year, there is an ache deep in my chest, and I long for her.

Let me clarify. I was introduced to her many years ago; January 12, 2010, was the day I wholeheartedly, undoubtedly fell in love with her. After that day I could no longer resist her raw beauty and violent, extreme love. She wanted me. She needed me. And I gave myself to her, not knowing that it would be the end of life as I knew it.

She was mysterious. People either loved her or hated her the first time they met her. She was dark and angry at times, but there was a softer, radiant side of her, too. Only certain people were able to see that side—and not because they looked for it. Only certain, special souls were able to hear the siren's cry of this mistress. And, as in the German myth of Lorelei, the siren lured sailors to crash on the rocks with her beauty and songs. Some survived and some did not. Those who did had a glimpse of her heaven.

For years I gave her everything of myself. And she took it. Eventually, I began to hate her—her draw, her sex, her death. She was a force I could not fight. And the only people who could help me heal from the wounds she caused were those who had been intimate with her as well. Two years in the middle of our tormented relationship, I was limping and barely breathing but still going back to her.

Haiti was my mistress.

In my life, I have been lucky enough to travel all around the world. I have seen the most beautiful and the most awful places. I have stayed in huts and palaces, dined with princes and beggars, and thought I had seen it all. That is, until I went to Haiti. I didn't know that I could be so completely taken in by a place. Maybe it was my wanderlust and need for adrenaline that made me spend so many years roaming the world as a quote-unquote “humanitarian.” I was in Nicaragua after the earthquake in 1997 with my brother and a group of friends entertaining children with music, dance, toys, and much-needed laughter. I went to Bosnia during their war to work in refugee camps and talk to the women who had been victims of sexual violence. My humanitarian travels took me to Africa's many countries, and around the poorest parts of the United States. I was doing what I had always loved, fighting the bad guy, the oppressor. I was doing the work that Father Ray had taught me to do. I was sure that my career and public profile allowed me to push for real change, to get attention for the causes I believed in. So I never questioned if I was a humanitarian or not. Of course I was. And then Haiti hit me.

On the fourth anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti, the day 350,000 people died and millions were left homeless, I woke up early to take Jack, Clare, my mom, my dad, and my brother Joe to Jack's soccer game. The game was an hour away, in the middle of nowhere.

I knew it was “the day,” but was too busy, too afraid to deal with it that morning. My dear friend Bryn and I had texted over the week about the coming anniversary. I was supposed to have written a letter to the women I work with in Haiti for them to read at a memorial in the still-dilapidated palace. I was avoiding all of it.

It wasn't until Clare and I stopped to pick up lunch for everyone after the game that it hit me. I was standing in the bread aisle in the grocery store and suddenly a wave came over me. I saw in my mind all the faces I had known in Haiti, all the destruction, all the sorrow. I burst into tears.

So much loss and pain and tragedy. So many broken hearts and people. So much joy that would eventually turn to sorrow. The faces I see rushing in my head: Bryn, Paul, Father Rick, Barbara, Lolo, Caro, Danielle, Alison, Sean, Aleda, Captain, Suzanne, Rossanie, Lori, David, Dr. Reza, Patricia, Oscar, Donna, and many more. So why did I say yes to her call?

The first time my foot hit the ground in Haiti I knew I was in trouble. It was two years before the earthquake and our dear friend Paul Haggis invited my boyfriend, Bryn, and me to go to see the amazing work that his friend, Father Rick Frechette, was doing there. We've all heard the expression, “a place is just a place, after all.” But I don't believe that. Haiti was like no place I've ever been, and I was glued to her from that moment on. Now my Haitian friends explain this instant connection to me, telling me that I was taken in by the voodoo goddess Erzulie. Erzulie is the mother symbol in voodoo, the caretaker and lover, but also the destroyer and protector. Whatever it was that grabbed me, I knew that I would be connected to this island forever.

I was smitten. The smell of diesel fuel and dust mixed with the sweet salt air was the same as in South Africa. And the airport, teeming with porters, aid workers, and dark faces, looked just like the airport in Zimbabwe. The heat hit me with its energy when I stepped out of customs. What I saw before me took my breath away.

Local buses buzzed around the parking lot where men grabbed at our luggage. The buses were small pickup trucks called tap-taps, covered with colorful paintings. Swirls of blue, purple, red, and yellow assaulted you, in hand-painted images of famous people or sayings. There was Aristide with his hands outstretched to poor children and a Virgin Mary who happened to look just like Erzulie. The best one I saw was a picture of Sylvester Stallone as Jesus Christ.

We rode up the hill in the back of a pickup truck on pockmarked roads teeming with people. We passed hundreds of tiny cement buildings, many wrapped in banners advertising “Lotto.” It was like the buildings were wrapped in hope. These banners were everywhere. Every person in Haiti was willing to bet on becoming a millionaire, it seemed, even if they had to spend 25 cents on a ticket when they only made 2 dollars a day. There were just as many beauty salons advertising their expertise on painted portrait signs hanging outside. Beautiful, dark-, medium-, and light-faced men and women with braided, long, or short hair graced the signs, each offering a brand-new life if you went inside.

I loved the sounds of Creole spoken loudly, the laughing and the haggling at the tiny stands selling Wrigley's chewing gum, Fanta, and Coke. Art filled every corner. Paintings of Haitian women dancing, of Haitian men working the fields, wooden sculptures of entwined men and women, and colorful symbols of voodoo gods and goddesses (known as
veves
) sewn with brightly colored sequins.

A few miles farther down the road we saw rusted tin shacks and old pieces of wood heaped together to form a home for a nuclear family, extended family, a chicken,
and
a goat. The smiling children I captured on film were playing on a heap of garbage in an open sewer. Their mothers were washing their pots to cook their dinner in the same water.

We ended up hours later in Pétionville. I found myself in an entirely new landscape, one lush with vegetation, fine restaurants, and fancy homes. The traffic through the city and “up the Hill” is worse than on the 405 in LA on a Friday night. But the sights and sounds couldn't be more different. It is like driving through a carnival. At every corner, no matter which part of the town I was in, I was assaulted with joy.

After my first trip, I became obsessed with Haiti. I went a few more times to visit, and even made some great friends there. One was Father Rick, an Augustinian priest who had built the first pediatric hospital on the island and worked with the poorest of the poor. The other was Danielle Saint-Lot, a leader in women's rights activism in Haiti. They became heroes to me. And they still are.

On January 12, 2010, I was sitting in a room with a couples' counselor. Bryn and I had been seeing her for months, knowing that our romantic relationship was ending but not sure how to actually finish it. She had us draw diagrams of our “families of origin” to see why we were afraid of intimacy. She made us hold each other in a strange yoga pose and breathe together when we were in the midst of a fight. It was all pretty ineffectual, to be frank. I actually came to loathe this curly-red-haired lady with the pursed lips who dressed like a hippie. On this day, I knew it would be the last time I saw her.

I sat with her in the office alone while Bryn sat outside in the waiting room on the day we had agreed to finally break up. Bryn is truly one of the greatest men I've ever met, and our shared values of love, truth, and service drew us together, but we weren't meant to stay in our relationship as it currently existed. And though I was terrified how our breakup might affect my then eight-year-old son, who loved Bryn, I knew I was making the right choice. Our age difference and where we were in our lives made it impossible to continue our live-in romantic relationship. And he knew it, too. Right before my session ended, Bryn burst through the door. “There's been an earthquake in Haiti!” he shouted. I immediately got up and ran to his side to watch the news report on his phone. This beautiful country I loved was in ruins, her people screaming and crying.

There were 20-something of us on a plane headed to Port-au-Prince, six days after the earthquake. We were a motley crew of professional aid workers, Hollywood folks, a tugboat captain, a yoga instructor, doctors, a politician, and a woman who actually brought an entire suitcase with an espresso maker in it and another large one marked
makeup
. I can't say everyone had the same reasons for going to the disaster zone. Some were excited by the adrenaline, following disaster after disaster. Some had seen the news and knew that they had to be of service.

Looking out the window of the plane as it descended on the tarmac that day, I did not see the Haiti I knew. There was a film of yellow dust in the sky shutting out the usually bright sun. The bright blue waters of the Caribbean that I loved seeing upon my arrival were mixed with brown dirt. Everywhere buildings were half standing and destroyed. My mistress was dying.

The first night, sleeping on the ground under eucalyptus trees outside of a crumbling old house behind walls, we heard the sounds of grief on the streets. But deep in the night, two of my fellow aid workers awoke to the sound of singing just as the sun was rising. They jumped in a truck to see where it was coming from, and followed the voices to a place just up the hill—a previously beautiful golf club that was now half destroyed, with thousands of families living there under sheets. One of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen was the U.S. Army handing bags of rice down the hill in a line of 50 or so service people at sunrise, like an old-fashioned fire brigade. Below were women in a line, peacefully waiting their turn to get their bag of rice. And they were singing, like angels. When we asked our translator what they were singing, he said it was a song of gratitude for who was still alive. They could have been singing songs of grief, but instead were thanking God for the gift of life. The soldiers were like angels delivering kindness and compassion to the weak and weary.

Those of us who went in those days just after the quake all experienced a deep despair, and an incredible joy, feelings that would bond us together for life. In those first few months after the earthquake, I saw the best and worst of what human beings, nature, and I are capable of. I saw moments of grace that I won't ever forget. We were all changed by what we experienced. When I left Haiti for the first time after the earthquake, all I could think of was returning.

I put the love I had for the country into the people I met in Haiti. I spent three years pouring my heart and soul into my efforts there, and I, just like the others I worked with, held on for dear life in the face of so much need and devastation. We had our own needs, too—love, reassurance, sex at the end of the night—anything to save ourselves from giving in to the grief, salve we could put on the wounds we felt. After days of trying to get medicine to the hospital so that people didn't have to have their legs cut off without anesthesia, trying to get kids out of the country who had suffered spinal cord injuries, meeting women who were being raped in the camps, and constantly witnessing devastation of all kinds, I was exhausted in body and soul. But I couldn't help but go back. Over and over again.