Up close and personal

This year for Christmas, the Universe gave to me. . .

My Muse.

Names changed to protect the innocent and vetted prior to publication.

Whanau is a New Zealand Maori word most commonly translated as family. However, its meaning goes far beyond that simple translation and far beyond representing a single family unit.

In its simplest form, whanau represents extended family, as in a family comprised of all its related members and, beyond that, the community to which that family also belongs. But whanau has an even deeper, richer meaning, a spiritual meaning, which encompasses physical, spiritual, emotional, and even political aspects.To be considered whanau is to be accepted and to belong and it is considered a great honor to be called whanau.

My immediate physical family isn’t much to write about. My mother-person is dead, and I have absolutely no lingering regrets about her absence. She wasn’t so much my mother as my tormenter and, much as this may be difficult for some to accept, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when news of her passing reached me.

My father-person quite likely isn’t my bio-father (by his own insistence) and has been estranged from me for well over twenty years. No loss to either one of us as he was also an abuser.

My blood-sister, quite likely only a half-sister, is also as good as estranged and we’ve had extremely limited contact in also well over twenty years.

I have no other extended family in this country and I’ve met with a handful of them once, back in 2005. There has been no communication with any of them since.

Therefore, what I have instead is my children, my other children (the unofficial foster children who have graced my home with their joyful presence through the years) and my whanau; the people who, through mutual acceptance, have become my spirit-family.

One of these people is my Muse and my spirit-sister, Vanessa. Nessa.

Nessa and I met in early 2017, bare months after a major episode where I came very close to taking my own life. She and her husband, (I’ll refer to him as Pearl, after the great white blob of a vampire of Blade renown) had moved to my town only a few months prior and, while he had returned to work and live four hours hard travel away from home, she was alone in a town where she knew not one single soul.

One fine day, she decided that, as she was alone and had little with which to occupy her spare time, she would venture forth and buy some DVDs. My DVD’s which I was dispersing at the time. She duly arrived on my doorstep, shy, self-effacing, insecure, and lonely, and I immediately felt drawn to her. There was something very special about her and I was driven to get to know her better. I invited her in, directed her to the over 2000 DVD’s I was doing my best to rid myself of, and invited her to come back, anytime, for a cup of tea.

I didn’t expect I’d ever see her again.

It took Nessa a month to return but that was all it took. Her being brave enough to return. We hit it off immediately.

Since then, Nessa and I have been inseparable. And she’s changed, much to Pearl’s concern. Where, initially, Nessa was insecure and quiet, she’s now confident and outspoken. We’ve weathered a rare couple of storms and come out stronger and closer, and she gained sufficient confidence that, when Pearl finished his work contract and returned home, she told him right where he could put his admonition that she no longer needed me and she should come home and tend exclusively to him. Needless to say, Pearl and I aren’t exactly on good terms. I think he’s a narcissitic, controlling, emotionally-abusive, mysogynist. And he’s afraid of me.

As well he should be.

In 2020, in the middle of the first COVID lockdown, Nessa invited me over for dinner. I’d been a reasonably regular visitor before COVID struck, often lending my better health and strength to their home-improvement and maintenance efforts, and I was included in their family bubble for the purposes of lockdown. Additionally, my house was a full inn, with my brother and I sharing my tiny crib with my twin son and daughter and my daughter’s two young children. I’d been pretty much confined to quarters for four weeks and Nessa thought a brief escape might be in order.

The dinner was a disaster. Pearl spent the entire time I was there throwing derogatory barbs at Nessa, couched loosely in his definition of humor, and I got the distinct impression he was trying to prove how much he was the man of the house and that Nessa belonged to him. To avoid getting up and punching his teeth clean out of his head, which is what I really wanted to do, I got up and said it was time for me to leave. Nessa followed me and asked why.

Because you deserve better and it isn’t my place to say so, I told her. If you should ever choose to leave, you know where you’re welcome.

It almost ended in 2020. And then, true to the form of a typical abuse victim, it didn’t. After a very brief period of respite triggered by Nessa’s uncustomary challenge to Pearl threatening him with potential divorce, things quickly regressed and, on Boxing Day just gone, Nessa turned up on my doorstep and asked if my offer still stood.

She moved in with a handful of neccesary items that afternoon.

It may not last. Nessa gave Pearl an ultimatum. Two non-negotiables. One) Seek medical intervention for the pain he claims is crippling him so that he’s unable to lift a finger to do jack-squat unless it suits him, and Two) couples counseling (and couples only because he wouldn’t go otherwise because everything, is, after all, exclusively Nessa’s fault).

She hasn’t heard from him since the day she left and, to put it bluntly, I won’t be unhappy if she doesn’t and she never goes back.

Love, as an emotion, is a foreign concept to me. I care. I’m capable of caring a great deal. But actual love? Love is reserved for very, very few and the word comes with extreme difficulty for me. I have an immense amount of respect and admiration for Nessa and, dare I even say it out loud, I suspect I may care enough about her to be able to not only say the words, I love you, but mean them, right down to the core of my being. I love her enough to know the fine line between honesty, support, and understanding. . . and pushing my own agenda.

Right now, I am protection and a safe haven. A good friend. A shoulder. A sword, should she need one. I will always be that for her. But I sincerely hope that Pearl knows that if he doesn’t fight for her, as anyone who claims to love their partner should, and he throws her away. . . I’ll be there to claim the treasure from the refuse and put her right beside me where she already fits perfectly.

To all of you fabulous writers out there,

Kia kaha and aroha nui. 💞

Fighting! 👊