Butterfly wings

I return here with this sense that you are there someplace. Do you remember me? I don't know that I remember myself. But you are here, in my head and heart. And I return here.

In Senegal today, I met again with the Senegalese Naval leadership to hash out the details of this program I'm starting. Then, Mike called me and asked me to come to the Embassy for a paper we're writing.

It was 1740 when we were finished, and the sun was getting low in the sky. I thought that I might be able to find the hotel without a taxi or other help. So I walked through Dakar.

It is not safe. It is frankly stupid. But I think, "so fucking what?"  It feels better to do something I should not. I need to feel something different than what I feel. And I am not frightened anymore.

Sometimes I believe that it will be easier if someone does the job for me. Then there is no decision - no wondering. I think I should fix things so that pieces of me dissipate and feed others.

There are so many people here. I could fall away into any hole. Did I look like a Valkarie? I think I must. People leave me alone (for the most part).

There is an artist here who uses butterfly wings to make his pictures.

"I do not kill them," he tells me. "I am Muslim. I do not kill them."

He has only his top teeth and these are spaced apart, like fenceposts. His pictures are beautiful, delicate, tragic works of art.

I buy bracelets and a necklace from women who have babies strapped to their backs. I do not bargain. I pay what they ask me because they have babies. It is so difficult to have a baby here. I ache to have a baby strapped to my back.  Beautiful sleeping babies.

A tall Senegalese man name Mohammed asks me to marry him. His woman left him to marry a man in the Gambia. He has a ten year old daughter. He wears white tennis shoes and he has waited for me every day since my second day here. Every day, I come out the gate and get a taxi. A smile and a handshake. Will I go out today? No. I have to work. All day? All day. Tonight, he takes me to his shop where there are paintings and bundles of bright African fabrics.

"I am in love with someone else," I tell him. "My heart is not my own. This man owns my heart."

"This man," said Mohammed. "Does he love you?"

"He did once," I say. "I don't know anymore."

"You should be with a different man," he says.

"I will not," I tell him. "I have no heart left."

"This is very bad," he says. "I do not like this kind of love. I will make you forget him. You come back to Senegal. We will talk. Gently. You can marry me. I will make you forget this man."

"I don't want to forget him," I said, realizing that this is what I have. My memories of you. My feeling of having you love me. If I end tomorrow, I will still have that. "I will not be with another man."

"This makes me have anger." said Mohammed. "It is wrong. A woman should have a man."

Sometimes life is not as simple as this. Maybe it must be. In a place like Senegal, where you have to worry about whether you can sell a bracelet so you can feed your baby, there is not the luxury of heartbreak. Because everything is heartbreaking.