Well, We Made It Home

DC was great. We saw J's mom and Aunt Sue and the American Indian Museum and a bit of the West Building of the National Archives. We slept in and food was cooked for us and Aunt Sue let me do a load of laundry. It was a lovely weekend.

Except for the mosquito.

Yup. Apparently my last post really pissed off the East Coast mosquito community, because we arrived at Aunt Sue's on Friday night and one of the little fuckers got me three times. Twice on the face. I itched through the night and woke up sore, red, and lumpy. And pissed.

Saturday night I read a little before going to bed (Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. Both Kidder and Paul Farmer, the book's subject, are really something else). I was about to turn off the light when I glanced over and there he was, a mosquito as big and black and bold as they come, sucking from my bicep like he had all night. I swatted at him but he buzzed off to a dark corner to twirl his diabolical little mosquito moustache and wait to strike again.

I was tired, I wanted to turn out the light, but there was no way I was letting the bastard win. I went back to reading, keeping one eye on the page and the other on the soft, exposed skin of my arm.

I began to itch - he'd already gotten me three times that night - but I tried not to fidget. Mosquitoes are attracted to the carbon dioxide of your breath (though some breath more than others, apparently. The mosquito flew right over J each time he attacked me). I breathed deeply and slowly. He was coming back. I just had to outwait him.

Can you see that? That's the beautiful bloody smear of a dead mosquito caught unawares by a seemingly sleeping Miranda McLeod.

I won. Ha.

But the thing that's going to stay with me is the road trip. The last time we drove down to DC in Kenny Loggins was when I was on my way to the Hurston/Wright Writers' Week. It was July 15th. Kyle's funeral had been two days before. We arrived back in New York on Saturday and woke up early on Sunday to drive down.

I'd already been accepted and paid money, but I really didn't want to go. My submission wasn't ready. I was tired. I wasn't sure yet how things were going to be, after the call and the flight and the hospital and the California coast and LA and the funeral.

But I went. It was something to do, a series of steps, a meditation on logistics. Packing and driving and registering and finding rooms were all possible victories. I cried on the way down. Not the whole way, but songs kept coming on my iPod that had played during the death week. I felt a little like a crazy person.

The Writers' Week was amazing. Life-changing. It sounds trite, but just when I lost my brother, my other biracial person, the only other member of our demographic of two, I went to DC and met a bunch of other black writers, biracial writers, writers like me. I had conversations I'd only had with my brother. It was awesome.

This time around, I didn't think the drive would bother me. So we were in the same car, on the same road, with the same soundtrack, going to stay at the same house. I'd be fine.

And for the most part, I was. But I cried again. Both going down and coming back. It was sudden and unexpected and a little embarrassing, as if I should be over these non sequitur crying jags. It's been more than two months. Most days, I'm OK. How long does it take? Will I ever have control of myself again? Or for the rest of my life will I just tear abruptly and inappropriately at any slow guitar? And what happens when I stop? Is it alright to stop crying for your brother? Or does that mean something about you is more self-preserving than feeling? I feel like I'm in danger of losing my feeling.

We saw this on the way back:

Hear hear.