Packing

Visa for entry; Malarone for malaria; peppermint for Christmas; TV shows 
for waiting.

I've been to Dakar twice, once to visit Lucy on her first Christmas in 2009, after she'd been there for six months. The second time was when she married Yves in December, 2011. My first trip lasted ten days, my second for only a week. Now, to watch over my daughter at the birth of my grandson, I'll be there from 28 December until 30 January, time enough for the world to remake itself; time enough for Lucy, Yves, baby Phillipe, and all of us related to them to come out shaking and testing our own new legs. I will be like a calf or a colt, I'm sure, wondering what hit that I find myself on this new planet. We will all be newborns.

My packing is still in process. I'm filling two suitcases with baby clothes, maternal supplies, luxuries for  the mother and father, my camera, and enough writing supplies to keep me happy for a long month. I plan to buy even more wax cloth because I'm so greedy for eye-popping clothes. I hope to see some art: Lucy tells me that there's an artist with an open studio living just down the street. But mostly I want to help the young family in some ways that makes sense. It remains to be seen what Lucy and Yves will ask me for and what I, pompously advancing to give, find accepted and what I discover them telegraphing secret glances and rolling their eyes over.