The Rhythm of My Life: Tuning into the Rocky Rhythm of Fire

By Yvon Milien

Throughout his life, author Yvon Milien has faced delays, denials, frustrations, isolation, failure, betrayals, affronts from friends, and the premature loss of loved ones many times. His experiences were a mix of the sad and the tragic, and he needed to develop values to survive and support himself.

In The Rhythm of My Life, he narrates his story. Inspirational in substance, this memoir offers a perspective of how to deal with the challenges, how to tune into the rhythm of fires the wind of destiny blows into life. Milien tells how providence, the government of God, made him aware that the only way to overcome the negative was to develop his inner strength.

Milien documents his sour, spicy life to share with others the methodology he used to deal with his dilemmas. Providence persuaded him to see that sharing his story was a vehicle to inspire others and help them make their lives an adventure rather than a sentence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532063657

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Copyright © 2019 Yvon Milien.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-6364-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-6366-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-6365-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018914354

iUniverse rev. date:   12/07/2018

FOR THE FEW

If you are genuinely interested in reading this memoir, it is because you are among the few.

NOTE

This memoir is not intended to hurt anybody. If I cause any harm to anyone, please know that it is unintentional. I changed the names of most characters. Most of the dialogue and emails in this book were originally in Haitian Creole, and others were in French.

Than

k you, my Almighty, for teaching me to do thy will,

For making me understood that no crucifixion no glory,

For leading me from the shadow to the light,

And from the precarious to the definitive.

I will strive to continue moving forward no matter what.

I will never stop striving to improve myself and

To maintain the understanding I have developed so far.

I would rather have my skin, my muscles, my bones withered.

I would rather have my flesh and my blood drying up.

But I will never give up my efforts

Until I achieve the objectives I was destiny to accomplish by the virile perseverance of energy and effort.

To my mother, my grandmother, my future wife providence selects for me, and to all who have supported me throughout my life.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

My experiences have taught me that providence—the government of God, the master of the universe, Allah, the super soul, or whatever we call our Creator—indeed exists. Because providence is real, the haphazard does not exist. Nothing happened to us for no purpose. God is our king; he may act as he pleases, and he may well put us in painful situations to watch us grow up. He may light a fire to burn our egos down to build a higher one so he can sing our glory. And sometimes, we may be so confused that we ask ourselves, Is it God or we who started the whole ordeal?

I had no intention to write my memoirs, but circumstances—I should say providence—forced me to do so. I have faced delays, denials, frustrations, isolation, failure, betrayals, affronts from friends, and the premature loss of loved ones many times. My experiences were a mix of the sad and the tragic. I had to develop values to survive and support myself in my everyday actions. Providence made me aware that the only way to escape was to develop my inner strength. I believe my memoirs are not a matter of chance because what happened in my life was meant to happen; my duty was to find a way to deal with my dilemmas.

As someone who studied sociology, mass communication, and international relations and who loved methodology courses, I always made connections between methodologies in an area of study to understand the meaning of information and how we unconsciously cope with life’s dilemmas.

I believe methodology is a critical part of every life including dealing with our problems. Some of us may use negative belief systems including harmful thoughts, negative feelings, drugs, alcohol, or sex addictions to cope with life events. Others may apply a positive belief system that includes positive thoughts and feelings, meditation, and prayer to solve life’s problems. Positive methods in themselves have no value; what people bring to them creates solutions for problems. How the users mix the ingredients or the art the users bring to the procedures creates good results, so how people use the free will, intelligence, understanding, wisdom, courage, and patience the creator invested in them is critical.

My motive for writing my memoirs was simple. Since many are struggling with problems similar to mine, desire to solve their dilemmas, and achieve peace of mind, I have documented my sour, spicy life to share with others the methodology I used to deal with my dilemmas. Providence persuaded me to see writing my memoirs as a fantastic way to inspire my brothers and sisters and help them make their lives an adventure rather than a sentence.

If you want to determine if my methodology will work for you, you’ll simply have to read my memoirs and think about them.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1   Develop the Right Attitude When Faced with Trials

Chapter 2   Friends Are Sacred, but Some of Them Could …

Chapter 3   … Set Fire around You

Chapter 4   Voodoo Attack

Chapter 5   First Treatment

Chapter 6   Simple Answers to Problems Are Not Easy to Put into Practice

Chapter 7   A New Treatment with a New Voodoo Priest—Drinking Vomit Tea

Chapter 8   The Trip to Cornillon

Chapter 9   Transformed Like My Favorite Superhero

Chapter 10   Relapse, New Voodoo Priest, the Voodoo Bath, and My Pillow

Chapter 11   Breakup with Francine

Chapter 12   The Accident

Chapter 13   The Funeral

Chapter 14   Heart Split between Margaret and Francine

Chapter 15   Francine Gets My Heart Again

Chapter 16   Francine Lost My Heart Again

Chapter 17   Margaret’s Palm Reading

Chapter 18   The Death of a Dream

Chapter 19   Rosita—A New Dream

Chapter 20   The Engagement Party

Chapter 21   Unexpected Troubles in New York

Chapter 22   Effective Strategies to Deal with Crises

Chapter 23   Thanks to the Grace of Providence!

Chapter 24   Mrs. Erickson

Chapter 25   Life’s Brightest Dreams Were Racing with Me, but No Family Prospects

Chapter 26   Behaving Like a Bird

Chapter 27   Beautiful Ebele from Nigeria

Chapter 28   The Phone Call

Chapter 29   Narnette

Chapter 30   Playing the Gentleman

Chapter 31   Clever Narnette

Chapter 32   Compliant to Please Me

Chapter 33   First Trip to Haiti after Two Decades

Chapter 34   Engaged Again and Pressured to Move Back to Haiti Permanently

Chapter 35   A Brooklyn Wedding

Chapter 36   An Email from a Colleague

Chapter 37   The Surprising Surprise

Chapter 38   Our Honeymoon Cruise

Chapter 39   The Last Three Days of the Cruise

Chapter 40   Narnette Wants a Divorce

Chapter 41   Narnette Changes Her Mind about Divorce

Chapter 42   Narnette Expresses Understanding

Chapter 43   Not Again!

Chapter 44   Yes, Again

Chapter 45   Miscarriage of the Expected Flow of Love

Chapter 46   Object-Oriented Love and Non-Object Oriented Love

Chapter 47   Hellish and Paradisiacal Moments in Our Lives

Chapter 48   A Message from Narnette’s Sister

Chapter 49   The Third Time Was Everything but a Charm

Chapter 50   The Wind and the Pollen

Chapter 51   The Greatest Magic of this World

Chapter 52   Life is Like a Wagon

Chapter 53   Vulture Philosophy and Jackal Philosophy

Chapter 54   Mixed-Feeling Experience

Chapter 55   Make Life an Adventure, Not a Sentence

Chapter 56   My Relationship with Rosita

Chapter 57   The Creator Is Always Right

References

About the Author

CHAPTER 1

Develop the Right Attitude When Faced with Trials

A fire was burning in me, and I could not determine whether God or I had started it. The story is that Emperor Nero started the great fire that burned ten of Rome’s fourteen districts so he could build a palatial complex and that he watched the conflagration while wearing a tragedian’s costume and singing about the beauty of the flames with accompaniment from his lyre.

I learned that when we set our lives on fire, we shouldn’t waste our time trying to find out if we or a mysterious force started the fire; screaming and jumping won’t put it out. We have to tune into its rhythm to survive and wait patiently for the mercy of the Almighty, who with an outstretched arm will put it out for those who fully surrender to him.

CHAPTER 2

Friends Are Sacred, but Some of Them Could …

Based on my early adolescent observations and understanding as well as what I heard from some adults who were close to my parents, I thought life was a straightforward process, a linear function: we are born, go to school, develop the skills for a job we like, get married, have families, and exit this world when our time is up. I never thought that life was a sine function.

I thought friends were sacred. I thought they helped each other progress in all aspects of life. My parents and especially my grandmother always reminded me to be careful with friends because some of them could set my life on fire, but I gave all my friends the benefit of the doubt and assumed they were right. I saw friends as gifts from heaven to support my progression in life. I never thought I would have envious, bitter, and hidden enemies at my young age. I did not have any conception of evil. I knew diseases existed because I was always sick when I was a kid. For four years during the 1960s, I had a sickness that stands out in my memory.

I was suffering from intussusception; according to my doctor, one segment of my intestine was folded into an adjacent portion of the organ inward and into itself, and that caused swelling and pain. He put me on a strict diet to save my life and told my grandmother to follow his advice to the letter. A lot of kids in Haiti died from that because their parents could not see them suffering from not eating a good meal. For seventeen days, I had only a small cup of grapefruit juice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Every morning during those seventeen days, my doctor gave me a couple of shots, and as a result, I developed trypanophobia—a fear of needles.

During that time, I learned that the woman I had thought was my sister was actually my mother; I had thought my grandma was my mother. My mother was beautiful; her black hair, elegant nose, and diamond-shaped, delicately sculpted, thin face made her look like the nun she had aspired to be when she was little, but my dad had persuaded her to change her mind. She had an elegant, gentle, ladylike personality and a comforting voice. Her dark-brown eyes and calm, grave gaze made family, friends, and acquaintances feel very comfortable around her as I always was.

My mother thought I was dying, so she let me know I was her son. I learned that my father had been in the military and had been shot to death by an opponent of the government when I was a year and a few months old. My mother showed me a picture of him in his military uniform. He was a handsome young man. Like my grandmother, he had a square visage with high cheekbones. Because my grandma had lost her two sons and my mother had to rebuild her life, my mother gave me to my grandma to raise. I grew up with my older half-sister on my father’s side.

It was hard for me to be on such a diet. I was hungry all the time—food was constantly on my mind. To ease my pain and to keep me from being tempted, my grandma didn’t cook or even eat anything in front of me because the doctor said that if I ate anything, I could die. But it was hard for my mother to see me starving, so one day, she tried to smuggle food to me. My grandma was very vigilant, however; she stopped my mother and continuously watched her when she was around me. Thank God I survived.

My conception of the enemy started to develop when I was fifteen. My predisposition led me to befriend everyone who had hobbies in common with mine as was the case with my best friends Phill, Jacky, Chanel, and Pierre—my childhood and neighborhood friends who were older than me. Chanel had a very light complexion while the others were browner. Only Phill was taller than me, and none of us was rude to our elders. They liked to make fun of each other, including me, because I loved reading comic books. None of us was overweight; I guessed that was because we were physically active.

Though they were older than me, we had a lot of fun playing soccer, practicing karate, going to movies, singing while I played guitar, and reading comics. I was the one who always bought comic books, and we used to share reading them. They sat behind me on the stairs of my grandmother’s porch as I read them and raised them high so they could see the illustrations. And when I’d tire of reading, one of them took over that task.

I was not aggressive as they were when it came to girls; I was shy. They encouraged me to find a girlfriend, but I did not see anyone in the neighborhood who attracted me.

As September 1971 was winding down and school was around the corner Lady Luck smiled at me. Francine moved into the neighborhood. She was fifteen and was a few months older than me. Her parents rented one of my grandma’s apartments. About a month and a half later, Francine and I couldn’t help but fall in love. She looked a little like my mother. She was a pretty, regular-sized woman and very sexy. Her purposeful, inspiring, and elegant walk fit her slender body perfectly.

Every time she smiled at me and her electric eyes met mine, she lit up my heart. Her passion for helping me develop faith in God attracted me to her. I loved her honesty and respect in her dealing with others; that made her sexy in my mind. She had gorgeous, dark hair. What attracted me particularly to her were her every Sunday church beehive hairdos, her baby-doll eyelashes, and her beautiful white teeth rooted in purple and dark-pink gums that matched her dark-brown skin.

The Saturday evening of the last weekend of October, most of my neighborhood friends and I gathered in the front yard of my grandma’s house. The thirty foot by twenty-six foot front yard had no landscaping or garden. We used to play soccer two against two every weekend and every school vacation there because our parents did not want us to play on the street.

That October evening was warm and humid. An abnormally large moon filtering through the clouds gave the night a mysterious and lovely panorama. The trees swayed gently in the breeze. Fresh air filled my lungs while I sang, and I felt refreshed and exhilarated. It was a breathtaking evening to serenade a woman I loved. I was playing the guitar, and a few of my friends were singing My Favorite Colors, which I wrote for Francine, to the tune of Leon Dimanche’s song Rien Que Toi.

Brown is one of my favorite colors

Because it’s the color of your eyes.

Black is one of my favorite colors

Because it’s the color of your hair.

Dark violet is one of my favorite colors

Because it’s the color of your beautiful gums.

Write is one of my favorite colors

Because it’s the color of your teeth.

Brown is one of my favorite colors

Because it’s the color of your skin.

I really love these colors

Because they are the characteristics of your body

Every time I see these colors

I think about you, and my heart is overwhelmed with joy.

Please be with me for the rest of my life.

Will you give me the chance to be with you?

Francine and Didanne, who was a guitar player too, were sitting on their apartment’s stoop adjacent to my grandma’s house. They seemed to enjoy the show. Later, when they went in their apartment to go to bed, most of my friends expressed their feelings for Francine. They were fantasizing what it would be like if they had Francine. I couldn’t help it. I said, Sorry guys, but she’s my girl. At first, nobody seemed to hear what I said, but then Phill, who always believed he was the star every girl in the neighborhood wanted, asked, Did you say she was your girl?

I smiled. Aren’t you happy for me? I wanted to surprise you guys. I got a girl now. My friends’ enthusiasm froze. A few minutes later, they left, and I went to bed.

CHAPTER 3

… Set Fire around You

Francine and I did not hide our love for each other. We didn’t see anything wrong with being in love, but Francine’s brothers and sisters except Didanne were against the relationship. It was difficult for us to spend time together and learn about each other.

After a couple of months, I guessed based on her observation of my behavior and attitude that Didanne was becoming an untiring advocate for me. She persuaded her family to accept me. When Didanne started dating Holly, who was a big brother to me, we went on many double dates. Francine and Didanne were members of the Salvation Army, and I attended their church a few Sundays.

Suddenly, Francine’s and Didanne’s attitude toward me became strange. One day, I asked Francine if I had done something wrong. Francine told me that she and Didanne never thought I would even think