what i know [22 May 2008|12:46am] [ mood | contemplative, sleepless ] I believe we experience stress and sorrow as a means for us to discover what lies beneath our surfaces. Face great turmoil and dig out your insides to examine the root cause and reach summation. Become stronger, mightier, make your brain hawk-like in its strength and scope. Perhaps this is what I tell myself in order to explain everything I've seen. Since I can earliest recall, I've had a need to define experiences, to find closure by sifting through the ashes. My fingers are sullied from my need to unearth the bones. My tongue is dirty from all the stories I've told. I've been a conduit for so many stories. I listen to them on the bus, on the faces of strangers I pass in the grocery store, and on the telephone with my family. The stories even find a way to me at work. For some reason, the ladies who come into my place of employment tell me all sorts of secrets. I don't know what it is except perhaps that I have long endeavoured to be someone around whom others feel safe. Some of this stems from how utterly unsafe I've felt around important people in my life. I suppose I want a way to reverse history in being to others what I never had. This approach draws the strangest interactions and the most delicious mysteries. At the store, I knead flesh, lay hands on injured skin, and talk to strangers. Sometimes what they tell me inspires me, like the conversation I had yesterday with a Black woman about her impending trip to South Africa on a medical mission. "Africa is beautiful," she told me. I agreed with her, "It's not like the commercials you see with babies who have flies on their faces. That is a part of Africa, but it's not all of Africa." "Ignorant people," she said, "want to show Africa as someplace that needs saved. It's the same shit they did to the slaves: 'They're too weak to take care of themselves. We gotta own them to keep them safe.' " Again, I agreed. Africa has its pockets of poverty and AIDS afflictions, but it also has smiling people who will share anything they have because sharing is all that they know; it has giraffes with their queer skeletal structure and long-lashed eyes, camel-rides and salt caravans, Masai beadwork and Capetown freedom. The idea of family runs through Africa so potently, more potent than it does in America, where elderly are put into nursing homes when they are deemed an inconvenience by their families. I consider the elderly story-holders; I'll never lock one of my elders up that way. The Black lady and I discussed this and shared an agreement. I was sorry to see her go, but glad she was going to Africa to do more than sit on a pedestal and judge the land for its human failings. Later, a woman who was obviously distressed came into the shop. It seemed that everything I tried to show her earned a cross comment. When this kind of thing happens, I try not to take it personally. Every universe has a different centre; only mine contains me. I thought the woman would bolt when I offered her a complimentary hand ritual, but she took me up on it, settling into the recycled aluminum chair. I poured her a cup of fennel/basil/peppermint tea sweetened with licorice root and began stroking lavender creme onto her hands. At first, she didn't say much to me, but the more I worked on her, the more she opened up. "This has been the worst day," she confided when I linked fingers with her and began rolling her wrists. I nodded sympathetically. When the ladies start spilling their innermost thoughts, I listen. It seems to be what they need. She started telling me about how she had a new puppy in the house and it was destroying everything. I advised her to spend more time with the puppy. Often, dogs act out when they're being ignored. She admitted that she hadn't had much time with the puppy and instead, got angry at it when it wanted to play. "Play with it," I said. "We all like to play and be seen." Before I knew it, she was telling me things that I could tell she hadn't told anyone in a very long time--if ever. I kept working at her tight muscles, listening, nodding, and being as supportive as I could. I tried not to cry--and failed--when she related her experiences of having breast cancer through her thirties and again finding it had returned. "I don't want to lose my hair. I know it's stupid. It's just hair." Tears beaded on her lashes. I shook my head. "No, no, no, in this culture, a lot of people prize hair. It's awful to lose it and see the reactions of others to the loss of something so simple. I mean, what is it? Protein. Something your body makes to keep you warm, but people place a lot of importance on having it or not having it. I am sorry it's so unfair." "I'm not as scared about the pain this time," she whispered, closing her eyes as I rolled my fingertips across her palm pressure-points. "Just losing my hair. But you wouldn't understand. You're young." This time, I looked her directly in the eyes, stopping my motions, but never breaking physical contact. "I'm not so young," I said. "And I know about pain. I know all about pain." I let my silence speak tales of its own. There was nothing more to say. She understood. 7 comments|post comment

navigation [ viewing | May 22nd, 2008 ] [ go | previous day|next day ]