 (memory of a good friend) Dear Sayid, It is over forty eight years since your last letter came to me and since we would talk together about what meaning, if any, life really holds. I kept your letters for so long and then decided to destroy them. But burning paper does not erase memory or destroy thought. Nor does an attempt to forget, remember, relive or reject the Past change its irrefutable presence. It is a Garment no longer worn for present company, stored in a closet to become moth-eaten, riddled with long stifled twinges of remorse and guilt, or hung in transparent cleaner's wrap for all to see that there is nothing to hide, just an outdated piece of clothing no longer used or worn. But our Past is not past, is it, Sayid? I cannot hide because the trappings of nearly half a century ago cannot create an adornment beautiful, charming or exquisite enough to cover the ugliness of Truth. Why, my old friend, have you come so forcibly to mind today ? I think, because with you I knew a sense of understanding in you of the things I never told you. Odd that, isn't it? We hide so much more than we reveal. Why? Is it shame, guilt, shyness, lack of trust, a clinging to ones domain of privacy in a fishbowl world? What holds me back from baring all? Should one ? I think not, but why? You, Sayid, a mid-Eastern scholar, teacher, philosopher and Doctor of so many "ologies" and "isms", psychology, anthropology, philosphy and so forth, what was your motive in befriending me ? Did you love my mind, my body, personality, our shared love and interests in the Arts,Music, Literature and all things creative? Your handwriting was so beautiful - I would look at it so often with appreciation of its artistry. Would revel in our sharings of whatever thoughts had challenged us. Like a blotter that sponges up the ink and what sinks in reshapes itself to illustrate another image than the original. Thus do we discover that life is a continuum of question, answer, challenge, response, life, death, good,evil, God, Man, Truth and Lies. We write a thought, we have a memory, we live experiences and blot them up with the blotter of our enquiring mind only to find out they have soaked in as one shape, one sentence, one image, to reappear a Kafka-like metamorphosis of the original. This is how we talked, you and I, Sayid, exchanging blotters and, rather like the Rorchsach test we tried to see what we could make of every blot. Looking back upon our exercise I see large weaknesses in what we did, because you could not translate, interpret, analyze my blots anymore than I could yours, and I could only speculate what they might mean for me, for you. What helped was that we had respect for one another in the search and quest, and while I know your love for me so far exceeded any deep affection from myself for you, love did not mar or hinder in the work. What would I do today, my friend, if you were to appear again into my life? You would have nearly fifty years more volumes in the Book of Living - and I would add my own experiences, a Library of different subjects written by the same Author. Would I tell you now,what lay behind the young woman who sat beside you listening in the Opera House to Verdi's Aida ? Would you, on hearing, discard me as a filthy rag that turned the princess into Cinderella, the Swan to an Ugly duckling, the shattering of illusion to discover that the one you loved was not the one you saw? Only a mask with no face behind? Would I today, have the courage to be truthful and trust you with my vulnerabilities surfaced like worms through the wet sand of Recall's Beach? What is your understanding of Pain today, Sayid, of humiliation, of racism, its scars and wounds and ever present question - am I accepted for who I am ? Am I recognized as a person in my own right, not living constantly under the shadow of my autocratic mother, an ungiving and unforgiving aegis of Society where class and education demand an excellence by its own standards and not the individual's? All these are questions - but what of the answers ? I only know that today there is pain in my heart and it belongs to the Past and the Past has climbed into the Present like a naughty child slipping through the window in the hopes it can get away with it but on discovery, must face the consequences. And are they ? Being faced, that is. They are dealing with unaddressed abuse - the pain of revelation, looking in the mirror that doesn't lie and reflects the face of my little girl, lost and lonely and so very unloved. The pain of revisiting places that would be a tour of hell again and not knowing if the ticket cost would be too high. The pain of looking at my past abusers in the light of what they did and what that did to me, rather than looking at who they were and how the public saw them. I cringe inside when seeing in my mind the faces of certain people, but they have slipped in because the window has been cracked open. The pain of admitting all my shame, humilation, my badness and my guilt - that I am probably no better than the ones I have accused. This is pain - the pain of self-excoriation, scratching raw a bleeding soul where anything that is applied to help it heal will sting and smart beyond belief, will feel it is being flayed alive again and can I face the blood? I remember my recurring dream of long ago. I was somehow in someone's home and bound up in a pure white bandage that wound round in one continuous length from head to toe, covering every part of me. Mummified. Someone started to unwind the bandage, and as it fell loose in the unwinding, a faint pink tinge showed through at various parts. As the unbandaging continued more and more pink showed through and as the layers decreased, so the color got brighter and brighter until there was nothing but bright red seeping and spreading, soaking through the bandage till I cried out to STOP. Somehow I knew that under the very last layer would be raw flesh and I did not want to see it. I was terrified to look, to feel and to acknowlege. Even though I was a nurse and have seen more blood and gore than one would ever imagine, this was ME, and this was MY rawness, my blood, my pain, my hurt and my wounds. Sayid, if you were here today, what would you say - would you still be my friend? I somehow doubt it - but that's assumption and not fair to you because I have NO way of knowing what you'd think or say or do. You were kind to me when I was a teenager and young woman and you didn't force yourself on me - how different ! I am very tearful and will stop for this time, but I may come back to talk with you again. All I really want to know is if you would still be my friend, but I shall never know, shall I ? ********** Goesoftly Retired Therapist (NO reprints permitted)   | LEGACY OF THE UNBELOVED | CRUMBS FOR THE STARVING | DISINFECTION | BEAUTY | WHY and WHAT | Would You Still Be My friend ? | THE BOTTLE | ROSES and THISTLES | | THE HEALING PROCESS | DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER | POETRY | Biographical Entries | |
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