One Girl Revolution

In my mind’s eye, I still see Nick (Chanthayut) as he was when I first met him.  Very smooth nut brown skin, black hair in a bowl cut, the hint of a moustache on his upper lip.  He stood there in the hall and asked me, “Do you ave styrofoam chickens?”  Turns out what he was actually asking was, “Do you have style for shake hands?” but styrofoam chickens was what I heard.

When he came to visit at my house, he was in his element.  Cats.  All over the place.  He’d sit in our living room with cats draped around him, blissfully content in giving them all the attention they could possibly want.  Once, with my mother’s massive and fluffy orange tabby on his shoulder, he told me this story:

“Mara is phanyaa mahn, the Prince of Demons.  When our Buddha attained truth beneath the bodhi tree, Mara got an army of demons to bring fear to Buddha.  Mara rode at the head of the army on a great war elephant, Giri Mekhala.  But the goddess of the earth, Nang Thoranee, saw that Buddha was about to be attacked by demons and she squeezed all the waters from her hair and sent down a flood to drown the demons.  So, Mara called up a plague of rats to devour Buddha’s holy scriptures.  At that moment, Buddha created the first cat in the world, who is Phaka Waum.  Phaka Waum chased away or killed all the rats.  She preserved the truth of Buddha’s teaching, and to this day we consider it a great wrong to kill or harm a cat.”

Nick looked very much like a lanky young Buddha at that moment, sitting upright and very serene.  His inner peace radiated out to touch everything around him, including our cats, who would cease all their bickering and flock to him.  While Nick was in the house, cats did not fight.  This made my Labrador, who was always very disturbed by cat fights, very happy, and he would pace around Nick with a stuffed toy in his mouth, grunting Labrador joy.

I took Nick and Tong to meet my father, once.  We took off our shoes outside the house, and my father spoke to Nick and Tong in Thai.  My father brought out a tube of some hot pepper and horseradish paste and passed it around for our inspection.  We all took a taste.  Nick, Tong and my dad tasted it as someone would savor a 100-year-old wine, very thoughtfully.  Andy, another American friend, put it in his mouth and immediately began spluttering.  When he stopped, he said it was like eating molten lead.  My dad thought that was very amusing, Nick and Tong nodded and smiled.  Nick asked my dad where he had found it, and my dad told Nick about a Thai market in Newark.  Nick was very interested to learn this, and on the way home he promised to make us all Thai food.  Andy was wary.  Nick said, “What does the farang fear?” Tong laughed.  When Andy looked confused, Nick explained, “Sugar, salt, and chili.”  Then he regarded me for a moment with his shrewd, black eyes that reminded me of a raven, and he said, “Maybe not you.  Your father is Thai khwan, na?“

Small, clawed feet

soft, scrabbling, scratching.

Wild, eldritch eyes

dancing, darting, dilated.

Long, sinuous tail

lithe, lashing, languid.

Pounce.

Wishing to see him

to be seen by him-

if only he

were the mirror

I face each morning.

-Izumi Shikibu

There were two warring tribes in the Andes, one that lived in the lowlands and the other high in the mountains.  The mountain people invaded the lowlanders one day, and as part of their plundering of the people, they kidnapped a baby of one of the lowlander families and took the infant with them back up into the mountains.

The lowlanders didn’t know how to climb the mountain.  They didn’t know any of the trails that the mountain people used, and they didn’t know where to find the mountain people or how to track them in the steep terrain.

Even so, they sent out their best party of fighting men to climb the mountain and bring the baby home.

The men tried first one method of climbing and then another.  They tried one trail and then another.  After several days of effort, however, they had climbed only several hundred feet.

Feeling hopeless and helpless, the lowlander men decided that the cause was lost, and they prepared to return to their village below.

As they were packing their gear for the descent they saw the baby’s mother walking toward them.  They realized that she was coming down the mountain that they hadn’t figured out how to climb.

And then they saw that she had the baby strapped to her back.  How could that be?

One man greeted her and said, “We couldn’t climb this mountain.  How did you do this when we, the strongest and most able men in the village, could not do it?”

She shrugged her shoulders and said, “It isn’t your baby.”

by Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel like.  It’s like this:

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy.  You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans.  The Coliseum.  The Michelangelo David.  The godolas in Venice.  You learn some handy phrases in Italian.  It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives.  You pack your bags and off you go.  Several hours later, the plane lands.  The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!” you exclaim.  “What do you mean, Holland??  I signed up for Italy!  I’m supposed to be in Italy!  All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan.  They’ve landed in Holland, and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place.  It’s not full of pestilence, famine and disease.  It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books.  And you must learn a new language.  And you will meet a whole group of people you never would have met if you had gone to Italy.

It’s just a different place.  It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy.  But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.. and you begin to notice that Holland has giant windmills.  Holland has tulips.  Holland even has Rembrandts.

But still.. everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy.. and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there.  And for the rest of your life, you will say, “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go.  That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever ever go away.. because that loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But.. if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things.. about Holland.

Dear Stewbie,

You know I feel really stupid writing this. Because.. you’re dead. But I think I should. I never really let myself dwell on it before. Certainly not when it happened. I just couldn’t deal. (And I couldn’t deal with not dealing. God, I can so thoroughly repress things that I scare myself sometimes.)

I was thinking about you last night. The weather is just like it was on those nights when I used to fall asleep on the bench in my backyard, waiting for you to come to me. And when you did, you’d sneak up without waking me so that you could watch me sleep.

My life would probably be so drastically different if you hadn’t chosen to die. That doesn’t really bear thinking about, though, does it? There isn’t much point, because you did.

You told me that I was the only person who ever bothered to “look past the stupid shit you did and see the good that was in you.” I’ve never forgotten that. You were wrong, though. I didn’t look past anything. I just saw you, stupid shit n’all. And stupid shit or not, I liked you. The truth is, you were the only person who wanted me. Or the only person with the guts enough to say anything about it to me.

I loved seeing you and Mr. Worden in the hall, leaning against the wall, the two tallest guys in the school, and my two favorite. God, I dreaded telling you that he was gone. I imagined you sitting in jail just brooding about that for lack of anything else to think about.

You know, I never meant to hurt you. Ever. And that night I told you to go away, I still loved you. I was just scared. Shit. If I’d known what you were going to do. But I didn’t. And it doesn’t matter, because I still blame myself. I don’t think any amount of rationalizing or talking about it or writing letters that you’ll never read will ever make that guilt go away. That’s just something time will have to take care of.

That was, without a doubt, the worst day of my life. Just so you know. Including all the shit that’s happened to me. None of it comes close to that day.

I remember being in the ROTC office, doing nothing, shooting the shit with Sarge while he was reading the paper. Man, Sarge loved me. He’s probably never forgotten it either, and I sincerely hope he doesn’t still kick himself for the way I found out. He said something about a student of the school sitting on the railroad tracks and letting the train hit him. “Damn shame,” he said. “Now why would anyone want to do a thing like that?” He asked me. “I dunno, sir. Who was it?”

When he told me.. It was like everything around me just gave way. I remember saying your full name, just to be sure it was you. I don’t remember much after that. I don’t remember leaving the ROTC office. I don’t remember if Sarge said anything else to me. I don’t think I said anything to him. I don’t remember leaving the school. I still to this day don’t know who excused my absence from the rest of my classes, but someone did. I never heard a thing about it. I don’t remember the walk home. I do remember grabbing that stupid neon light phone that we’d spent so many hours on and curling up in bed with it. I don’t know why. I probably wouldn’t have answered it if it rang. I clearly remember Evans knocking on the door sometime later that afternoon to tell me when and where your funeral was, but I never could remember later what he’d said, only the gist of what he was telling me, and the look on his face. I don’t know why I remember that. He looked like he wanted to say or do something else, but he didn’t.

I know I didn’t cry. Not that day, or the day after. Not for years.

I didn’t go to your funeral. Even if I could have remembered what Evans told me, I didn’t want to. And I don’t regret it. I wanted to kill your father. I wanted to kill him and he wanted to fuck me. I just figured it was better not to have that confrontation. Even though you would have thought it was funny as hell.

I was pissed at you for shooting that guy and going to jail. I was pissed at you for beating the other guy half to death while you were in jail, although I understand the reasons, and I was touched. Sort of.

But I was really pissed at you when you died. Because it hurt me like nothing else ever had. And I thought you loved me too much to hurt me like that. That’s what you told me.

You were always so completely sweet to me.. I used to think it was hilarious that people thought you were a monster and were terrified of you, but you’d go home and call me and pour your heart out to me and call me Kitty Cat and do anything for me. (My security system. Let me showz you him.)

There are so many things I would have told you.

I loved to hear you giggle.

I loved making you smile.

I think of you ever time I hear Angel Eyes, and Where Ever I May Roam.

I loved the time I had with you.

Every now and then, I stop what I’m doing and think of you. And I always will.

-Katze

Pressure on my chest

A cold silver cross on my neck

The power of a god

that which gives me chills

I worship the sensations

Violence in my prayers

I take his body into mine

Blessed release

Will I truly be saved?

Or does the path to Hell

look and feel like Heaven?

faithful blue sky

lucid in eternity

would that I were

as constant.

A culture of solitude

individual internet

wish that I were

as accessible.

faithful blue sky

desirous of a world

where we still discover

each other through touch.

I fear for you.

The world is a cruel place.

The good guys don’t always win.

And most of what you will do will never be appreciated by anyone.

How will you be able to chuckle at stupid jokes after spending all day finding the corpse of a barely 15-year-old prostitute who died because someone wanted their 30 dollars back?

How long will it take you to smile with meaning again after someone you knew, liked, and enjoyed working with dies because he hesitated to use his weapon lest he lose his job?

I won’t know what to say.

I won’t know what to do.

I do know that I don’t want to sacrifice who you are now to the worst depravity of humanity for a public who will resent you for it.

I have one year.  One year to enjoy you as you are.  12 months for Warmachine and Xenosaga, Magic games and RPGs.  365 days in which “What?” will still be able to make you laugh even after a hard day.

How can you live

knowing and feeling

your life you could give

to something of meaning?

Lemmings off a cliff

you all run together

to a contemptible dream.

As birds of a feather

you could have had clouds,

why trade honor and glory

for security’s shroud?

Is it all really worth it,

this world you strive after;

so fleeting, so shallow,

earning nothing but laughter.

Or perhaps a sad tear

from great men long gone;

or the souls of your children

who wait to be born.

To the same life you’re leading:

weak comforts, large pains.

In ten thousand years

it will all be the same.

One sad existance,

the same hollow shell.

Why won’t you admit it?

Normal is Hell.

To throw off what’s accepted,

to finally believe in

yourself or

something more than wealth, food, or semen

that awaits you out there

if you open your eyes

out of your trance

of fear induced lies

planted by a self

that cannot seek more

than a home, sex and wealth

that’s rotting your soul

while burying your diamonds

of dreams under coal.

I’m wasting my time;

choose your own road.

You could walk the line

or take the hearth and the

home.  I’ve forsaken;

I stand out alone

fighting for glory

love, faith, dreams and thrones

upon which sat men

the world still remembers.

Though their fires long gone

by the light of their embers

I’m finding a way

to my own place among them.

Will you join me or stay

here, without risk, without glory

or come with me to face

all the world’s fury?

To battle for dreams

over mountains, through valleys

and in falling for honor

find life, everlasting?