From: ef <ef@somewhere.net>
>To: lora <lora@xxx.com>
>Subject: Re: good advice and the decision
>Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 09:38:09 -0800
>
>please resend this, your mail to me, to wire... your writing, as usual,
>gives me much pleasure and i really think it would as well do so for
>everyone on wire. not to mention that this all, all of the romanian events,
>is sorta a collective work. or i see it that way. and your contribution is
>part of it. so resend it, lora
>
>
>
>Quoting lora <lora@xxx.com>:
>
> > dear ef,
> >
> > i read your e-mail this morning before going off to
> > work and it was on my
> > mind all day. at lunch i was reading "bent box" a book
> > of poetry by lee
> > maracle, from the sto:lo nation here. she wrote this
> > one poem called "autumn
> > rose" which is the name of this little girl she met
> > and, she explains, "the
> > poem is not about her but rather my perception of our
> > self-destruction and
> > the children who are the natural resistance to
> > destruction." here is the
> > last stanza, which i hope you like:
> >
> > The children I meet are the roses in autumn.
> > A child is forever blossoming. Their parents
> > may feel crushed but the children go on blooming
> > like the lovely, stubborn rose.
> >
> > yes, i know, sort of, what an emotional roller-coaster
> > this has been for
> > you. it was heartbreaking to hear about what the
> > parents did and said and i
> > know how much more heartbreaking it must be for you.
> > brutality, ignorance
> > and prejudice seem to go together no matter who you
> > are, but it is wonderful
> > that the grandfather has a home to bring up the kids
> > in his way, with
> > compassion and understanding. kids know adults and
> > kids love to be loved.
> > i'm glad things worked out with the house and it's
> > good that you feel that
> > you've done a good thing because i think you have.
> > there are many folk tales
> > and fairy stories about people making ridiculous bird
> > sounds and night
> > animal sounds as a form of communication to people
> > they were forbidden to
> > see. this is also, at times, how the underground
> > railroad worked. but i
> > understand that there are risks for you and the
> > children. it was just
> > something that came to mind.
> >
> > macko is at my feet, shelley is sleeping on the couch,
> > csaba is sick, erik
> > is lonely, the plants are green, the kids here are
> > coming over and learning
> > about the history of resistance in apartheid south
> > africa and about north
> > american colonialism, and i'm going to bed.
> >
> > take good care,
> >
> > xo lora.
> >
>_________________________________________________________________________
> > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at
> > http://www.xxx.com.
> >
> >
okay, but i'm still going to pretend i'm speaking to you, because talking to
people i don't know makes me really self-conscious and then i write stupid.
it's not like having an audience or speaking to someone on the phone. kind
of like nothing to stand on, no place to fall, that's a zen koan, i'm told.
i did not write it. also, that love to be love thing is peter gabriel, but i
thought i wouldn't need to tell you.
plus, good to here from you, i see there is another message, probably
telling of further adventures and turmoils. hope you're watching your back.
i don't know if you remember the time i got knocked on the head on the
victoria bus. you were in montreal, this was years ago. i saw a man standing
beside a woman on the bus they were each ready to go out of the back doors
of the bus. i thought they were a couple because the man was fingering the
rim of the pocket of the woman's coat and i thought to myself, isn't it
funny how some men are so tentative around affection that they reach out
covertly, touching and needing contact without being felt. well, as moved as
i was by this seeming tenderness, i could not mistake his look when he saw
me watching him. he was trying to pick her pocket. indeed they were no
couple. i was startled and then he smiled at me, put his finger up to his
lips and gave me a look of collusion. he had done an intimate thing (i still
didn't have that initial invention out of my head), touching her, without
her knowing and he wanted me to go, "yeah, cute." i felt mildly violated for
her and repulsed for myself. i touched her shoulder on the side away from
him and said, "i don't mean to alarm you, but did you know he was trying to
pick your pocket?" she was alarmed, she held her side where her pocket next
to the man was and people around us began to sense something was up. she was
a small woman and vietnamese, if i remember from our stunned conversation
afterwards, which may have added to her sense of vulnerability, in this city
anyway. meanwhile the bus was stopping. the man who had nearly winked at me
seconds earlier glared, and the look frightened me so much that i had to
turn away. i knew he was getting off the bus, so i turned my back. at the
very same moment i both heard and felt a cracking thud on my head. he had
taken his briefcase and smashed it on my head. i know that he jumped off the
bus, i even saw it, but in a way there is only the most still calm you can
imagine. that night martin took me to the hospital, maybe i sounded funny to
him when he called or something. afterwards, he asked if he could put his
arm around me, because if he had been bashed on the head he would want
someone to put his arm around him. i let him, but something of that calm,
feelinglessness was still there, and for a long time after.
the point of this story is that people said many things to me after i told
them the story or after they heard it from someone else. a friend from the
bookstore said, "that will teach you not to stick your neck out for people."
and i said, more seriously than he, "no, that will teach me not to turn my
back."
sziasztok nép,
l.
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.xxx.com.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Sun Nov 18 2001 - 12:13:00 PST