Strange little story, 'Death and the Penguin'. That's how this post was planned to start. What was to follow was a little 'essay' on said novel. How it couldn't quite compare (could anything?) with Bulgakov's 'The Master and Margarita' but shared the same 'other worldly' feeling. While grounded in the here and now, it was not 'of this earth'; a mixture of metaphor, symbol and allusion mixed in with the reality we (especially the Ukrainians) know so well. But I got sidetracked. In, perhaps, a most unusual direction.
Or perhaps not so unusual. I become strange (at least to me) at this time of the year. My emotions always get the better of me as we approach the fateful day. As a rational, logical soul, I find my descent into 'emo' not a little disconcerting as I contemplete once again, as I must, the slow rising and falling of my father's chest, until at 8:25am on 1 February, it falls and does not rise. It will be ten years on Sunday. So Sunday will be a day for toasting the cantankerous old sod with Laurent Perrier Rose Brut and (this year) chasing the espresso with Kauffmann 'signature' vodka (2006), a snip on eBay at £69, but a mere £20 if you know the right people :)
So where did I get sidetracked? A charity here called Changing Faces has been running an ad campaign in tube (subway/metro) stations about 'difference' and trying to raise awareness of the way in which we relate to people who, through no choice of their own, look markedly different from their 'travelling companions'. Now of course we are all, generally, unique in the way that we look but there is a spectrum in which people are considered 'normal', whether you consider them attractive or not. Outside that spectrum lie the people who, to continue the analogy, might be considered 'x-rays'. Not 'normal'.
Society places great store, especially with people unknown to you as real human beings, on appearances. We gaze longingly at the Claudia Schiffer lookalikes, the George Clooney clones and largely ignore the great mass of the mundane and ordinary; but the 'x-rays'? They attract our attention in an almost magnetic way. We cannot stop staring or we make great efforts not to stare without really understanding the effect we have on the person at whom we are staring or trying not to stare at. The ad campaign might make people think twice about engaging in what for most of us is a 'natural' reaction.
Now, as an 'x-ray' myself, I say 'we' and 'us' in all seriousness. I get stared at on the tube all the time. I would, however, never stare at an 'x-ray' who shares my disfigurement but I have exactly the same reaction as the 'normal' spectrum when it comes to 'x-rays' who have some other disfigurement. It usually takes a couple of minutes for the empathy gland to kick in and make me 'naturally' see them in the same light as I would wish others to see me. So, whatever it is that causes the staring, it is ingrained in our very nature as human beings.
The reason I strayed off the 'Death and the Penguin' path was because as I sat down to write this, having seen a few minutes earlier a different poster ad than I was used to, a different kind of difference, a thought popped into my head. Something someone once said to me: "After a while, you don't see it. Somehow you look past it and only see the soul within." Now to me this is strange. Each morning I rise, I take (an exorbitantly expensive - thank you GazProm!) bath and then I shave. Despite my best efforts over the years, as I drag the blade across my skin, I see it. I cannot look past it. It's there, how can other people tell themselves it's not? They're just being nice to me, no? For many years I assumed that this must be the case. They just liked me as a person well enough that de-emphasising the difference might make me feel better. About myself. Except.
Many years ago, as part of my job, I got to deliver cheques on a Friday afternoon to trainees on various courses the organisation was funding. One week a new college was added to the 'round'; a beauty therapy college! I roll up to reception with my envelope full of cheques for distribution and am greeted by the receptionist with a squeel, hands raised to mouth! She then rushes off to the back office. Rest assured, the elephant man I am not, and her reaction was not 'normal'. I sat down and about two minutes later a (very cute) tutor came out, sat next to me and asked if 'I was comfortable with it'. 'The college would pay, of course!' I didn't think she wanted me to 'service' the trainees, or at least not in the way I would have liked :), so I pleaded complete ignorance of the point of her request. 'We've been looking for a model for our camouflage make-up. And someone to act as dummy for our training courses. Would you do it?' And so started a year or so of spending a day or half a day a month or so of having my difference 'hidden' from the rest of the world. Uniquely relaxing, having someone 'make you up' (with brushes! :)
After about three months, one 'training course' ended early and I was sitting in the chair after a particularly successful 'make over', with the pot of cream in my hands, ready to remove the make up when a thought popped into my head. 'Leave it on and go back to the office. See if anyone notices.' I didn't get a single taker, not one! No-one noticed what was different. Now I know that the absence of something is not the same as the presence of something when it comes to recognition but nonetheless, it makes you think. Maybe, eventually, they do see past and they are actually telling the truth. That I think, if true, would be an enormous help to those who find their difference unsettling, upsetting, traumatic.
I think it's time I joined a support group. Maybe that story might help!
And I never got paid for it. Corruption of a public official if I did! But I still remember the wonderful sense of relaxation that came with it. Better than money, any day!
I'm completely evil. Blogging from Gen Chem 1, where he's attempting to teach us how to use the E symbol on our calculators, which if we don't know that, we are going to fail anyway, buuuuutttt.....
ReplyDeleteThis was a great post. Send it somewhere to be published. You've already grown from writing it; what you have written is both beautiful and applicable.
As a person who considers myself "deep"-ish- one who really works at looking past differences, the way this is written makes evident both the propensity of others to make differences apparent, and our human ability to adapt and look past it. It is one of the unique traits that I believe points to a miraculous beginning.
But even if you do not see it that way, you have already acknowledged the miraculous journey of loving and living.
Thank you for sharing this.
The American
Very cool website. I realize I have never shared my "Gat" essays with you. "Gat" is my seventeen year old brother who is quadrapalegic. He not only has to deal with appearances, but the fact that most people don't think he's there.
ReplyDeleteNever been able to speak. Some day, when I have time, I will dig out those essays and share them with you. I learned so much from being his sister- what a shallow prick of a girl I was before- and still do learn every single time I visit- learn the depths of love, of what it means to love someone who cannot return even the smallest acknowledgment. To love them, realize their humanity, believe in that humanity, have faith in it, and them as a person. To give them the gift of life and fun when it can be so very difficult and cumbersome- I cannot say I'm there yet, but I am working at it.
This is really such an important topic. Thank you for discussing it. You are amazing.
Tut, tut. Blogging from class? Naughty, naughty! Stay behind after and write five hundred words on the subject of the inside of a ping pong ball.
ReplyDeleteIt's odd in a way, I always feel very self conscious when discussing the way I look with people because I feel I am doing them a dis-service by raising it, ie I'm implying that they might stare or want to stare when they would of course maintain that that is not the case. There appears to be an unwillingness to discuss these issues for fear of 'offence'. I'm glad the campaign is taking place, perhaps people might be less inclined to think we'll be offended if they just ask what the difference is! And why.
I remember once sitting on the tube reading my book when a nine or ten year old sat opposite me. He was obviously intrigued and so, very loudly :), asked his father what was wrong with my face. Instant embarrassment on the father's part and earnest demands for 'silence' from the child and an apology to me.
I closed my book, leaned across to the child and in simple terms I hoped he would understand (he did) explained why I looked the way I did, ie what had 'gone a little wrong' while I was a fetus. He was quite satisfied and his curiosity subsided.
About five minutes later, I noticed his father had the self same mark, although only about the size of an old English penny, low down on the side of his neck. Strange, no?
Since I am talking about it, I will record here for posterity the night I travelled home from work somewhat earlier than usual.
The incidence of neavi in the general population is about 2.5 in 1,000. Since they can appear anywhere on the body, the incidence of facial ones is much, much lower. They are rarely seen.
That night there were five of us in the same tube carriage! The rest of the passengers must have thought there had been a convention. :) Poor souls, they did not know where to look to avoid appearing to look at at least one of us :)
You have mentioned Gat before in the posts. I find it very hard to imagine the frustration that must be so ever present. The desire humans have for self expression but with no means avaliable to express. At least Christy Brown had his left foot. (Startling performance by Daniel Day Lewis, one of the best ever on film.)
A coda. My mother asked me about 6 months or so ago, for the very first time, whether I was bullied in school (I was, tho' it was less bullying, more mickey taking). A little late, I thought after 40 odd years. But then I still haven't asked her what she thought, after one still birth the year before, when I popped out. "God has it in for me?" Or perhaps mothers see past from day one?
Oops, forgot. A big thank you to the Elfin Queen for being the first to make ME 'see past' :)
ReplyDeleteI'm not even going to pretend I don't stare. That would be dishonest. Once I allow the difference to sink in, I immediately try to reconcile one humanity to another- are we the same? If so, how?
ReplyDeleteIt is something I instinctively do, even with atheists,and since I am a person who dwells more often in the mind than in the present, I recover within microseconds, but not without first asking myself that question as a way to orient myself.
More on that later.
For now, I am struggling with the concepts of velocity and acceleration as depicted by the "tangent" on a graph. Your lovely diagrams might do the trick.
Or you might choose to spend the next two days doing what you predicted you would be busy doing, given the impending flip of the calendar page.
Selfishly, I'd like you to explain the concepts to me, but I know honoring another's parting is probably a lot less shallow and much more important. Especially when it includes lots and lots of vodka- something I've always had on my list to try but never have had the money to justify the expense, or the time; I've also never had the guts to try it.
Tell me how it all turns out.
The American
1) See email for possible algebraic answer.
ReplyDelete2) As explained, little time now for diagrams but I'm assuming you're doing vectors. Look at the first diagram in the entry for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceleration, you'll see that getting 'delta v', ie vf-vi, I think :) is just like Feynman's pointy arrows. Start the two vectors from the same point and the distance between the two vectors is the solution.
Does that help? Perhaps I need to go get a book 'Slightly less simple maths for idiots'. I might not feel such a klutz at this end. So much, for so long unused, material needs to be retrieved from the dusty attic that is my brain that I think it needs some assistance with clearing the cobwebs.