I was having therapy this morning with my LSEd V (i.e. Learning Support Educator) and little boy A, and then I noticed I was getting blood onto the picture cards as I passed him the animals he named. It took me a stunned moment to realise that I was bleeding from my nose! I quietly swiped it up with my fingers and what little tissue I had, until my little boy A cried, "Why, why your hand got blood!" Haha, busted.
I went to bed last night nursing a sore throat and trudged out to work this morning anyways; been feeling woozier by the hour though. And I've just been wondering if my poor emotional state is really starting to impact my physical health once again. I've had a good stretch since early this year, but now I feel like I need to hold on tight against any relapse. Is this a teething process perhaps? I've said how these recent years and months have brought on a huge psychological change for me; and I do feel there has been a lot of internal struggle and effort expended. Many times I've wished I could be more emotionally flat because it's so hard to live like a sensitive wire; trying to embrace this for the super-skill that it may be instead of just burying it and then having to fight fires when it inevitably surfaces at intermittent times, is the teething process I'm referring to. To reign it in, manage it, and control it, for when it's only needed, takes so much internal muscle, I just feel really, really tired and raw. I cannot wait for my getaway in October; just imagining soaking in the hot onsen and letting go of that reign for the moment, to sink into quiet bliss.
My head and heart also keep going back to East of Eden; I love it so much. I've been telling my friends how it's possibly the best novel I've read in my life thus far. Perhaps it's me always finding meaning in the vaguest of events, but this book, more than any other before, spoke so serendipitously and so directly to my heart and my present need in this time of life.
I keep thinking of Lee, Cal, and Sam Hamilton. And then Cathy. How unfair it appears at times, that some people are expected to be good despite horrid circumstances, and others are admired for being good but not having to put in an ounce of effort. But I suppose it's like every other thing in life we have been bestowed or alternately deprived of. They're just our test papers in life, aren't they? Whatever the combination of cards we've been given in life, that's the one you've got to play with, and still play it well. A bad deal doesn't give you license to cheat or foul, does it? But damn, if it doesn't piss people off, when those dealt with better cards feel a smugness, as though their good fortune was anything of their own doing. (For reference of how real this is, watch this TED talk about an experiment proving just how smug people get about what was arbitrarily given to them.) That's basically what privilege is. I feel that recognising the good hand you've been given is the start of virtue for those with good hands. And those given a bad hand -- what's their start to virtue? Perhaps it is to recognize that the bad hand doesn't give one license to lash out, and to slowly learn the wisdom of the hand you've been given: you have a choice, a hard one though it may be. And what a bigger triumph it is to succeed with a bad hand.
When I think of Lee, and his personal history, I think how valid his anger would be against a society so prejudiced against him as an individual. And yet, he showed such equanimity and goodwill. He then becomes a force of good. I keep wishing I had my own Lee. What's especially hard is trying so hard against your bad hand, hoping desperately for scraps of reward, and not have any support or quarter -- would Cal have made a turn for the better without Lee? Lee, who saw Cal grow up and struggle against his bad hand and the endless comparison with his shiny, beautiful brother. If I work so hard at this, this life, and project all my energy towards goodness and selflessness, would anyone recognize how hard I've worked against the bad hand I've felt I've been given -- this is the basis of good, isn't it? And don't we all battle this at least a little bit? If one believes in an afterlife, God is the way we validate this struggle, and reward is in the concept of heaven. But to sustain this battle with the self without human support seems torturous, if not impossible, to me. It makes me feel sad, because Lees and Sam Hamiltons and perhaps a future-grown-up-Cal are so rare.
I want my Lee. (I'd say I have one friend who may be my Lee, since I feel we're so open with each other about our deepest struggles and we are on the same page about a lot of things -- that's you, E, sorry if such fuzzy feelings make you feel weird, haha.) But I'd love to live among Lees. Have a partner who's my closest Lee (see why I'm so obsessed about the concept of true love?).
May we all be given our versions of Lee. May God give us friends and partners who love us not despite our faults, but because of them, and help us tread evermore the uphill climb.
Amin!
Also a related poem I've posted before on this blog years back,
but now deserves a re-post (I pasted this on my clinic desk back at KK):
The Fear of God by Robert Frost
If you should rise from Nowhere up to Somewhere,
From being No one up to being Someone,
Be sure to keep repeating to yourself
You owe it to an arbitrary god
Whose mercy to you rather than to others
Won't bear to critical examination.
Stay unassuming. If for lack of license
To wear the uniform of who you are,
You should be tempted to make up for it
In a subordinating look or tone,
Beware of coming too much to the surface
And using for apparel what was meant
To be the curtain of the inmost soul.
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