Being Seen

Yesterday was surprising.  I was still weak, tired, and a bit disoriented.  I didn't get a lot done.  

That's the update.  Nobody really gives a shit about how you feel because they can't do anything about it.  If you are sick, it is a drag.  But remember, it is important not to bring people down.  

And so. . . . 

Things were going swell, I thought.  I was upbeat.  The mirror hadn't been disappointing me as much as usual.  In just a couple of weeks, I'd been called "hot teacher," "the awesome C.S.," and had found a text from my old CEO in which she referred to me as "boy toy."  Oh, yea. . . a little attention can go a long way.  

All forgotten, though, during my misery.  

But. . . 

I had a coworker with whom I became friends, a "Black Woman."  She had African blood, but Native American blood, too.  "Blood."  How cracker can I get?  Sometimes, I swear. . . .   If she were from Appalachia, maybe we'd call her a Melungeon.  I just had to look up the spelling and Wiki said that the word was a slur.  How fucking bad is this going to get?  I've only recently learned the term because T told me he is Melungeon.  After that, I watched a couple of YouTube history lessons on that.  It didn't seem to be a slur.  

At some point, I became my coworker's boss, in part due to her support, and later, she became mine, in part due to my support.  When she was young, she was the first Black student to be integrated into the county's white school system.  She didn't want to be, but her parents, both educators, thought it important.  It was a cracker county and the white kids called her names that I only learned about through her telling.  She hated them.  When she graduated, she chose to go to an HBC.  She told me stories of being a kid driving with her parents from Miami to Atlanta.  She needed to pee, so her dad pulled into a gas station.  

"Fill her up," he said to the attendant.  "And my daughter needs to use your restroom."

The attendant looked at him and said, "I can fill up your car, but I can't let your daughter use the restroom."  It was the early '60s in the segregated south.  

"Thank you," her father replied, "but I won't be needing your gasoline."

She said she was crying, ready to burst, but they were afraid to pull over and let her pee outside for fear of what might happen.  

So many things are invisible to the privileged.  It was her birthday, so I stopped at a card shop on the Boulevard to get her a card.  I couldn't find any birthday cards, though, that had Black faces on them.  I'd never tried to buy a b-day card for a Black person before, and what had been nonessential and unseen by me now made me furious.  

"My grandmother used to take a brown crayon and color in the faces," she told me.  

In college, I was told, "Liberals lie" by my hippie roommate.  It took me awhile to get it.  They lie to themselves, mostly, I found, patting themselves on the back for their liberal sensibilities, but their lives remain relatively unchanged.  See Tom Wolfe's "Radical Chic and the Mau-Maus," an essay written in the early '60s about rich liberal fundraising for the Black Panther Movement.  

I decided not to be a "liberal."  Still. . . I thought I knew.  

I didn't know so much.  Being friends with my coworker and her friends was an awakening.  I'd be hanging out with them, just shooting the shit, kibitzing, and then I would say something I thought made sense, something I thought was correct and true, and they would all snap back and look at me and ask me if I was crazy. 

"What?"

And they would tell me what.  

"Oh.  Oops." 

They let me get away with a lot, though, because I was their friend.  

I'd walk the halls with my coworker, and whenever we came to the door of a minority, she'd stop, hang on the doorjamb, and say, "Are you O.K.?"  It seemed weird to me for a long time.  "Just remember, you've got people."  

Now I was a White Boy who had always gotten more attention than he needed or deserved.  I'd always had a stage, a microphone, so I thought talking to people in the hallways was an annoyance.  But my friend talked to everybody.  Just briefly, but she did.  We had a boss, a VP, who we both disliked venomously.  My friend's gripe about her, though, was that she would walk by you in the hallway without acknowledgment.  Hmm.  I wondered about this for I was sure I did the same.  

She taught me that people want to be acknowledged.  They want to be seen.  They want to matter.  

And so, I changed my behavior, and boy did it pay dividends.  

When I was waiting to leave the hospital on Wednesday, many of the staff came in to say goodbye.  I knew something about all of them.  I'd asked.  They were more than stick figures, now, slightly, at least, fleshed out.  As I was being walked out down the hallway, the woman who cleaned my room saw me.  She looked for a moment and I waved.

"Have a good journey," she said.  I nodded.  "You, too."

I thought about my friend--"Remember. . . you have people."  

I decided to take a walk yesterday, but I was having trouble getting started.  I was a little worried.  I wanted to walk the two mile route, but I wasn't sure I'd make it.  I was weak, man, and shaky.  

As I slowly slugged my way up the first big hill, far ahead on the cross street a garbage truck was waiting to make a turn.  Two hundred yards away, maybe.  Maybe a hundred and fifty.  I'm not much good at guesstimating.  I looked up and saw the figure on the back of the truck waving.  It was the old garbagemen from my neighborhood whose route had been changed long ago.  The kid on the back is young, a cool fellow, and I raised my hand to return the wave.  The drive honked his horn.  As the truck turned the corner, the kid yelled out, "It's good to see you, man!"

"Good to see you, too," I shouted back across the distance.  That gave me a lift.  You see how that works, right?  I'd been "seen."  Validated.  Silly little things, you know, but good things.  

I walked on to where the road hugged the lakeshore, big, rich houses on the opposite side of the street.  In the road was a big truck.  A group of fellows was re-bricking a long, wide driveway.  As I approached, I saw a big fellow with long hair and a fly away beard shouting to the workers in Spanish.  As I approached, I flipped my usual peace sign, a habit from my youth I've never outgrown.  As I came alongside the truck, the big fellow barked, "You're ten minutes late.  You need to show up on time."

I laughed.  "Just fire me," I said.  "It looks like hard work to me."

He chuckled and nodded his head.  Being seen.  

I need to write a note to my friend, I thought, to tell her what she taught me.  We don't see one another anymore.  You know how things go.  But we text greetings and queries and outrages to one another from time to time.  I needed to let her know I was thinking of her.  

When I got home, I checked my messages.  

When she graduated, she went back to live in Miami.  I said, "stay in touch." I didn't think she would.  She sent a nice message about how things were going there and this pic.  Another little "up."  Sometimes, just when you feel like you are hitting bottom, you find something to float on.  In a matter of an hour, my spirits had been lifted.  

They were at their nadir as I sat alone in the silent hospital room contemplating my life and the future.  

I still have not been able to eat.  These antibiotics are tearing me up.  I was weak and fairly listless last night as I sat on the couch drinking tea and watching social justice videos on YouTube.  I knew I was "in a state" as kept feeling the sobs in my chest and the tears on my cheeks.  

"What the fuck is wrong with me?"

I put on music instead.  

In my hours of quietude, I've come to a decision, the kind you come to in crisis, to live more slowly and deliberately and with more attention and purpose.  High-minded shit.  I hope I can remember to do these things and to replace irritation with gratitude.  

If you are in need, I am available to be your Spirit Guide/Life Coach for a small fee.  I'l give you a good deal.  You're my friend.  I don't want to overpromise, though.  Just know. . . I see you!

I think I feel somewhat better this morning.  Thank you for asking.  Now I must get on with living intentionally.  

Oh. . . but here's this.  Yea.  Music for the soul.