bleeder

Early in her amazing career, my friend Leslie spent some years in New Guinea teaching English quite unsuccessfully to remote villagers, the Papuas (the fuzzy-headed people). Over a lovely dinner at L’Ybane last week in NYC, she described the difficulty of finding a way to bridge their pigeon English to its proper mastery. It wasn’t that they weren’t capable of the cognition, she explained, it was that she found herself not wanting to change the way they expressed their world. They said “mouth-grass” instead of mustache. She didn’t want to alter that, and found herself adjusting to their way instead.

The papuas didn’t adopt new words indiscriminately—they would jerry-rig something they were already familiar with to the essential meaning of some new thing. For example, they were familiar with 1) the shape of the blades on an electric mixer, and they knew that 2) the white man’s Jesus lived up there in the sky somewhere. So when a certain hovering aircraft made its first appearance over the island nation during WWII, the locals referred to it as a “mix-master-belong-Jesus.” That said helicopter to them. Whenever she corrected them, they would nod sweetly and affirm the circumstances of their lives relative to the object: yesyesyessss, mix-master-belong-jesus bring medsin. That was all they wanted to know about helicopters.

Nowadays Leslie is a consultant to federal asylum program based in DC. She works with foreign victims of horrific torture—usually young women—helping them learn English and adjust to life in the states. She tells me those years with the papuas helped her develop a skillset she now relies on daily to avoid common word-triggers including “darkness” and “men.”  She says a creative vocabulary is also essential in understanding what the women are trying to say to her. Knowing how “push-me-go/pull-me-come” translates to handsaw helps Leslie comprehend what she is hearing from these women who were brutalized in ways that words can’t contain. Leslie said that under certain circumstances, some of these women still bleed sometimes . . . and will bleed for the rest of their lives.

© L. Seaver 3/13

1. Anaphora on Me: My favorite review ever was when B called me a “polyglot.”

2. A guy in my group at the famous Iowa Writer’s Workshop I attended always wrote on my work, “enough w/the ellipses” and crossed them out.   I like love ellipses… they are so SOC (stream of consciousness), so conversational…  so thought-full.  So  “I could keep going…” because “I’m still thinking” about all this…  I like using them and I like it when others use them.  So this guy criticizes my use of … which only makes me want to use … more (3. OK, I just outted some passive-aggressiveness here).  I think I’ll start including them on grocery lists and client invoices—right after the Balance Due total.  Maybe even when I sign my name:  Leeanne…or Liana.  (See what I did there?)

4. My three children are all named after a person and a place. I kinda want a do-over on one first name because it doesn’t fit him all that well, and he doesn’t like it so much. Maybe we should have held off until his personality started showing up. That’s what my kids did with their new kitten because they couldn’t decide between Seamus or Kitty Man or Clement Parmalie.

Maybe someday my son will choose a name for himself that works better—fine with me.  Do what you gotta do so you can Be Who You Really Are…like the poet/performance artist at said Iowa Writer’s Workshop who renamed herself “Blueberry Morningstar.” Apparently, this feels better than “Louise Johnson” when demonstrating how to make noises with your body and pencil to an audience of sardonic writers.

5. I genuinely enjoy smart, tasteful cursing.  In my writing group, (www.lakeeffectwritersguild) all members are required to demonstrate intelligent use of the F word in order to remain in good standing. So it was with no small disappointment that I heard my friend Kristine, who had just polished off her second margarita, announce that her New Year’s Resolution was to stop cursing. She wanted her sons to be able to recall something honorable about her, but she doubted that she had many admirable qualities, at least compared to her own mother.  She felt guilty that she hadn’t been a more exemplary mom, but maybe she could just accomplish this one small thing. I could tell she had started out trying to say something funny, and was as discomfited as the rest of us by this turn towards vulnerability.

The light, tipsy mood of the New Year’s Eve party faltered as we heard her confession. I thought I should maybe save my friend by owning some dark truth of an equivalent nature… just dismal enough to norm regret, but not spiral us down too far, it was New Year’s Eve after all.  Before the pause in the room got really awkward, my other friend Suzy blurted out “what the hell kind of resolution is that?” And Tom jumped right in with “yeah, f#@k that.”  A group release of expletives and laughter rescued the evening, the glasses were refilled, and the subject quickly changed to the canoe trip we all took on the Meramec last spring when Pete got Ann’s swimsuit off WHILE she was driving home because the sand in it was just chapping her ass, (she didn’t want to pull over to strip down because she’d lose our caravan). In the interests of curse-accuracy, Rick pointed out that this was not how to use ‘chapping your ass’, and Ann said, well, you didn’t see my ass. Pete said “well, I sure did” and Ann suggested that maybe he’d like to kiss her ass.

The rest of the night we played board games, drank more margaritas, ate too many rich foods, and did our level best to shoot Kris’s resolution all to hell.

6. I like roller skating and ice skating… and not reading long blocks of copy on a blog. For being a person who finds it hard to read long blocks of copy on a blog, I sure am writing some long blocks of copy.

7. I apologize to anyone who also doesn’t like reading long blocks of copy on a blog…sorry. You’re welcome.

I’m a little unfocused sometimes.

8. But speaking of audiences, once I attended a lecture on reincarnation by famous psychiatrist and author, Brian Weiss, MD. He said he was going to attempt to hypnotize the entire room for a past-life regression.  I was skeptical, but settled into the relaxation exercise, the whole while thinking, rats, I’m still here and I’m still me.  Finally, he said, “ok, I’m going count back from three, and when I get to one, just look down at your shoes.” I slowly opened my eyes and saw smartly pressed wool pinstripe pants leading right down to a man’s polished wing-tips, circa maybe 1912.

9. I travel a lot for work, mostly by air. Typically, there is an oversized John Deere executive passed out beside me, blissfully unaware of his snoring or that his black leather wing-tips are squeaking rhythmically against the seat frame in front of me. The woman in that seat is coughing virally in the general direction of, but not actually into, her bent elbow, her head craned sideways so the germs are propelled directly back into my breathing space.  Sometimes I just loathe air travel, but not always. There was that time an inexperienced father traveling alone with his miserable wailing baby took me up on my offer to walk the aisle with her.  I swaddled her snuggly into her blankets, sang with the hum of the engines, and felt her little body relax into sleep. When I looked up, everyone’s grateful, soft smiling eyes were canonizing me.

10. Global Warming is my fault because I voted for Ralph Nader.  Jon told me I’d just thrown my vote away, and that people like me cost Al Gore the election…I explained that I’ve just grown too apathetic to find a greater motivation at election time than cancelling out my father’s ultra-conservative vote.  Jon shook his head, sighed, and told me that I could not afford to remain so blissfully unaware of the world around me.

I only wish I was blissfully unaware of the world around me…if only.