Escaping the Trunk

I’ve been away from blogging recently, mostly because I was workshopping, editing, and submitting a story that had been devouring my soul for quite some time (I was in tears as I finished it, no joke). Aside from fictional efforts already submitted elsewhere, I had little of any value to share. The most important news is what’s coming out of Iran, and the most interesting developments are in the sudden surge of networked citizenship in the aftermath of that news — the crystallization of a notion most people who spend the majority of their time online have already internalized, namely that borders are fictional. The important things, the ways in which we truly define ourselves, have less to do with location than the people that we love and what we’re willing to do for them.

Case in point, the Bionic Woman. Or, more appropriately, Aeneas.

I was sitting in a waiting area at one of Toronto’s hospitals when I saw a woman in her fifties or sixties supporting an elderly woman who had already disrobed for her exam. She looked like a female Aeneas, carrying her whole heritage on her back as she stepped into a difficult future. I watched her walk into the exam room and heard her start a litany for the accompanying technician: “I’ve checked her batteries,” she said. “They were full this morning, but who knows.”

I had a sudden and wonderful thought that this elderly woman was not organic at all, that her curved spine was really the product of design, that her pained shuffle was programmed in.

Then Aeneas re-entered the waiting area with moist eyes, and the dream faded. She took a seat across from me and pretended to look at a magazine. But then, as though we had already been properly introduced (for, as the video from Iran has taught us, there is little more intimate than a glimpse of tragedy), she looked up at me and said: “She’s ninety. She has two hearing aids, and an ocular implant so she can see.” She took a deep breath. “She’s the bionic woman.”

“She’s gone full cyborg,” I said. It was easy to say, though. There were other, more difficult things I should have said instead, like: You’re being very strong or You’re a better daughter than I am. But instead I just sat there with my words, and both of us watched each other choosing not to weep.

When Aeneas’ mother returned, she walked out of the exam room and refused to sit down at first. “Mom,” Aeneas said, looking at her open gown and guiding her to a chair, “Mom, you’re getting a little bit sexy there.”

“Pfft,” her mother said, waving one gnarled hand.

“Hey, if you’ve got it, flaunt it,” I said.

Aeneas laughed. It was a nervous thing that fizzed out of her like the first hiss from a slowly-opening bottle. “Right,” she said. “Got it, flaunt it.”

Fate appeared to take me at my word later this afternoon when, as I was purchasing absurdly over-priced lemonade outdoors, the wind saw fit to play Friday Flip-Up Day with my skirt. (The wind, as we all know, is a first-grade boy.) I knew I should have bought those Batman briefs at H+M.

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Yesterday involved a trip to the doctor, a woman singing about God to the rest of the train, and a gibberish-speaker who nestled up close to me and asked me to hold a crumpled plastic water bottle in my open fist while he reached his finger down inside and tickled it, over and over.

Clearly in need of protection, I snagged some of the infamous Watchmen condoms from a promotional installation aboveground — a faux newsstand circa 1985 with Silk Spectre posters and Cure cassettes and girls wearing an excess of yarn just handing out prophylactics. (I almost asked for the latest Black Freighter. Almost. Then I decided to be nice to Warner’s street team.)

Suitably cheered, I attended a stellar seminar on anime and contemporary Japanese society, where I was Liana K’s plus one, in her very own words. (Her date had bailed, and I hadn’t printed off the RSVP. Match made in heaven.) We whispered and giggled and still managed to take notes. It was a lot like being with a girlfriend of several years, only it was the first time we’d ever really met. My apologies to everyone in our immediate vicinity, but sometimes you just can’t hold it in. Later, I even offered her one of my condoms. She’s that nice. (Then she, Derwin Mak, and I just grabbed more from the same installation. Among Derwin’s finer pieces of advice: “Eat the cookies while you’re young.” Yes, sir, Mr. Mak, sir.)

Today I touched a tutu originally constructed in 1973. I asked about the body and transience, how the image of the dancer will last long after her art has punished her body — the very mechanism of her livelihood — for its labours. The presenter told us that all ballerinas, from 15 to 35, cry upon seeing themselves in tutus, instantly transformed into fairytale creatures, lent momentary power by centuries of myth and legend and storytelling. I love colloquia. 

Anybody who wants to talk similar labour issues in anime is welcome; I’m due for a substantive re-evaluation of a paper.

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Amanda Palmer has a great post up regarding the discovery of art in everyday existence.

i used to think that being a street performer (i was a living statue for five years….i should really write a book about it) was the ultimate act of art, because NOBODY would ever recognize my art in any way that was acceptable, nobody would ever applaud, no reviewers would ever come, no critics would ever ponder whether i had a good or bad performance…. and if anybody wanted to take anything away, if they were brave enough, they did. and nobody told them to, nobody told them what to feel, nobody told them anything. it just WAS.

I mention this because, as chance would have it, I encountered an impromptu performance this afternoon after reading the post. A boy with long black hair and ripped jeans took out his guitar and picked his way through part of my bus ride home. I watched him unzip the case and cradle the instrument across his knees, Pietà-style, before going to work. His fingering was good — nimble and smooth but well-controlled, disciplined. He harmonized, somehow, with the guy talking job losses on his tucked-away cellphone and the two girls assuring themselves whether they’d be allowed into a party. The relationship between he and his instrument became the golden thread of love and dedication in the midst of all that uncertainty and doubt. Surrounded by people busy wondering if they were good enough, he was already working on getting himself there.

Then he plugged in his portable amp. I hunched over in my seat watching him fiddle with knobs and cords, knowing I’d have only a block before I would have to leave and that when I was gone, my time with this person would be over and I wouldn’t hear any more. Faster, faster, I silently urged. More, more. He played something that sounded like Stevie Ray Vaughan.

“Thank you,” I whispered as I left. I was the only one who had spoken to him the whole trip.

He turned to me. For the first time, I saw his whole face. Young, dark, composed. Real nonchalance, not feigned. “Anytime,” he said, like we were already friends.

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Seeing the bus that would eventually deliver me to my Japanese class, I was fumbling for my tokens when a small Filipina woman leaned in close and said: “You don’t need that,” and brandished a transit day pass with the day’s date scratched out.

“Just pretend to be my friend,” she said, as the bus huffed its way to the curb.

“Sure,” I said. “Whatever you want.”

This is how stories about kids getting hustled start. But I have this thing about strangers — I always give them the benefit of the doubt. This has gotten me in trouble before. But it’s also how I’ve heard some of the most interesting (and sad) stories. It’s how I ended up sharing beers with a guy on the train to Babylon while he told me his 9/11 story (everyone has one); it’s how I advised a battered woman to talk to the police about her boyfriend during the weekend shift of my high school job. These people are often deeply lonely. They’re afraid of things they can’t yet name. I wondered if this was one of them, someone with something to confess, some vitally important thing that friends or lovers or priests just can’t hear and only strangers can.
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