“Je bent heel, mijn beetje.”
I whisper it, per Mighty B’s suggestion, as the nurse is unwrapping and bandaging my wound. The silver alginate, the hydro cortisone. Je bent heel, mijn beetje. The huge bandage, carefully applied.
Mijn beetje, mijn beetje. Mighty B says that Kees lives inside me now, sending me messages to stay here, to not fight, to just allow basic goodness. Now I say this to my wound, like a mantra. Can I bring that to my own body, can I tell my hip, myself, that I’m whole and well? First time practicing it. It feels strange in my mouth.
I remember that morning in Lelystat like I’m some other being looking out of my eyes. It is in the middle of the country, and there is pretty much nothing there. Just the natural gas fields, with their flames that would occasionally spew from the top of the tall metal towers, and the national bus terminal. In the pink and blue dawn light, it looks like a scene from hell. There are folks around, heading to work, but they won’t sit on the bench next to me. I am sitting at one end of the bench, beaten and leaking with one shoe. On the other side is a Romani woman. My friends have warned me about the people they call a name that is a slur. They are all thieves, they say. This woman is by herself, but she looks over at me now and then. She finally goes to the water fountain and wets a hanky. She comes over and wipes my face, dabs the eye that has swollen shut. I do not stop her. She points at my foot. I open my suitcase and take out my boots and put them on. I thank her in Dutch. She waves it away. She pats my hand. I realize in that moment that all the nice people on the platform are afraid of us. I offer her a mento. She takes the whole pack and I laugh. She laughs, too. I don’t fear her. It’s those people at the house that I fear. Rickard. And the police. All these good law-abiding well-dressed people.
But hearing these words in my mouth also reminds me of his face when he found me sitting on that bench. Rudy had called him and told him that he had seen me, looking like a ghost, standing by the canal with my suitcase and one shoe, and that I had disappeared. No one could find me. It never occurred to me to call Kees on the phone to come get me. Even in that situation, I felt too much like an imposition to wake him up. I just got on the bus. When he pulled up in front of the bench in Lelystat, he was so full of murderous rage, but Kees did not indulge it. He knew me well enough. He guessed that I would take the bus, and all buses go through Lelystat. He knew there was one goal, my safety. He somehow opened the door of the passenger side of the car with his foot and kicked it open without letting go of the steering wheel. His knuckles white, his voice shaking, staring straight ahead. “Stap. In. De. Auto.” Not even in English. He didn’t look at me. He’d been crying. Get in the motherfucking car. At dawn in Lelystat, you can hear a car at high speed from a long distance away. I listened to the doppler of that car for 15 minutes, thinking that car is traveling so fast, who would be driving so fast? I try not to think about that sound.
She says that I have to hold that now. That I have to be the one being goofy and singing ABBA songs, and silently loving this part of my body I’ve rejected. I have to be the one ruthlessly caring for this body. This is part of what is leaking out of me. This past. Among others.
I remember being invited to Samhain the year that Kees died, crying in some witch’s living room. Losing my shit. I was so embarrassed later. I did not understand who and what Kees was to me. He was the one who didn’t want anything. I was so wrecked. I looked into this black piece of polished stone and it was the first time that I saw him looking back at me, over my shoulder. I wish I had the knowledge I have now, of how to greet and honor the dead, instead of clinging and wailing.
All these years later, the Mighty B asks me, “how did it feel to have someone like that, who was there for you first? Do you want this in your life again?”At first, I refused. I wouldn’t say that I wanted that in my life. Or needed it. Nope. She says we’ll work on that. I’m able to say that now. I have people in my life that show up like that now. That is the life I live.
Mighty B asks why he changed the song. Doesn’t he usually lead with Chiquitita? She has an eerie memory and also an endless capacity to accept and work with the weirdness in my life. But it’s a good question. Huh. When we got back to Rotterdam, Kees took me to the hospital. I woke up and Kees, all 6’ 8” of him was curled up in the hospital bed with me. He was quietly singing Chiquitita and playing with my hair. If you could call what Kees did singing. He usually wanted me to listen to this song, to tell me there was hope.
Chiquitita, tell me what’s wrong
You’re enchained by your own sorrow
In your eyes there is no hope for tomorrow
How I hate to see you like this
There is no way you can deny it
I can see that you’re oh so sad, so quiet
Chiquitita tell me the truth
I’m a shoulder you can cry on
Your best friend, I’m the one you must rely on
You were always sure of yourself
Now I see you’ve broken a feather
I hope we can patch it up together
Chiquitita you and I know
How the heartaches come and they go
And the scars they’re leaving
You’ll be dancing once again and the pain will end
You will have no time for grieving
Chiquitita you and I cry
But the sun is still n the sky and shining above you
Let me hear you sing once more like you did before
Sing a new song, Chiquitita
This time, Kees motioned in the mirror to listen to Andante Andante. So after obsessively looking at the lyrics, of both songs, I have realized two things. Firstly, I am not Chiquitita anymore. I am not hopeless, actually. I am not filled with sorrow. I’m not a fucked up 17-year-old. And Andante, Andante is the answer to the invitation that Southern Guardian popped into my head the other day, would I be the moon to his sun? Basically, “yes yes, always yes, but don’t break your damn toys, ok?” And that is a very different person than the girl who wanted to die but changed her mind.
I want to live. I want to heal. I want to get this damn surgery and heal quickly and well and go get into more trouble. So if I have to whisper these words to my hip, I will. I carry Kees with me into the wound clinic with his words.
Some time ago I jokingly named my right hip Alfie, and said he had his own zip code. He gets his own seat on the plane, after all. But in doing this, even as a joke, I made Alfie the schizon, the shadow, the repository of all the pain and discrimination I have endured as a superfat person. I have in this way made this hip the other, not part of the whole of my body. He’s no longer Alfie, I’ve decided. He’s mijn beetje. My little one. It’s sort of ironic, since my right hip is significantly bigger than my left. Now my hip is the troubled teen, and I am the person looking down with nothing but love in my eyes. I am whole. You are whole, dear one, mijn beetje. I can also feel the reiki people send in that headspace. I wonder if Kees felt it? I think he did. I don’t think he had the same kinds of filters as other people.
Also, I think my therapist is probably an enormous weirdo. I love her for it, even if this particular practice is very hard and makes me cry sometimes. I’m not fighting anymore. Ok, a little bit. Therapeutic resistance. We’ll get there.
Seyewailo 