Read Online In the Body of the World by Eve Ensler - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Eve Ensler
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the wall and they became colored flags heralding the new country I was traveling toward. I was still weak and simply terrified by the idea of chemotherapy. I tried not to interpret the abscess as my body’s refusing the chemo. I needed my friends and family. I needed their visions, their irony, sarcasm, and pictures. My niece Katherine made me a painting of all the foods I would eat again when I was better, sans bag. People drew all kinds of transformative things: butterflies and Buddhas and existential landscapes. In the first picture I drew, I was alone in a boat far out at sea, and there were storm clouds. Purva made a portrait of me that had no face. Something about it relaxed me. The shape of me was there, but my new identity had not emerged. Kim drew a many-layered healing mandala of the universe.
It was painting together that allowed my granddaughter, Coco, to begin to process the new declined scary state of her Bubbe. Coco is the closest thing I have ever had to a perfect relationship. From the moment she came out of her stunning Iranian/Irish mother, Shiva, and landed in my arms, we were one. Not merged so much, but joined, in affinity, in worldview, in energy, in lifetimes of connection. She is the female version of my son, has his eyes and freckles, but she likes to talk. Even as a baby she had a wicked sense of humor. Shewanted to play and play and never sleep. She loved everything about people, studying them, trying them on. We had secret codes and stories. She once told me I was “her person” and she was mine. She was now thirteen and I could tell how much she didn’t want to grow up—almost as much as I didn’t. Together we were young. I feared sickness would separate us. It made me old. I was so scared that I would be the one to bring death and loss and darkness into her life. She would forever associate me with the end of her innocence. I would become Bubbe negative. But it didn’t go like that, at first. She curled into my skinny frame. I was her Bubbe. She was not afraid of me, only the contraptions hanging from my body.
Coco and I spent a day painting and reading out loud. She played me new music and showed me Facebook shots of her many best friends. I was tired, still in the last stages of infection. I got weaker, but I pushed myself and ignored it. I wanted Coco to see me strong. I wanted to be well for her. More people arrived: Katherine, my niece who looks identical to my mother, and James, who everyone thinks is my brother. By then my performance skills had failed. I could not move from the couch and I was beginning to look green. That’s when they called my sister.
By the time Lu arrived I had a high fever and I wasfading fast. She went into Lu action and called doctors and arranged a car to take me to the emergency room. As they were carrying me out the door, I could hear Coco wailing in the background. Shiva was trying to comfort her, but she was inconsolable. I suddenly knew why it was best not to attend your own funeral.
SCAN
THE ROOM WITH A TREE
I was in the Beth Israel emergency room much of the night with Lu, Toast, Katherine, and my niece Hannah. We waited in the midst of violent quarrels, bloody knife wounds, premature labor, and serious drug overdoses. At around three in the morning I was moved to a hospital room on a loud floor. Lu sat by my bed in a very uncomfortable-looking chair, nodding on and off the whole night. I watched her sleeping. Why was she here? What had changed? Then, somewhere around five in the morning, it hit me. She was here because she could be here. All the years she had been forced to be a witness of my abuse, she could do nothing. She had been made to feel somehow complicit by her powerlessness. This would not happen again. Now she could fight for me. Now she could help me. Now she could be my fiercest advocate, my strongest defender. This had been my dream, that she would stand up for me, thatshe would reveal her love, that she would say that I
It was painting together that allowed my granddaughter, Coco, to begin to process the new declined scary state of her Bubbe. Coco is the closest thing I have ever had to a perfect relationship. From the moment she came out of her stunning Iranian/Irish mother, Shiva, and landed in my arms, we were one. Not merged so much, but joined, in affinity, in worldview, in energy, in lifetimes of connection. She is the female version of my son, has his eyes and freckles, but she likes to talk. Even as a baby she had a wicked sense of humor. Shewanted to play and play and never sleep. She loved everything about people, studying them, trying them on. We had secret codes and stories. She once told me I was “her person” and she was mine. She was now thirteen and I could tell how much she didn’t want to grow up—almost as much as I didn’t. Together we were young. I feared sickness would separate us. It made me old. I was so scared that I would be the one to bring death and loss and darkness into her life. She would forever associate me with the end of her innocence. I would become Bubbe negative. But it didn’t go like that, at first. She curled into my skinny frame. I was her Bubbe. She was not afraid of me, only the contraptions hanging from my body.
Coco and I spent a day painting and reading out loud. She played me new music and showed me Facebook shots of her many best friends. I was tired, still in the last stages of infection. I got weaker, but I pushed myself and ignored it. I wanted Coco to see me strong. I wanted to be well for her. More people arrived: Katherine, my niece who looks identical to my mother, and James, who everyone thinks is my brother. By then my performance skills had failed. I could not move from the couch and I was beginning to look green. That’s when they called my sister.
By the time Lu arrived I had a high fever and I wasfading fast. She went into Lu action and called doctors and arranged a car to take me to the emergency room. As they were carrying me out the door, I could hear Coco wailing in the background. Shiva was trying to comfort her, but she was inconsolable. I suddenly knew why it was best not to attend your own funeral.
SCAN
THE ROOM WITH A TREE
I was in the Beth Israel emergency room much of the night with Lu, Toast, Katherine, and my niece Hannah. We waited in the midst of violent quarrels, bloody knife wounds, premature labor, and serious drug overdoses. At around three in the morning I was moved to a hospital room on a loud floor. Lu sat by my bed in a very uncomfortable-looking chair, nodding on and off the whole night. I watched her sleeping. Why was she here? What had changed? Then, somewhere around five in the morning, it hit me. She was here because she could be here. All the years she had been forced to be a witness of my abuse, she could do nothing. She had been made to feel somehow complicit by her powerlessness. This would not happen again. Now she could fight for me. Now she could help me. Now she could be my fiercest advocate, my strongest defender. This had been my dream, that she would stand up for me, thatshe would reveal her love, that she would say that I
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