Read Online On Looking: Essays by Lia Purpura - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lia Purpura
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dimes.
Joseph and Denis went into the tent and peeked behind a cubicle, gray and fabric-covered like in an office. I saw them waving. Waving back , since at seven, they wouldn’t have thought to do so on their own.
Yes, a heart can sink. A heart can drop as fast as a white rock in a clear river, a dry leaf in white water. A heart can sink far from sight, the misstep above chipping the rock, the pieces hitting each outcrop down the steep cliff: there was a folded blue wheelchair in the corner. There was a cheap wheelchair I was hoping the boys wouldn’t notice.
Because then she’d be small-because-hurt. Small-due-to-problems. Not little-pal small. Not hold-her-in-your-pocket-magically-small, like a coin or a frog. Not small as a secret, or the very idea of a dog waiting all day outside the school fence—just for you.
Hoping they didn’t see what? The way the chair leaned into the makeshift corner? Its blue, tarplike back? Its own terrible smallness? How its careless placement broke the illusion of small-for-small’s sake?
I stayed out of the tent. I wasn’t going to leave Ania alone, with her fear of large characters transforming. I could not let her stand there while I went with the boys, who of course, also needed to hold a hand while looking.
Looking at what?
The Smallest Woman in the World.
Now, weeks later, Joseph still can’t sleep and comes calling: I’m thinking of the smallest woman in the world. Why? And: When will I stop thinking of her?
When I was eighteen, and in college, I began to think a lot about being seen. I remember not wanting to be seen “as an object.” And that we insisted on being called “women.” But just a few weeks ago, walking past some old, drunk guys on the stoop of a neighborhood bar, I reversed my position. I let them look. I allowed them the sight of me. I mean I did not scowl and did not turn sharply away. At eighteen, I’d have been edgy and hard; I’d have walked past with my shoulders angled to cover my body. But I walked by them thinking, “If this is all you have, if all you can do is look, then here, look. Take it all in.” It was easy to do, though not enjoyable. If it was some sort of sacrifice, it was not hard—first profile, then a full frontal view. What do you want to see—some ass passing by? The swing in my walk? And you, some breast? I was on the way to meet a friend and had been singing a John Pryne song I like these days: “Somebody said they saw me, swinging the world by the tail, bouncing over a white cloud, killing the blues.”
You’re seeing me killing the blues, I thought—you’re seeing that, right?—the white cloud, the world by the tail? Because I’m in deep, and somehow that’s clear to you three, who have been drinking, it must be, for hours already, though it’s still early morning. I’m killing the particular blues I’ve got by laughing a little at your stupid, raw comments, by turning toward and not away, and the amber liquid is tilting a line, like—so clearly it comes back—the cross section of a glacial lake up against its perpetual glass in the Museum of Natural History back in New York. What you’re holding in your hands, in that bag, is terrain. What I am is—terrain. Map me, then, Sailor. Lay me out. Say you’re just passing through and want to see a sweet thing before you leave port.
But she wasn’t passing through. The boys were. They walked up to the cubicle and waited and waved. And stood for a moment and waved again. And then turned to go—as she must have turned from them, and back to something at hand, at rest in her lap. Enough , her eyes must have indicated. That’s all you get.
I did not see what my son saw. He went out without me and now he’s lost there, in the scene, with her, though she was nice , he assures me. She had a plastic jack-o’-lantern of candy she was eating from. A jack-o’-lantern, I asked? Yes, he said, with her hand digging in it. It was August. And that gesture, that
Joseph and Denis went into the tent and peeked behind a cubicle, gray and fabric-covered like in an office. I saw them waving. Waving back , since at seven, they wouldn’t have thought to do so on their own.
Yes, a heart can sink. A heart can drop as fast as a white rock in a clear river, a dry leaf in white water. A heart can sink far from sight, the misstep above chipping the rock, the pieces hitting each outcrop down the steep cliff: there was a folded blue wheelchair in the corner. There was a cheap wheelchair I was hoping the boys wouldn’t notice.
Because then she’d be small-because-hurt. Small-due-to-problems. Not little-pal small. Not hold-her-in-your-pocket-magically-small, like a coin or a frog. Not small as a secret, or the very idea of a dog waiting all day outside the school fence—just for you.
Hoping they didn’t see what? The way the chair leaned into the makeshift corner? Its blue, tarplike back? Its own terrible smallness? How its careless placement broke the illusion of small-for-small’s sake?
I stayed out of the tent. I wasn’t going to leave Ania alone, with her fear of large characters transforming. I could not let her stand there while I went with the boys, who of course, also needed to hold a hand while looking.
Looking at what?
The Smallest Woman in the World.
Now, weeks later, Joseph still can’t sleep and comes calling: I’m thinking of the smallest woman in the world. Why? And: When will I stop thinking of her?
When I was eighteen, and in college, I began to think a lot about being seen. I remember not wanting to be seen “as an object.” And that we insisted on being called “women.” But just a few weeks ago, walking past some old, drunk guys on the stoop of a neighborhood bar, I reversed my position. I let them look. I allowed them the sight of me. I mean I did not scowl and did not turn sharply away. At eighteen, I’d have been edgy and hard; I’d have walked past with my shoulders angled to cover my body. But I walked by them thinking, “If this is all you have, if all you can do is look, then here, look. Take it all in.” It was easy to do, though not enjoyable. If it was some sort of sacrifice, it was not hard—first profile, then a full frontal view. What do you want to see—some ass passing by? The swing in my walk? And you, some breast? I was on the way to meet a friend and had been singing a John Pryne song I like these days: “Somebody said they saw me, swinging the world by the tail, bouncing over a white cloud, killing the blues.”
You’re seeing me killing the blues, I thought—you’re seeing that, right?—the white cloud, the world by the tail? Because I’m in deep, and somehow that’s clear to you three, who have been drinking, it must be, for hours already, though it’s still early morning. I’m killing the particular blues I’ve got by laughing a little at your stupid, raw comments, by turning toward and not away, and the amber liquid is tilting a line, like—so clearly it comes back—the cross section of a glacial lake up against its perpetual glass in the Museum of Natural History back in New York. What you’re holding in your hands, in that bag, is terrain. What I am is—terrain. Map me, then, Sailor. Lay me out. Say you’re just passing through and want to see a sweet thing before you leave port.
But she wasn’t passing through. The boys were. They walked up to the cubicle and waited and waved. And stood for a moment and waved again. And then turned to go—as she must have turned from them, and back to something at hand, at rest in her lap. Enough , her eyes must have indicated. That’s all you get.
I did not see what my son saw. He went out without me and now he’s lost there, in the scene, with her, though she was nice , he assures me. She had a plastic jack-o’-lantern of candy she was eating from. A jack-o’-lantern, I asked? Yes, he said, with her hand digging in it. It was August. And that gesture, that
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