The Bolus

Excerpts

I
The nameless man, draped in a posture of insignificance, almost motionless, sits patiently or helplessly (I cannot tell), waiting to be fed. I can’t help but be drawn to his physiognomy because of its expression or perhaps lack thereof. Its content seems to reflect a universal void—the emptiness of ages—a certain meaninglessness. The lines and the wrinkles say that he has lived but tell nothing of who he is or who he has been. I can only wonder. I am forced, in this moment to confront my own mortality. It occurs to me that apart from physical proximity, I might not be that far from him in many other respects. I’m telling you that I don’t do nursi…that is, skilled care facilities.

II
Melissa’s insights into some of Kenny’s work-related frustrations, and at this time, “present sabbatical” brought about by a spiritual preoccupation or as she puts it, “he’s got a religious thing that he’s doing right now…” reveals a sort of big sister insight that makes her knowing special and once again, sort of maternal. Somewhere between the big sister and the mom there are the building blocks of a kind of deep caring that makes Melissa more than you’re average run-of-the-mill speech pathologist. Oddly enough, her relationship with her fellow-African American co-workers reveals something of that same characteristic. Though Melissa never goes out with the Melticia or Melvina she enjoys an unspoken kinship with them forged through a mutual racial-cultural identification. Yeah! A sistah thing that often finishes sentences, anticipates expressions, and intuits on the same frequency. Their Mel-trio relationship is certainly more than professional—attested to by the weighty necklace that gave Melissa back spasms until she unloaded it on Melba as a “relief” gift.

III
The opportunity to withdraw periodically into a bolus of creativity was a welcomed journey into a fully authorized discovery of research at its highest level. Not that the academy would necessarily be impressed but rather that for the first time in thirteen years of post-secondary education, I mattered. What I think, how I feel, how I see, what it means, and who I am. I was challenged to take stock of the instrument; to understand why and how I heard, saw, and felt, and the meaning of someone else’s world, as they see it and as I see them in it. I was challenged to the farthest parameters of my integrity because without constantly checking my own assumptions about life and its meaning through the life and circumstances of others, I would be left unphased in a world that seldom passes the opportunity to stamp on us its own impressions without our own investment in deep contemplation and reflection.