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| PAINTING: WILLIAM BOUGUEREAU - PAIN OF LOVE |
"...to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, ..." (2 Cor. 12:7)
Often this thorn offers me intolerable physical pain. I do not remember the age when the pain began to teach me.
I think about when I was three.
I had terrible pains overnight in my ears. In the winter, moisture and cold in the mountain village where we lived then, caused me painful ear infections when I was an infant, which I s
till remember.
The only remedy some drops of olive oil in my ear and warm compresses.
All night, in the light of a candle, on my knees, I was looking to the picture of the lovable Little Christ - it was then maybe I liked Him for the first time.
Then I remember the horror of the... nettles , I was still around four! Like a little wild animal I rode with a bunch of tomboys on bridges and fountains in the village - permanently with bloody knees.
Once I stumbled and landed in a "garden" of nettles underneath one of these famous bridges.
At first I felt a gentle warming all around that soon- as I was allergic to the poison of the leaves - became a real burning, I was transformed into a standing ...extended inflammation.
I was transferred at home, where I still remember the screaming women, the smell of vinegar all over my body and the pain that persisted to teach me my lesson, in the form of open wounds for days.
I was only nine, when suddenly one night, my mother informed me that I became a woman and that since then and beyond I would begin to suffer repeatedly, thing which unfortunately - according her - was the most natural in a woman's life and so I should learn to bear it.
She also told me she bore it, the Saints withstood many martyrdoms and still professed their faith in Him, the compassionate vigil Little Christ ... He sent me -she told me- those pains to prove how strong I was. He sends us our crosses, which, if we raise them without complaint, we will show Him how much we love Him ...
It was then, when I started to doubt about this little Christ, but also about love. It took me years to refute my feelings for both ...
My grandmother assured me too that it just had to be so as she was covering me with a wool blanket in burning summer under which I was prone in the posture of embryo cursing my fate and waiting inconsolable for centuries ...
And when it was becoming unbearable, I was enclosing myself in the toilet where no one could see me, with cold sweat running from my forehead and flanks and feeling horror.
I was letting there all my waste liquids flow away from me, taking care to do not mess anything, making no sound, as if it were contagious.
I was biting a cloth and growling . It was leaving me for a couple of hours, then it was coming again ... I was crying, silently screaming, begging. I was asking God why, what did I do. Why am I a woman, why should I suffer so often and so early ...
For some strange reason the women in my house were avoiding painkillers like hell. So it was almost hideous to ask for myself one of them! "You're too young for such drugs," kept telling me my mother coldly, "do endure it!"
Later, in my teens, the tyrannical migraines were added, after an accidental hit to my head, lacerating with forks my thought, carving my temperament.
I was growing up healthy, but with an indisputable follower, the pain. I was learning all the time to ignore it even as a warning, to tame it, to use it.
Maybe - I admit it - it has been for me a source of unintentional masochistic pleasure. Without realising it. But I made it for sure my teacher about force and endurance.
During the pains when I was giving birth to my children and despite the horrific descriptions of other women, I was surprised! I was feeling as though it was something I had experienced before and even often. Maybe that's why I was never scared during my children's births, and I did not make even a sound, beyond the warlike cry of the deliberating extrusions. They told me that then I was screaming like a wild animal, wildly as a fierce female wolf ... I never saw this as a pain, rather than as a victory, like an onrush, like a siege where I was the besieger.
The next phase came as the pain of wearing , of the time's surcharge, of the illness. Diseases attacking the bones, the joints, the vital organs, which erode the juvenileness in rotten flesh of cries.
Knives slaughtering piece by piece my vividness, my agility, my slender body. Loading with suffering and remembrances-nightmares .
Silent heavy days, nights where moments are measured with hope for a dawn of relief and renewal.
Fight for survival through constant warfare, destruction of biological valence.
And the psychic pain,the pain on movement, the pain of wounds haunting, hardening, depriving me of the carefree innocence of my youth ...
I became a rock, I buried the sensitivity which weakened me. I was seeing more and more things, I was winning! I learned to fight and triumph.
I'm not afraid!
I'm not afraid anymore over weakness in my members. I can slur over it, work on it and wait patiently to get over it.
I learned to wait for the next lull of intense life, I learned to milk the beauty from the moment and to enjoy it. I know I will not be there forever. I will eventually become the nutritive material to the ones who are coming next.
I take the pleasure of the calm, I suck the serenity until the next pain.
I'm not afraid. I know how to win.
However, there is something that I never outgrew. Something which despite all these deeper painful experiences I lack. It is something which probably I will never be able to control or get used to.
Often I remember my mother and her apathy, when she was saying to me -to her little girl- all those things about endurance.
I envy her, she had found an opening, a window to breathe. She was able to say "If I withstood this, you can do it too"
How would I wish me to win her confidence!
Because the only pain which I never won , was the pain and suffering of my beloved ones.
Someone who is versed in agony as me, he is also arrogant enough to do not trust the strengths of his beloved in pain. Because I can not take over this.
No use if I wipe his tears and comfort him. At least I can not believe that something like this would do any good.
I still need training in this area ...
My fear becomes even more oppressive when the sufferer tries to regroup, to seek isolation and to decently construct his own power looking inside himself , not towards me.
I sink then into panic, my conscience stops to operate well. Because I am used to govern over any weaknesses and in this case I can not interfere! It is a huge struggle to assimilate something like this!
To learn to trust the power of those who you love. To learn to accept their deterioration. To learn to bear to watch their struggle without involving. To learn to advocate their victory or defeat ...
I must confess! This was your hardest lesson, my teacher Pain!
To experience the pain of my beloved. To proceed even when the fight was fatal for him where I still am firmly victorious, when my companion's strength disappears and he succumbs. Leaving me in my "Odyssey" alone to keep going...
I continue to be trained in the pain and the loss of my neighbour. To accept his right to fight alone.
It is very difficult this lesson, teacher Pain!
It's hard for an actor born to be a protagonist to accept a secondary role or even worse a sidekick role in a tragedy, where he often played the leading role.
However, such a role demonstrates the grateness and the depth of the artist and it is absolutely necessary for the triumphant success of the play ...
The only remedy some drops of olive oil in my ear and warm compresses.
All night, in the light of a candle, on my knees, I was looking to the picture of the lovable Little Christ - it was then maybe I liked Him for the first time.
Then I remember the horror of the... nettles , I was still around four! Like a little wild animal I rode with a bunch of tomboys on bridges and fountains in the village - permanently with bloody knees.
Once I stumbled and landed in a "garden" of nettles underneath one of these famous bridges.
At first I felt a gentle warming all around that soon- as I was allergic to the poison of the leaves - became a real burning, I was transformed into a standing ...extended inflammation.
I was transferred at home, where I still remember the screaming women, the smell of vinegar all over my body and the pain that persisted to teach me my lesson, in the form of open wounds for days.
I was only nine, when suddenly one night, my mother informed me that I became a woman and that since then and beyond I would begin to suffer repeatedly, thing which unfortunately - according her - was the most natural in a woman's life and so I should learn to bear it.
She also told me she bore it, the Saints withstood many martyrdoms and still professed their faith in Him, the compassionate vigil Little Christ ... He sent me -she told me- those pains to prove how strong I was. He sends us our crosses, which, if we raise them without complaint, we will show Him how much we love Him ...
It was then, when I started to doubt about this little Christ, but also about love. It took me years to refute my feelings for both ...
My grandmother assured me too that it just had to be so as she was covering me with a wool blanket in burning summer under which I was prone in the posture of embryo cursing my fate and waiting inconsolable for centuries ...
And when it was becoming unbearable, I was enclosing myself in the toilet where no one could see me, with cold sweat running from my forehead and flanks and feeling horror.
I was letting there all my waste liquids flow away from me, taking care to do not mess anything, making no sound, as if it were contagious.
I was biting a cloth and growling . It was leaving me for a couple of hours, then it was coming again ... I was crying, silently screaming, begging. I was asking God why, what did I do. Why am I a woman, why should I suffer so often and so early ...
For some strange reason the women in my house were avoiding painkillers like hell. So it was almost hideous to ask for myself one of them! "You're too young for such drugs," kept telling me my mother coldly, "do endure it!"
Later, in my teens, the tyrannical migraines were added, after an accidental hit to my head, lacerating with forks my thought, carving my temperament.
I was growing up healthy, but with an indisputable follower, the pain. I was learning all the time to ignore it even as a warning, to tame it, to use it.
Maybe - I admit it - it has been for me a source of unintentional masochistic pleasure. Without realising it. But I made it for sure my teacher about force and endurance.
During the pains when I was giving birth to my children and despite the horrific descriptions of other women, I was surprised! I was feeling as though it was something I had experienced before and even often. Maybe that's why I was never scared during my children's births, and I did not make even a sound, beyond the warlike cry of the deliberating extrusions. They told me that then I was screaming like a wild animal, wildly as a fierce female wolf ... I never saw this as a pain, rather than as a victory, like an onrush, like a siege where I was the besieger.
The next phase came as the pain of wearing , of the time's surcharge, of the illness. Diseases attacking the bones, the joints, the vital organs, which erode the juvenileness in rotten flesh of cries.
Knives slaughtering piece by piece my vividness, my agility, my slender body. Loading with suffering and remembrances-nightmares .
Silent heavy days, nights where moments are measured with hope for a dawn of relief and renewal.
Fight for survival through constant warfare, destruction of biological valence.
And the psychic pain,the pain on movement, the pain of wounds haunting, hardening, depriving me of the carefree innocence of my youth ...
I became a rock, I buried the sensitivity which weakened me. I was seeing more and more things, I was winning! I learned to fight and triumph.
I'm not afraid!
I'm not afraid anymore over weakness in my members. I can slur over it, work on it and wait patiently to get over it.
I learned to wait for the next lull of intense life, I learned to milk the beauty from the moment and to enjoy it. I know I will not be there forever. I will eventually become the nutritive material to the ones who are coming next.
I take the pleasure of the calm, I suck the serenity until the next pain.
I'm not afraid. I know how to win.
However, there is something that I never outgrew. Something which despite all these deeper painful experiences I lack. It is something which probably I will never be able to control or get used to.
Often I remember my mother and her apathy, when she was saying to me -to her little girl- all those things about endurance.
I envy her, she had found an opening, a window to breathe. She was able to say "If I withstood this, you can do it too"
How would I wish me to win her confidence!
Because the only pain which I never won , was the pain and suffering of my beloved ones.
Someone who is versed in agony as me, he is also arrogant enough to do not trust the strengths of his beloved in pain. Because I can not take over this.
No use if I wipe his tears and comfort him. At least I can not believe that something like this would do any good.
I still need training in this area ...
My fear becomes even more oppressive when the sufferer tries to regroup, to seek isolation and to decently construct his own power looking inside himself , not towards me.
I sink then into panic, my conscience stops to operate well. Because I am used to govern over any weaknesses and in this case I can not interfere! It is a huge struggle to assimilate something like this!
To learn to trust the power of those who you love. To learn to accept their deterioration. To learn to bear to watch their struggle without involving. To learn to advocate their victory or defeat ...
I must confess! This was your hardest lesson, my teacher Pain!
To experience the pain of my beloved. To proceed even when the fight was fatal for him where I still am firmly victorious, when my companion's strength disappears and he succumbs. Leaving me in my "Odyssey" alone to keep going...
I continue to be trained in the pain and the loss of my neighbour. To accept his right to fight alone.
It is very difficult this lesson, teacher Pain!
It's hard for an actor born to be a protagonist to accept a secondary role or even worse a sidekick role in a tragedy, where he often played the leading role.
However, such a role demonstrates the grateness and the depth of the artist and it is absolutely necessary for the triumphant success of the play ...
