Improv, Week 5

(testing my prompt for this week)

Gorilla Warfare

"Sometimes I forget there are gorillas behind me." My daughter, swept up in the latest app for I-phone, keeps getting bashed by primates in her pursuit of something I have yet to identify. But I relate to the ambush. My gorilla that day was laundry. I, for the moment, measuring my life in scoops of Tide. I used to proclaim, with some sense of originality, that while polishing one piece of my life, I neglected other pieces dissolving undetected into disarray. The mounds of laundry the product of dustless bookshelves, spot-free drinking glasses, tubs free of iron stains. Then I learned everyone feels that way. I'm no exception.

Sometimes I forget there are gorillas behind me. The five-pager due on Tuesday, buried in the prose of the hundred-pager up for discussion on Monday. My brain itches the word "write," my planner etches the word "read." What, Milton, should I remember from your tale? It won't be relevant. The relevant gorillas sneak up behind me in the robust analysis of a classmate. I remember fire. And ice. Damn primates. Reading the prose was not enough.

A gorilla. The word still evokes an image of my sister-in-law's dad, years before I was born, climbing into the gorilla habitat at the zoo, looking for a fight. I'm not kidding. He was inebriated, Denise says. That's her retelling the story he told her. I didn't know smuggling alcohol into a zoo was an option. Or desirable. He climbed in on a dare. He lost the fight. Lost two teeth. And some blood. Roger woke up the next morning in his own bed, where his friends left him and his mom found him. The gorillas I've seen seem sedated, content to let their leathery palms rest on the ground, staring in one direction for drawn out intervals. They looked bored, uninterested in the gawking audience, unfazed by our hankering to see them do something. Anything. Roger, I guess, determined to test the quiet. I'd like to see them in the wild.

Sometimes I forget there are gorillas behind me. Once, while buying groceries with my two youngest children, anxious to check out with the essentials in tow, I let drift through my ears Emily's quiet request to find a bathroom. I accused her many times before that of a bizarre fascination with restroom decor, certain that she only wanted to see what every toilet in every venue in every town looked like. Wasn't there anything original anywhere? But this day, comparing the fat content of fat-free refried beans and original refried beans, I failed to respond. I checked items off my list, Emily jogging my memory as I grouped cans, boxes, toiletries and produce on the checkout belt. "Almost done," I promised distractedly. As I handed my card to the cashier, a flood ensued, an embarrassing apology, an intercom call for disinfectant and mop. I was sorry. So sorry that I didn't heed to the gorillas behind me. I failed as a parent that day. I hugged her tightly, trying to undo her embarrassment at something she couldn't help, accepting all the blame myself, as I should. Tomorrow, I would do better.

Sometimes I forget there are gorillas behind me. The empty dog food bowl. The postponing of another date night. Sebastian trailing me with a ball in his mouth, wagging his tail. The stained coffee pot. The empty wine glass in the upstairs shower. The $30 field trip fee due yesterday. The empty toilet paper roll. Missing the deadline for a group rate at the Hilton DeSoto. Thesis research. The weeds around the lantanas. Forgetting to call my best friend. The unmopped floors, unanswered letters, 2,000 emails stuck in my inbox. Sometimes I forget, when I beg for consolation, there are gorillas behind you, too.

Improv, Week One

"The Pain Scale" ~Eula Biss

Relevant passage:

"Hospice nurses are trained to identify five types of pain: physical, emotional, spiritual, social, and financial.
The pain of feeling, the pain of caring, the pain of doubting, the pain of parting, the pain of paying" (30).

An itch is a kind of pain, according to Eula Biss' father. Being uncomfortable also, according to me. The pair keeps me awake at night. If there are indeed five types of pain--and I think there are at least five--then I propose that the emotional, spiritual, social, and financial types manifest themselves in the physical.

My first encounter with the Wong-Baker pain scale was a comedic one, likely because I wasn't in pain. Michael, my oldest son, also not in pain, attributed the pain-free face to my husband Jeff's face when he takes the family to McDonald's. The contorted "worst pain imaginable face," Michael asserted, represents Jeff's pain level when we eat at Applebee's. Proof, I suggest, that the pain scale is relative. After paying at Sea Captain's House in Myrtle Beach or the quaint Cajun cafe on the corner of Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Applebee's might register a '5' or a '6.' Financial pain--the pain of paying. I didn't feel it personally.

Sometimes, though, I do feel other people's pain. Emotional pain--the pain of caring. When my mom was suffering from emotional abuse and refused to be helped or help herself, my chest hurt all the time. Every night, I rolled up a pillow to press against my heart, trying to hold my body together. To stop the constant sensation of exploding. Helplessness. The worst pain imaginable?

Sometimes, doctors say, we live with pain so long that it seems normal. This kind of pain, we don't acknowledge. Tyler, my best friend Patricia's oldest child, was diagnosed with severe allergies at the age of 13. He also needed sinus surgery. Patricia questioned the diagnosis, noting that Tyler never complained of feeling badly. His doctor said he had probably adjusted to the pain. He'd felt that way so long that he didn't know he felt badly. This, for Patricia, induced guilt. Another kind of emotional pain.