I.
How do we recognize another person? What makes them memorable to us? Do we base identification of that other solely on a singular physical feature, or do we know another way to remember them? Eyes. Body. Face. Clothing. Profile. Silhouette. These features commonly typify an individual. But what if we don’t know them at all? What if they approach us completely unexpectedly and randomly on the street? How then to we recognize someone if we disregard physical attributes?
Drawing from an experience last year where I was the victim of a hate crime, I caught myself wondering just how we’re able to tell one person from another; and what features of theirs define an identity in our minds.
The month was September. September 18th to be specific. My friends had invited me out to a house party celebrating a successful start of term. After a couple of drinks at our friend’s place, we decided to spend the rest of the evening dancing. On all accounts a typical weekend night for a group of twenty-somethings. Mistakenly, I left my ID card at home; and so asked that we retrieve it before making officially making our way out. Now just a few days prior, I had colored my hair a vibrant shade of purple, with the rationale that Charlottesville, Virginia often lacked vibrant personalities. Since I lived extremely close to a local epicenter for the night life, my friends agreed to wait just around the Corner at a bank while I made the short, 20 yard walk back to my own house. On my way out, I made sure to have a key and my wallet. The only two objects I would need for the evening. Then it happened. An unidentified assailant, African-American, jumped from a Ford SUV, knocking me over and punching me down onto the curb. With a sickly smack my head pushed against the concrete. I watched the vehicle drive off in a haze.
When I came to a few moments later, violence had altered my identity and defined his. I no longer resembled who I was only moments before this unwarranted affront. Like two characters in a drama we were joined by some cruel twist of fate. Whether sooner or later in life, for better or worse, we all undergo a transformation. Yet in a struggle to identify my assailant and return to what now felt like a distant land, uncertainty became the only mode in which I could think.
II.
Swept up with the night, it grabbed me and held me hostage in its jowels. Escape routes coursed through the channels of my mind; but I didn’t have the resolve or fortitude to act upon them. But water will always find a crack in the foundation in which to freeze.
We are nothing if not constantly a fragment of our former selves. After the attack, I was several fragments searching for solace; and hoping for a reprieve from the isolation that a jarring separation of mind from body. Drifting through the wasteland of my psyche, it was ever and always the dark night of the soul. The god many purported to exist, the same one many family believed in, had abandoned me in the hour of need. Eli Eli lama sabachthani? I was alone. No amount of repetitive circadian cycles could console me: only exacerbate the spiral downwards. Doors shut themselves and stayed locked. I suffered barely a sliver of autumn sunshine to pass through the windows, preferring the lunar rays. Sleep came easily enough, often overstaying his welcome. And the days blended into weeks and weeks into months. My memory tells me there was a lover somewhere in the mix; but I don’t remember him. I only recall entrapment of mind, incapacitated from living the Gospel of Desperantes Erigendi. No amount of condolences could erase the past nor heal the broken. I would have nothing of those empty promises that “God” was beside me, walking like some deranged, perverted daemon interested in self-preservation by attaching itself to mortals. One priest, in an attempt to offer her consolation, even said “She wouldn’t abandon us.”
Each day, anytime I put my head to rest, I felt a fist and warm concrete. It was a death grip from which I could not escape. A spectre that, against my wishes, insisted upon staying by my side.
III.
When the leaves turned colors, so did I. There were days when, convincing myself that a stroll about the Grounds was necessary for survival, that the fresh air would do me good, I would look towards the sky: as barren and lifeless as I. Not even a passing cloud to signal the slow forward march of time. How I would have loved for something to prove that the world wasn’t as bleak as it seemed. Just a reminder, at the very least, that there was moisture left in the air would have comforted. The padlock lent nothing our way.
When winter arrived and November brought the first snow fall, I was a flake straying from pack in the airy chamber. I turned myself skyward, gazing through the storm clouds and saw that I was nothing but a vibration pulsing through time. And still, you were there, lurking behind the banks. And though I resisted, you drew me closer. I couldn’t resist the lure of abiding here. The temptation was too great. If I focused long enough to count, I would have had an idea of how many paces were made back and forth from the east eave to the west eave of my room. I spent hours in solemn contemplation. For certain you were there the whole time, shadowing my movements.
Though I tried, I couldn’t shake you. You followed me everywhere, from the bathroom and down to into the kitchen where you’d jump out from the oven, pushing me backwards against the far wall. I wished it all to stop. Instead I walked alone, treading the narrow streets with care.
IV.
Klonopin. Vicodin. Prednizone. Klonopin. St. John’s Wort. Valerian Root. Citalopram 1.
“We need to increase your dosage. For your own safety.” Citalopram 2.
“There are times when I completely lose control; when I scare myself and don’t trust myself. I feel it coming on and lose control. Would you recommend something stronger? Valium? Just a low dose?” Citalopram 3.
“Call this number 24 hours a day, 7 days a week if you need it. They know how to handle this situation.”
At 4am I made the call. But not the number she gave me To a friend who I knew could keep confidences. She came and took me away. She kept watch overnight; and in the morning there were pancakes. We never checked into hospital. Only very few people know. My parents aren’t privy.
V.
Dostoevsky, at the beginning of Notes from the Underground, wrote “I am a sick man…I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I think my liver is diseased. Then again, I don’t know a thing about my illness; I’m not even sure what hurts.” Nor did I know anything about my illness. It was a mystery as big as the cosmos itself. Yet it took up residence in my home.
Knowledge of knowledge itself hurts us. It makes us unattractive. Vile in the eyes our ourself. But were we completely ignorant, we simply would not be. As cognizant creatures, our intelligence haunts us. It tortures us in order for us to have identities. Whether or not we accept reality, embracing its turbulence, we deal with it daily. That stranger who passed you on the subway now knows you. A lady in the next stall over now exists because you watched her tap a foot on the ground. We remain occluded, anonymous, until something or someone acts to change that state. In the room of reality there is always a ceiling; and there are always cockroaches. And usually the ceiling is much lower than would ever be useful.
