Stain-glass Eyes

When you’re in pain, I hear it in your voice. It encircles your body. Snarl and twist. Until you have to close your eyes to breathe. I’ve seen you curl up to brace yourself. You don’t want anyone to worry. You want anyone's discomfort with your pain to disappear. I don’t want you to be in pain. You can’t possibly make discomfort with your pain vanish. Your needs have always come last. You’ve lived by others’ hard-fast rules. Women, like children - seen not heard. It’s okay to yell out in pain. To throw your coffee cup. It’s okay to call and cry.   Your pain deserves space. You are not a rock. I’m not a squishy marshmallow. You are not alone. Your needs are not last. I respect your space and truth.  I see you, you are loved. The only rule is .... there are no rules. Come around the corner in full view and throw that coffee cup. Please don't rush to clean it up. Your anger and frustration need space too.

I find it interesting how brain and language grow together. I grieve for any culture that has had to hide their native language to survive. What that must do to the body and the brain…and the soul. I see advances in some technology slyly put a camouflage-membrane over our spoken language. I find it troubling. Most children learn language from listening, repeating and modeling after others. It’s a big chunk of brain development. Since their brains continue to grow into their late 20s, it makes me wonder the effect of less voice to the ear. A large part of my survival I have relied on my emotional intelligence. I wouldn’t be where I am without the experience of being able to listen to my siblings and parents talk to their friends, whisper in the back bedroom or talk on the single, wall phone we had.   I was exposed to quirks of language like inflections, humor, joy, fear, anger, sadness, secrecy, etc. and I studied it like a moth seeking a light, when I was young. Two parents and nin...