© 2002 K. Eltinaé, all rights reservedappears here by permission
Dear Friend -- I would like to take this opportunity to tell you that I love you very much, and that ever since you've entered my life, your realm of friendship has engulfed me in ways I cannot describe. I know you must think I am horrid at times, cruel and insincere, totally inhumane. But, believe me, it all stems from a single experience, a terrible wounding occurrence that has changed my life. I see people like you, in colors. I know you are laughing at this point looking for a "just kidding" to satisfy you. But I am serious. I hardly see colors. It hasn't always been like this it happened quite strangely, as a matter of fact.
The sunshine was bathing the unoccupied playground and the time was 7:01 and I was in the first grade. I had arrived there purposely nine minutes early so that I would have a chance at building my own sandcastles before any of the other kids that I despised arrived. Some sand flew in my eyes as I was digging away innocently with my little orange shovel. But as I continued digging I grew restless. I got up and brushed my knees off and stretched. Then without warning in a split second I was grabbed from behind and I uttered a surprised yelp. I screamed, but a firm hand blocked my mouth, suffocating my cries. I was then carried away harshly and thrown into a dark isolated body odor filled room.
I started crying, screaming but I couldn't see anything my eyes had not adjusted to the absence of light. I was thrown to the floor then, surrounded by the poignant body odor that choked me. My eyes watered and the tears streamed effortlessly as this stranger's forceful hands reached down into my trousers. I cried not only because it was painful, but also more because I couldn't breathe and because I felt helpless. I felt like I had done something wrong. Then I continued bawling, trying not to remember what it was I was feeling. Then all at once I lay back on the grass, twitching. I watched the other kids kissing their parent's goodbye. I watched them, crying. As I recognized my first grade teacher's feet approaching.
"What's wrong?" she asked
"I want to go home." I screamed.
She then escorted me into the safe room where I sat shaking as she called my mother. We both silently waited for her to answer the phone. When she finally walked through the door the first grade teacher spoke with her briefly and then handed me the receiver: I cried into that receiver I screamed, I pleaded, I begged and my mother responded "I will see you at two o'clock."
I sat for the rest of that day quietly hypnotized arranging blocks. They were all the same color. A dull grayish shade. It seemed uncanny. Like the static screen from a disconnected television. I could hear a buzzing in my ear all day long as I heard the teacher singing and the rest of the kid following her in unison to "The Cleanup song". A little girl came by and knocked down my creation and I started screaming at her when I suddenly realized how strident I sounded. The class stopped in shock.
Then she started "You sound like a girl, you do -- you really do."
A parent had arrived to watch the episode as all the kids nodded in approval, as I sat with the pile of scattered colorless building blocks. The teacher silenced the kids as they left the classroom, and she then helped me clean up and wait for my mother.
She arrived at least fifteen minutes after everybody else had left. I ran into her arms as she swung open the car door. She seemed surprised that I was still so anxious to see her. I sat so close to her in the car she had difficulty driving . As I looked out the window at the gray scenery not a speck of color lurked in distance. My mouth was dry and my voice box quivered every time I spoke. When we got home my mother prepared a special bubble bath for me.
Well weeks after that day, I began experiencing nightmares. I would wet my bed numerous times a night. This aggravated my father who had spent so much potty training time with me. They couldn't understand why I was afraid and why I didn't feel reassured when my dad reached his hand firmly, protectively over to me in the middle of the night. They just couldn't understand. It was that touch that I distrusted. Time passed, before we were innocently asked in my first grade classroom what our most frightening experience was. I told my class what I feared, what I had felt and what I had been dreaming.
This is when the problems began. The teacher immediately called my parents, concerned, and I explained the story in front of my parents -- who were shocked, the principal, and my first grade teacher. My parents were frustrated with what had occurred and blame was shifted around, and I was the reason. And I felt like the reason. Further medical investigation followed, verifying that I had been sexually abused and that I would be in need of counseling. My mother's pregnancy was totally overshadowed by these tragic realizations.
My parents eventually learned to ignore the comment I used sparingly around the house "I used to see colors."
Eleven years ago I could enjoy both the taste and color of a vibrant ice cream cone. Until recently I could only taste one. Everything in my sight was that same static, dull shade of gray. I continue to live with that listless torpid perception. I lived in that bruising memory tinted with layers of disgrace and shame. With all those haunting questions I was asked repeatedly over the years, why did you keep silent? Did you see his face? And the most hurtful comment, from the person I bruised perhaps the most through my occurrence, my father. "Did you like it" Although asked in a split second of fury it deeply carved a black crevice in my life. And that is why few people leave traces of color in my life.
It is beautiful -- that is, Color. It adds life, meaning, animation to
the neutral happenings that we are forced to reason with on a daily basis.
When color is given to a canvas, it is said to bring a painting to life, it is
fathomed to spawn spirit into the deadliest conditions. Thank you for
being that flicker of color. Thank you for gently painting over my healing
crevices, and for smiling light into the darkest places known to my heart.
© 2002 K. Eltinaé, all rights reserved
appears here by permission
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