I had a wonderful night with my Aunt at Tony Serra's birthday party and Halloween bash in San Francisco. It was a magical night that played the Grateful Dead in revival band after band to wafting of marijuana smoke here there and everywhere. One couldn’t walk in the place without getting a serious contact high. I was on another planet knowing that one of the Gods of Lawyers was there, dressed as a white wizard with a black beret. There was an expectation in the room that no form of meanness or bigotry would every be there. I felt safe. Was I so wrong, yet I had a wonderful time and really enjoyed the people notwithstanding a succubi coming up to me and asking me, “Why don’t you tell the truth?”
I had no idea what she was talking about until she said “You're so tall!” I explained that I don’t wear my height around my neck or tattooed to my forehead, yet it’s a great conversation starting with people, but yes I am really tall and was really confused by her inquiry.
Then she said this, “You need to come clean with people, aren’t you a man?” She continued, your so beautiful and a gorgeous creature BUT… “My friend of mine said a woman cannot be that tall.” This friend of hers was Jeff.
I replied, “No… I’m a woman.“ Which it finally made sense to me why this handsome man I was dancing with me went totally cold. This man’s name was Joe. Upon hearing this she became contrite with an ‘O.M.G. I’m so sorry’ facial expression which sent me a message to their private conversations and cruelty. My consternation and inimitable sorrow came upon me as I traveled back through time to watch my own parade of horrors. I walked away from her a wounded animal. She tried to reach out and I pulled away from her. How ironic this happens at a party honoring one of the most prolific civil rights attorneys in US history. This shouldn’t happen here. Why here?
The girl tried to console me. I could see their guilty faces. Jeff later apologized to me. Handsome Joe, wearing his very clever “housing bubble” costume complete with bubble wrap couldn’t help, approached me with sad beautifully brown eyes which said he was very sorry. All the kings horses and all the kings men… could never put my childhood back together again. I stared in the mirror at my hideous monster wishing I was smarter then, shorter now and could find the help I needed in time when I was young to keep me from being this Frankenchic tall. Wiping my tears.
Mortally wounded I walked to the middle of the dance floor right in time for a Blues like song in Grateful Dead mode. I wish I was… grateful. I faced the band motionless, staring into space with wet eyes, forlorn amongst the empty eternities. Starting in the middle of my stomach, all my frustrations, all my poor life choices, all my guilt & personal shame, all the monsters who physically and verbally abused me, abandoned or disregarded my needs paid me a visit, dancing around me in celebration of my suffering.
Their chanting of cruelties ringing endlessly. A Halloween horror story in real life. All their faces and snickers, endlessly delighting in my morbid melancholy. I could hear the music, people talking, laughing at me, the pain was all over my body, uncontrollable grief as I closed my eyes and felt the white light of agony. I couldn’t feel my tears, my dripping nose and I could not feel my body anymore. My breath is all that I had. I thought; Dum Spiro Spero (Latin: While I breath I hope). The lights were blinding me behind my closed eyes--phycodelic sadness was my drug and I was high on my own misery.
Then the music stopped….
I felt at peace; renewed. Mr. Tony Serra, Esq. stood before me like Gandalf with his venerable wisdom coming forth from a mordant exhortation, “You are a beautiful spirit.” His hands on my bare shoulders. I was dressed like Pocahontas. I looked around noticing a ten foot radius in all directions, just us, I was happy again. Like a Der Bergeist (German: The Mountain Spirit), I hugged him--he was right at my chest height. I surmise he was smiling too.
