Sharing the experiences of one’s own tragic past with someone, translated…
After my lecture, a second-year high school girl handed me a note. The moment I’d walked out of those school gates, I’d opened it, it had, “Teacher, I was once, raped by my stepfather, for three long years. Although after it was found out, he did get chased out by my mother, and started serving time in jail, but I still felt him, inside of me. After hearing your experiences, I can totally understand how you interpreted your own body. Just as you had, I’d also, used a ton of rash ways, to try, to get my abuser out of my body, but I’d always, ended up, hurting myself. But, you’d told us, after things happened, they don’t unhappen again, unless we give it a, brand new perspective, that we didn’t lose our bodies, instead, we’d gained, this extra space, to accept, and to give more love into it. Thank you, these words, are, very, important to me.” Those five words, were written, with heavy strokes, as if, they were, a sort, of declaration of the self.
I’d, placed the note in my wallet, I’d thought about the young ladie’s light smile, no matter what it’d meant, it was, very beautiful to me. Walking around the streets of Taipei, I thoguth about how my feet had, carried this body of mine, for forty years, thought about the life-altering experiences I’d had in life, they’re all, related to, my body. The year I was thirteen, my body was, forced to open, became a sacrificed vessel, of sexual violence, and, my childhood, as well as my innocence became, locked up ever since. There was, a very long period of time in my life, I’d wanted to, fill up my holed body with anything possible, it’s just, that the more I’d filled my body up, the more emptied I’d felt inside. At twenty-six, on the very first day of mime class, the instructor told us to roll backwards on the mats, my weight had, pressed down on my back, so heavy, and although I wasn’t, successfully, to make a backflip, but, something that was, heavy in my life, started, loosening up. The mime teacher watched me, in my own inferiority, told me, “Shan-Der, you have, a unique body.” At that moment, although I still had my doubts, at the same time, there was, a channel of seeing my self differently that opened up inside, it’d, allowed me to learn, to observe my self in the years that followed, and I was able to see, the beauties I’d never imagine I could see. At age thirty, a couple fortune tellers told me, that I was, a yogi in my past life. the yogis, searching for them selves, and I’d started, spending a ton of money, of those spiritual courses, counseling, and healing, in order to discovery my self, to release my self, to find that strength I’d carried in my previous lives back again, I’d become, trapped, inside an even deeper sense of fear and loss. At age thirty-four, a one-sided, delusional relationship ended, with the harshest of words getting thrown around, I’d become, trapped in the fulfillment of my own hunger, and, my body just, bloated up, out of proportions. At age thirty-six, I’d walked out, using miming, a journey that started, at ground zero, it’d walked out a path, of the thoughts on my body. In the process of walking, I’d let go of my mental stresses, that confusion I’d carried with me for so very long, and just, focused on, walking, there was, only my body that remained. I’d learned, to get along with my own body, feeling the pains from my legs and feet, my stomach, flattening, my skin, turning rough, everything was, returning, back, into my body then. At age thirty-eight, my mother had, died. I’d watched my mother, getting carried by her legs and feet first, then, cane, then, her sickbed, her coffin, and at the very end, she’d fallen, into an urn, with her final breath, she was still, so very, strong, and so fragile, at the same time.
I’d still recalled, that backflip exercise we did for our miming course when I was twenty-six. Many years later, I’d finally, successfully, passed through it, with my legs and feet, carrying my pelvis, my upper body, and my head too, in one complete breath, a perfect trajectory. On the body, there’s, still so much more, or maybe, it’s not that much, just living in it, using it, being, with it, complete that cartwheel from start of finish. And, that’s all, to life too.
So, this, is the process of a man, disowning his sexually violated body, to discovery of the truth, of the pains his body endured, to finally, accepting his own body, as his again, and this process of healing still didn’t come easy, it’d taken this man, nearly forty years to complete, and, maybe, there are still, things that this man is currently working on, to make improvements of, but he’d, passed through the past, by looking at what happened to him, STRAIGHT in the eyes, and that in itself, was NO easy task!!!