Wet lily or hug when should not/do not want to?


The woman, one of bheri's women embraced me warmly. It was easy to embrace her because in the madness of Guyana's political history, her story is one which saw her breaking stereotypes of coolie women . The partisan politics in Guyana which was meant to make people 'independent' and 'liberated' did not work out that way.

One of bheri's men,  came up to me and extended his hand. He, like bheri, has a lot of contempt for women. And so I mutter nice things and shake his hand in return .. well I can't spit on it can I ?

A woman I  hugged once and who used to hug me.. walks past straight.  A young woman, a student who I met two or three times but who said her work included some personal introspection.. there was this spontaneous hug , but I have finished marking and I wonder what would have happened if before marking. 

This lily in the yard which is lasting a long time kind of stands out from the leaves around it. The lily needs the nourishment from the leaves around it. It is beautiful the wet lily. It would be nice to not have to have these dilemmas around who to hug and who not to hug and whose hand to shake and whose hand not to shake.

I think of all those who used to hug and who walk past straight now or who keep safe distance when we meet. I wonder about what hugs and hand shakes mean or if they are all fake and so We often get warning - "some people hug you to find the soft spot in your back to stab you in ".

Apart from hugging /hand shaking - it is "Namaste.. I bow to the divine in you" which is not about you and avoids touch which might want you to go scrub your hands afterwards.  Is like how this lily is there - connected but disconnected. I have to stop bad-eyeing the lily because this is like the third blog post about it.

Do the hugs with the people who you do not want to hug make it fake or meaningless when you want to share hugs with people who you really want to hug?

So with the hugging thing and hand shaking thing, I will hug all who want to hug me (including the man who is not as sane as the rest of us on Valentine's Day who then asked for a 100) and shake all hands that are extended to me.

And I will continue to cuss my huggers and handshakers if it is so needed and hug them and hand shake with them when next I see them.










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