‘You don’t know me, but you have been inside me,’ writes Anne Enright on the plight of those who are raped. Girls and women mostly. A cry to strangers who take it upon themselves to invade the bodies of others.
We are not encouraged to speak too loudly of the details beyond the word ‘rape;’ unsettling as it is for most, especially those who have been raped, less so for those still untouched.
Someone once talked about how when a doctor examines us anally or vaginally and does so from necessity as part of a medical procedure, the doctor wears gloves. If they do not wear gloves it, too, is tantamount to rape.
So many rules about how we approach other people, a handshake, or a kiss, a bow, doffing your hat, or tugging your forelock in the old vernacular in deference to our betters. Always accompanied by the qualification, not to take it upon yourself to enter the body of another without their say so.
A baby might poke a finger into your mouth while exploring the contours of your face, as babies sometimes do, but no one else, unless invited, can enter the orifices of your body except in cases of medical care or the agreed love of another. A dentist to check your teeth. A surgeon to remove your tonsils.
Recently at a book launch a friend had an argument with their partner who’d gone overboard haranguing another friend who happened to be American about the horrors of that country, at least as they saw it. They ranted until the friend could take no more and stormed out.
Then the person of the rant was apologetic and approached his partner with whom I was talking. She was annoyed. And he chastised himself out loud as ‘a naughty boy,’. An expression I dislike. For its insincerity perhaps, or the idea that it is as simple as being a naughty child to so invade another’s space by going on at length on the woes of their country.
Later over dinner we laughed about various people’s countries of origin, in a sympathetic and curious way, and few people, if any, criticised the mores of Germany or Hungary or the Netherlands or even France or England. We were a universal lot with not an American between us.
I cannot understand why my heart has decided to race this morning. As usual my head takes me to extremes. As if I’m about to come down with some dreaded disease like congestive heart failure or a slowly failing heart, the type my mother suffered. But she had two decades on me in age, and I remind myself this hypochondriosis gets me nowhere.
Writing today is a chore as I am caught in the storm of too many thoughts and not enough time before the next seminar which is on somatisation of stress states or some such, which might also be the case for me.
Over worked, overwrought and weary of the burdens of life. But as usual, I tell myself to get on.
My phone will bleep at me in a few minutes to tell me it’s time to stop and stop I must. Speak when I have something worthwhile to say while most of the thoughts that rumble around in my heard are forbidden thoughts that should not enter the white space of an empty page. Words which should not see the light of day.
