‘They give birth astride a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.’
Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett
Life 's monsters
It is not some great revelation to me that there are monsters in the world, of course monsters are everywhere; we all know this – how could we not.
We open our computers and there they are. We enter a shop or walk past a newsstand and they peer at us from the front pages, scream over the headlines:
“A monster has attacked again.”
“Finally, they have locked the monster up.”
Monsters are part of our everyday existence, they creep into conversations, they speak through mics and from podiums. They control society in unimaginable ways. Yet we feel comforted in some sort of knowledge that they never really enter our homes or our personal lives. We believe that we would know if they did. Because, of course we would. Right?
A monster is something horrifying. They are ugly and we can see the ugliness of their existence, even when they are miles away from us. Surely we would know.
How could it be possible that we wouldn’t recognise one? It is a monster, after-all.
'The word shields us from the reality of what a true monster is.'
The word monster connotes to us some terrible and horrifying being, an ugliness so deep it crumples us to our core. It shields us from the reality of what a true monster is.
A monster, as we know it, is a fantastical being, made up for children’s stories, created to make us cautious of the night and the dark and of taking risks. But this is entirely counterproductive when we need to recognise a monster in the sunny golden light of day. Because, these monsters, the real monsters surround us all the time. They are the ones who care for us, they appear empathetic, they appear kind, they open up to us, and they encourage us to open up to them.
I hear you say. ‘She said monsters, right?’
It sounds a lot like we’re talking about heroes. And yes. We are.
As much as the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, appeared momentarily as a hero.
I did say monsters. Because that is exactly what I mean. Monsters are not boil covered, grotesque, foaming at the mouth, distorted beings. They are not something instantly recognisable that makes us scream and run in terror.
Monsters are and this is the fact of it. They are human beings.
I mean they are often kind, charming, successful, alluring people. They are our friendly neighbour, our loving partner. Our family.
What I really mean is that it is these kind-hearted people who place themselves in our life that may be the real monsters.
What I really really mean is that we need a new word for monsters.
Being alive was probably the first of life's monsters we encountered
When do we learn our first lessons of humanity? Is it the day we are born and we come naked screaming and bloody into the world?
Can you just imagine the shock that each and every one of us must feel?
And then. It only gets worse!
From that moment we will crave to be cuddled, we will have to scream for food, we will have to screech to be picked up. We will often be left. Our hunger will often go unnoticed. Our discomfort and pains in our stomach will be misunderstood. We will be danced and jiggled. But it will not ease the discomfort growing in the pit of our stomach and we will cry on. Or worse yet, we will be left alone screaming in a cot, waiting for someone to come.
In our first understanding of life, we were fed consistently through a tube, we were blanketed in the warmth of our mother’s belly – where we could hear the gentle beat of her heart, the warm vibration of her voice, while surrounded in a gentle glow of darkness.
And then, just like that we were squeezed into light, into noise, into cold, into fear, into pain, into loneliness, into emptiness.
Life was probably the first monster we encountered.
But life was also our first fascination.
It was the beginning of laughter; it was the beginning of our real mental and physical capabilities. The moment, we ourselves, entered humanity and became human.
It was from that very first moment, from the very first cry that we were starting to become the type of person we would be, while everyone around was trying to shape us in to playing a role in this life.
'I wonder would we choose to be alive - monsters and all - if we had the choice.'
Personally, I entered the world dead.
I did not scream – I did not breathe and I often wonder if I felt myself die? Do I already know the horror of suffocation – is it lying dormant in the cobwebs of my sub-conscious? Some argue that every single tiny experience we have weighs on us in some way or another. If that is the case, then my first understanding of life was the “terror” of death.
How confused I must have been when I was resuscitated – how I must have wondered how I came to be in a room with concerned faces looking down on me and a strange man breathing into my mouth? Maybe, even as a baby, I wondered what had just happened.
Or maybe I didn’t wonder at all. Perhaps been born dead is absolutely no different to being born alive.
In the next moment. After my death and resurrection. Water was poured over my head, I was baptised the name that would become the bane of my life from then on in – and then I was watched again. It was simple. They waited for me to die. Again.
The possibility of me surviving the starvation of oxygen wasn’t really considered a possibility. I would die. The only real advantage of making me breathe was to wash away the original sin I carried as a newborn innocent babe. And let me tell you, that is a whole other monster. But anyway, cleansed and ready to enter the kingdom of heaven I lay there being watched, while I died.
Spoiler Alert.
I didn’t.
Maybe I was a fighter, possible for some, but it is more likely that it was a mixture of downright stubbornness and an opposition to what the general expectation of me was.
I still laugh though – at some ironies.
That the catholic religion – in this case – saved my life. I’m really not sure they would have woken me up at all if they hadn’t been quite intent on washing the blackness away from me.
But I’ll leave you on this wonder. If I knew then that the first months of our experiences inside the curve of our mother’s bellies was as good as it was going to get – would I have made a different decision? Would we all make a different decision?
I wonder would we choose life – monsters and all – if we had the choice.
Maybe we do and maybe we did.
