| OCR Text |
Show 124 whelming any artistic desires I may have had and I close it once again, flopping back against the pillows in disgust. I cannot even create illusion without someone to help me, I am thinking. I find myself staring at the small agate carving of a polar bear that Kamali, a nurse, has brought me from her vacation. It is sitting on the table next to my bed. She is Native American. American Indian. Indian. We have discussed political correctness and the lack of it. I am "wheelchair-bound." "Crippled." "Sick." There is no social consensus concerning our realities and our labels. None are acceptable to either of us about either of us. We have decided that, to each other at least, we will just be. "It's a totem," she told me as she passed the bear to me in her cupped hands. "It can represent something within you." I took the white carving in my cupped hands and admired its smooth stone. Its sharp ears. Its large stance. Looking at it now, I am finally realizing what it is within me that I am in need of representing. I take the largest bmsh in my fisted hand and plunk it into the water. Smoothing the paper with its potential, I close my eyes to feel the spirit of the bear. It reverberates its presence back to me in waves of strength. |
