Strange Fruit.

artwork by Diana Bryan - "Strange Fruit"

There's this thing about blogging that is very different than writing for any other venue. Like. . .book authors write and yes, all kinds of people read their work. And. A few of them even write so well that other folks write reviews or whatever on places like Amazon.com or somewhere sho nuff and bona fide like The New York Times or People Weekly. (Yes, People is bona fide.)

But see. . .before you can get to that point, you first have to write something. Then rewrite it. Then revise it. Then re-revise it. Then get somebody to represent you. Then get that person to get someone agree to publish it. That person will then tell you that, oh, you need to revise it. And then re-revise it. In case you haven't realized by now, all that takes some time.

But blogging is different. You think of something. You write about it. And with the click of a mouse (or tracking pad) you hit "publish." Then--BOOM--just like  that, your words are published and ready for the world to read.

Now besides the obvious things like immediate feedback through comments and stats. . . there's this other phenomenon that I have come to recognize as of late. See, with blogging you start to have these friends that read your words without fail. And though I bet that a lot of people don't necessarily read every blog every day, most will tell you that just about every blogger (bleccch, is there a better word for person-who-writes-a-blog than "blogger?") has a small number of people that they know for sure read nearly everything they write. So even if you have 772 public followers, somewhere in the back of your head, you realize that you have this little round table of knights gobbling up your words no matter what you happen to serve up.

Some are the type that immediately leave you a comment--which is awesome. But you know. . .over time. . I've learned that some of your main knights never, ever comment because that's just not their thing. In fact, two of my most faithful knights at my round table Lesley M. and Carol R. might just shoot me an email if the spirit so moves them, but comment in the comment box? No way.

And that's cool. Because I know they read and that's enough. It warms my heart just knowing that much. I've said it before and I will say it again--I deeply appreciate anybody reading what I write. Even one post per month.

Now. Here's the point of all this.  The point is that once you start knowing who your knights are, they become a consideration in the things you write. No, I don't change what I'm writing or censor things. . . .but I do find myself thinking, I wonder what my mother (Shugsie) will think about this post? or Aw, man! I can't wait to get Sister Moon's take on this one! Sometimes I write a slang word and think, Uh oh, will my New Zealand Lucy get this?

And ofttimes I open a comment or an email and find out the answers to those questions immediately. Other times, I just think about the people reading and wonder things. And sometimes thinking about my reader-friends and how they might be reacting to things makes me think of my posts differently. I go back and reread them and then imagine it from another person's perspective. Weird, I know.

So.

Here's the thing that this process has brought me to today.

A couple of days ago, I revisited an encounter I'd had a while back with a patient who'd been previously incarcerated. As many of you already know, I was stunned to discover that he'd had swastikas tattooed all over his body from the penitentiary days.  He was embarrassed and remorseful about them, and even more ashamed of his prior involvement in a supremacist jail gang. I thought about his feelings and decided to do what I could to normalize the situation. Hearing on my mental iPod the Redemption Song the whole time.

Now.

I reread that and all the kind comments that followed and found myself thinking. I thought, As horrible and awful as swastikas are to see up close and personal. . . . the truth is. . . what they mean symbolically is not to ME what it might be to someone else. Specifically a few members of my round table.

So I thought of them this morning. I thought of Neil W. and Lesley M. who are of Jewish faith and who might immediately well up with tears when anyone anywhere mentions anything about the horrors of the Holocaust that, yes, sure did happen.

And so I asked myself. What would have been that symbol for me? Like. . .what if instead of a swastika on that man's back, I'd instead seen a black man hanging like some strange fruit from a highly detailed noose on a poplar tree? What if my own loved one somewhere a few generations back had been that strange fruit hanging in a summer breeze while people snarled and applauded below? What if? What if on that tattoo he'd had an intricate portrayal of African men and women stacked up in rows on slave ships from the middle passage? And what if underneath all of that in BIG BLOCK LETTERS he had the N-WORD written repeatedly next to the words "GO BACK TO AFRICA, COON!"

Would I. . . could I. . .have come back to shake his hand? Even if he didn't mean it anymore and even if I knew for certain that he'd been in that warped-ass world of the federal pen? Well? Would the Redemption song have still been playing for me on my mental iPod or would I have needed to run and open a window to get some air? The truth is that I don't know. I really don't.

I spoke to Neil W. about this today and asked what he thought. I knew he'd read the post because he sits squarely at my round table so I thought of his perspective. And I know for certain that he has a heart of pure platinum and the patience of Job.

"I would have taken care of him and that's it," Neil replied. "I don't think I would have been able to do much else."

And that was telling. Very telling.  So I closed my eyes and thought of those images of human beings being shoveled into mass graves. I saw Anne Frank with her quiet eyes and even more, imagined the real, life family members who literally lost lives and futures all at the hands of people represented by swastikas.

Damn.

Let me be clear. I still don't know what I would have done if what I'd seen had been something as painful to me, an African American person, as the swastika might be to a Jewish person. I don't for sure. It's hard for me to say whether or not at this point in my life I would have simply stuck to business only or still done the same thing. And no, I don't sit around comparing horrors and persecutions to see whose people win because I know for certain that nobody wins when it comes to that. I guess I'm just glad that I have all kinds of people at my round table to getting me thinking about all kinds of things. Including how they feel.

So yeah.

This is a useful thing about this blog. I think the knights of my round table make me a better doctor because I think differently. And that's a really, really good thing.

So to each and every knight sitting at my round table, I say thank you. To those I know, to those I don't know, to those who comment, to those who never comment, to those who open this up in Google reader, to those who scroll through iPhones and iPads, and to those who sneak a peak at work or in class--thank you. Because thanks to you, this black woman with Southern ties from Los Angeles who goes to soccer games on Saturdays and church on Sundays gets to hold hands with you. . . who may have absolutely everything in common with me. . . or nothing at all.

But here? Here is where we meet and think and talk and hang out. We teach, we learn, we care and we grow. . . together. That's our common denominator.

And I 'preciate y'all. All of y'all.

***
Happy Tuesday-almost-Wednesday

Now playing on my mental iPod. . . .Lady Day sings "Strange Fruit". . .and hearing it, combined with the image above, made me cry. Hmmm.