Truth Thursday: Today I Leave Behind

When I was ten, our family dentist spent all of five minutes tapping the smooth shells of my new, permanent teeth. No cavities, again! I remember my mother--before she traded in her pencil skirts, flared slacks, and white, starched blouses for much more informal wear--shaking her head, making an impatient noise, waiting for my brother already half an hour in the dentist's chair. At the end of our examination, the dentist beams at me. She has an oval, owlish face and she calls me by the nickname only my mother and brother use. I was a chunky, moody child so the instances I remember feeling proud of my body as a whole or specific (problem) areas were few and far between and I remember this moment at the dentist's every time I am obligated to visit her whitewashed office (her operating area used to be only a couple of meters wide; though her space, now, is far improved, she continues to use the same faded green chair, the same dirty yellow lamp).

More than a decade down the line,  I will wake up with a mouth riddled with holes. Since I had my braces removed as a college freshman, I've gotten used to canker sores brought on by erratic weather. I have a tiny wound on my tongue where I drew blood investigating a cavity.

The real story is what happened when I looked up. I finally caught a cab to the dentist's office. We passed a school's billboard with a familiar name spelled out in white cardboard. I'm writing this for Truth Thursday so I will be honest and say it aloud, how a tiny part of me contracted in pain, some leftover reflex from grief. I don't know why (the concept of) leaving and departure must dredge up images and memories of pain. Maybe because when we were all young, we flinched. We were taught the balm of distance.  I guess what we're not taught is how there is pain even in absence and in leaving but suffering and pain are two different things. Given the chance, I would take the pain, which can teach and inspire and create. 

Under the yellow lamp and breathing beneath her prodding fingers, I search for a focal point to stare at but the ceiling is riddled with sharp corners. She is wearing a pair of pearl earrings as she drills hole after hole. Half my face is frozen from anesthetic and my tongue is a slug in the cave of my mouth. The drill screeches and whirrs and that's what I'm most afraid of, the sound and anticipating the bite of the drill. I have to unclench my hands. I think, she is drilling me full of holes.     



This week's Truth Thursday. Go join!