Bruise

One day recently I got home from school in a grumpy mood; never mind all the reasons why. My husband and son left to do their thing, and I stewed at home by myself. I decided this must stop and took myself out for a walk, changing my shoes but otherwise just in my teaching clothes. My sole purpose: to become a happier person.

I was still within sight of my house when I slid on some sand in front of someone’s gate and landed, hard, on my knee. I tore a hole in my work pants and staggered to my feet with a large black stain on the green linen. Fortunately there wasn’t a crowd to see this happen; a man inside the gate began to talk about how dangerous it was to walk around, and I agreed with him, and kept going, embarrassed and with a smarting leg. I was tempted to head back home, but I had definitely not achieved the purpose of my walk, so I didn’t. I kept on.

Before long the fall began to seem emblematic of the walk. I encountered a dead dog that someone had apparently hit with their car. I stepped over it and kept going. I passed a funeral home and began to think even more gloomy thoughts. I passed the first apartment where my husband and I lived when we moved to Haiti 26 years ago. Instead of focusing on happy memories from those times, I began to scorn my younger self, so full of hope and idealism and cluelessness.

Life is all disappointment and loss, I told myself, as I finished up my walk and headed home. I didn’t even take pictures as I normally do; I’d seen it all before. Why bother?

A few days later, as I soaped myself in the shower, I took a moment to examine my wounds a little more closely. My bony elderly knee was bright yellow, almost a primary color in its brightness. It was covered in spectacular scabs such as I used to have all the time when I was seven or eight years old. I bent it experimentally, but it wasn’t sore, just ugly.

Suddenly I saw that my walk wasn’t about the fall, but about the healing from the fall. Yes, I keep losing and messing up and falling down, but I also keep getting back up. Sometimes people make comments, and I answer them in Kreyol. If they make fun of me, I scold them for talking like that to a granmoun, an older person. But usually they are friendly or indifferent, informing me that I am out walking, or asking me why I am taking pictures, or just ignoring me. They mostly tolerate my oddness and seem to feel I belong here, or at least that I’m not a horrible interloper. 

I’ve been walking in this neighborhood for half my life, alone and with others, pregnant and with babies, grumpy and cheerful. Am I a happier person because my walk, both literal and metaphorical, has taken me down these streets? Who knows? That’s maybe not what matters so much; what matters is that I don’t stop. I keep going, and I keep greeting people, and looking for beautiful things, and healing and getting hurt again and healing some more. This yellow bruise won’t last; it will give way to other yellow and purple and red coloration. But I'll keep going. For as long as I can, I’ll just keep walking down the road.