I wrote part of this to someone, as an impulse, as a stream, as I was still shaking inside and out with the ripples of the encounter - the first part; the rest is a reflection and an exchange with a delightful array of souls of all sorts - lighter, deeper, more intellectual, more ethereal, pragmatics and dreamers, a combination of two or more and everything in between. The layers will most likely be obvious with almost a tactile quality..you will likely almost be able to touch the overlap; at this point I can't say for sure.
Ben's story ... and mine
Though I was late for work, last minute I decided to grab a coffee in Starbucks...I was waiting for the barista with headphones in...when a middle aged man, kinda scruffy nudges me and says "Sorry, is there a cue?" I look at him a bit confused ( I was the cue), smile and say "Well, it's just me".
He says "I'm disabled, I can't see." And I freeze for a sec... as he says "I was in bad accident, I spent 5 years in hospital." (This struck me even more as we were just talking about how I thought it would be a tragedy to suddenly lose your sight ...you remember the Isaac convo)
Isaac is a poster dog for a fundraising campaign for training of guide dogs and helped sway me donate; of course it wasn't just him - I'm not that naive but I liked having a story, a face and a name. Hook, line and sink'er.
Then he says "Are you afraid of me?" I say "No, not at all" ... And still at that point I don't fully realise what's going on. He hears my name and asks "Where are you from?"
as so many ask upon hearing my name, ever so fickle for Anglo-Saxons; strange, since I normally give my Starbucks alias of Joanna. I didn't this morning.
I say "Romania" and we start talking about travelling for a bit....then he tells me he loves ballet and jumps to say "I'm not gay, I'm not!"
Then ...he says... "I was a stuntman ..I was nominated for an Oscar, my first film was Gladiator. Russell Crowe isn't very nice!" He then jumps again and says "Are you afraid of me? I'm not gonna attack you!"
I say "No, not at all!".... at this point I thought he kept saying this because he must have heard my voice grow fainter as I was walking along to get the coffee. He says..."I had an accident" and I ask what happened...he said "Parachute, I don't remember, I was in hospital for 5 years, my brains were smashed, they thought I was gonna die, they were lovely in hospital...I have no memory." I get the coffee and we say goodbye and I get back to the office...my head kinda spinning.
And I can't settle ...so I grab my coffee and go back ...I thought what if he didn't hear me say goodbye and felt left like that? So I find him, sit down at his table and say "I'm sorry Ben, I must have left in a hurry but I didn't want you to think I'm rude." He says "I'm sorry, I'm disabled , I had an accident"
And then I realise - he doesn't remember...
So we have the exact same conversation again and every now and then, he would say "Are you afraid of me? I'm not gonna attack you, I know you're a woman but I don't want to have sex with you."
This happened every time he reached out and touched my hand, which was on the table, playing with the cup of coffee, while the other was shielding my eyes from the gorgeous morning sun. I probably was not as relaxed as you'd normally be over a cup of coffee, understandably, but I'm not sure if he picks up on such cues. The question would sometimes come out of the blue, without the touch, but certainly accompanied every contact. I realise it’s automatic, more or less, definitely compelling, so I keep ignoring this and ask him questions about himself and he gets over it and starts asking questions about me. He struggles a bit with finding questions to ask and I smile and take the pressure off ( he was probably trying not to lose the momentum in his head) by asking him questions. At this point I'm still a bit sceptical about his story and he says "I have a website do you want to know my full name so you can see?
I don't feel bad for this - I wasn't questioning his intentions but it is a pretty wild story!
He says "Ben Bellman" ...
We keep talking, he says his girlfriend at that time, is now married to someone else and has 2 kids and a lovely husband... "I'm not angry...I was in an accident, they thought I would die....but I'm not angry....she's my best friend...I want to be married to a female and have children"
And here he would pout, like children do, like lovers do when the play act being upset, only, his expression held the deepest sorrow I have ever seen but so fleeing, maybe a second not more and then the most genuine, child-like, whole-heartedly and endearing smile would shine on his face as he would move on to something else.
He lives in Victoria with his 86 year old mum, who is his caregiver and he loves to talk to people.
He loves ballet, especially Russian - he thinks it's beautiful. He taught sports - 10 different kinds but he especially loves triathlons and yoga. He thinks yoga is beautiful, ashtanga yoga in particular. He thinks sports are beautiful and he thinks he only survived his accident because he was so strong. He is aware that if I disappeared for 5 minutes, he wouldn't recognise me. His body is covered in scars, but he only showed me the one at the base of his throat, where the tube went in - it was a deep, cruel scar; he has more but he didn't want to be naked in front of me. He's a vegetarian and seeing as I'm an animal, I shouldn't worry - he wouldn't hurt me anyway.
He gets up every morning at 4 am and stretches for an hour in his room.
He's been to Spain and thinks Barcelona is beautiful; he's also been to Kenya last year and found it beautiful - the animals ( he loves animals, horses in particular, but monkeys are his favourite), he thinks the people there are beautiful, black people are beautiful - "I'm not a racist"
Anyway....as we had finished our coffees and I did have to go back to work....we said goodbye.
I looked him up online: Stuntman, worked on Gladiator, Die Another Day, Band of Brothers,etc, sports teacher,journalist for Time Out.
Busted perception - Russell Crowe is most likely not very nice!
He taught skydiving, parachuting and in 2001, after more than 1000 jumps, his parachute sis not open and he fell for almost 2 miles, smashing all the bones in his body and sustained severe brain damage, which affected his eye sight, though he retained his mobility ( I'm not sure of the time and effort this entailed)...and indeed spent 5 years in hospital in Barcelona...He can't remember anything about the experience - only the events.
I also found a blog post - a guy had written it in 2008 - he ran into him at the underground and gave an account of what they had talked about....it's pretty much the same....a loop....
http://rodcorp.typepad.com/rodcorp/2008/05/im-not-angry.html
But at some point he said "My life is almost over" ( he's 47) and I looked at him and said but it's new every 5-10 minutes and he smiled this HUGE smile and said "yes!"
And since the morning I can’t help but think… I was so wrapped up in myself over the past few years, without even realising it….
and I was overcome by an immense feeling of relief, joy and clarity that I have trouble expressing and verbalising that somehow stemmed from realising a deeper level of it's not all about me - it unlocked the door of my head so I can step out and breathe in the warmth and soak up the sun that today was particularly kind. This is not to take anything away from me - I think of my self lovingly and know I am kind, considerate and altruistic; this has more to do with the feeling of being central to your life experience, less with being self-centred and nothing to do with conceit or selfishness.
I believe this experience, while incredibly humbling, is not meant to cause flagellation.
Ben said I was very kind and I said he was beautiful,as beautiful as yoga, animals, Africa, black people, sports and Barcelona.
And what remains once lucidity, functionality, social and genetic coding are smashed, once the thread is violently torn, while everything becomes BEAUTIFUL, is the need to assure everyone that you are not violent, not angry, not a sexual predator, not gay by mere association, nor racist. The question is WHY?? Did someone (re)teach him that he must repeat these assurances or is it a product of the powerful control that once was, that guided behaviour, that prescribed the subtle and commonly understood cues, suppressing the need to verbalise?
Out of all the people I shared this with, one reaction struck me in particular.Upon reading the story, my dear Spanish friend said " Que penita" ( one would normally say Que pena! to mean - What a shame! or What a heartbreak!, more like it) But he used the diminutive, which in this case diminishes nothing but humanises the sentiment that much more.
