I know a man who soars above the city every night. In his dreams, he twirls and swirls with his toes kissing the Earth. Everything has motion, he claims, even a body as paralyzed as his own. This man is my father.
Znam čoveka koji se uzdiže iznad grada svake noći. U svojim snovima on se vitla i kovitla i stopalima ljubi tlo. Sve se pokreće, on tvrdi, čak i telo paralizovano kao njegovo. Ovaj čovek je moj otac.
Three years ago, when I found out that my father had suffered a severe stroke in his brain stem, I walked into his room in the ICU at the Montreal Neurological Institute and found him lying deathly still, tethered to a breathing machine. Paralysis had closed over his body slowly, beginning in his toes, then legs, torso, fingers and arms. It made its way up his neck, cutting off his ability to breathe, and stopped just beneath the eyes. He never lost consciousness. Rather, he watched from within as his body shut down, limb by limb, muscle by muscle.
Pre tri godine, kada sam otkrila da je moj otac pretrpeo ozbiljan infarkt u moždanom stablu, ušla sam u njegovu sobu na intenzivnoj nezi na Neurološkom institutu u Montrealu i našla ga kako leži smrtno miran, prikačen na mašinu za disanje. Paraliza je pokorila njegovo telo polako, počevši u nožnim prstima, pa nogama, trupu, prstima i rukama. Pronašla je svoj put do vrata, presecajući njegovu mogućnost da diše, i zastala ispod očiju. Nikada nije izgubio svest. Posmatrao je iznutra kako mu se telo gasi, ud po ud, mišić po mišić.
In that ICU room, I walked up to my father's body,
U toj sobi, prišla sam telu svog oca,
and with a quivering voice and through tears, I began reciting the alphabet. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K. At K, he blinked his eyes. I began again. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I. He blinked again at the letter I, then at T, then at R, and A: Kitra. He said "Kitra, my beauty, don't cry. This is a blessing." There was no audible voice, but my father called out my name powerfully. Just 72 hours after his stroke, he had already embraced the totality of his condition. Despite his extreme physical state, he was completely present with me, guiding, nurturing, and being my father as much if not more than ever before.
i drhtavim glasom i kroz suze, počela da izgovaram abecedu. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K. Na K je trepnuo. Počela sam ponovo. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I. Ponovo je trepnuo na slovo I, pa T, onda R, pa A: Kitra. Rekao je "Kitra, lepoto moja, nemoj da plačeš. Ovo je blagoslov." Nije bilo zvuka, ali je moj otac pozvao moje ime snažno. Samo 72 sata posle udara, već je prigrlio celinu svog stanja. Uprkos njegovom ekstremnom fizičkom stanju, bio je u potpunosti prisutan sa mnom, vodeći, negujući, i bivavši moj otac toliko ako ne i više nego pre.
Locked-in syndrome is many people's worst nightmare. In French, it's sometimes called "maladie de l'emmuré vivant." Literally, "walled-in-alive disease." For many people, perhaps most, paralysis is an unspeakable horror, but my father's experience losing every system of his body was not an experience of feeling trapped, but rather of turning the psyche inwards, dimming down the external chatter, facing the recesses of his own mind, and in that place, falling in love with life and body anew.
Sindrom: zarobljen u svom telu je noćna mora većine ljudi. Na francuskom je ponekad nazvan "maladie de l'emmuré vivant". Doslovno, "oboljenje živ sahranjen". Za mnogo ljudi, većinu možda, paraliza je neizreciv horor, ali iskustvo moga oca koji gubi svaki sistem svog tela nije bilo iskustvo osećaja zarobljenosti, već okretanje psihi, zatamnjivanje spoljašnjeg izgleda, suočavanje sa dubinama njegovog uma, i u tom trenutku, zaljubljivanje u život i telo iznova.
As a rabbi and spiritual man dangling between mind and body, life and death, the paralysis opened up a new awareness for him. He realized he no longer needed to look beyond the corporeal world in order to find the divine. "Paradise is in this body. It's in this world," he said.
Kao rabin i duhovna osoba njišući se između uma i tela, života i smrti, paraliza mu je otvorila nove vidike. Shvatio je da više nije morao da gleda izvan telesnog sveta da bi pronašao božansko. "Raj je u ovom telu. Na ovom je svetu," rekao je.
I slept by my father's side for the first four months, tending as much as I could to his every discomfort, understanding the deep human psychological fear of not being able to call out for help. My mother, sisters, brother and I, we surrounded him in a cocoon of healing. We became his mouthpiece, spending hours each day reciting the alphabet as he whispered back sermons and poetry with blinks of his eye. His room, it became our temple of healing. His bedside became a site for those seeking advice and spiritual counsel, and through us, my father was able to speak and uplift, letter by letter, blink by blink. Everything in our world became slow and tender as the din, drama and death of the hospital ward faded into the background. I want to read to you one of the first things that we transcribed in the week following the stroke. He composed a letter, addressing his synagogue congregation, and ended it with the following lines: "When my nape exploded, I entered another dimension: inchoate, sub-planetary, protozoan. Universes are opened and closed continually. There are many when low, who stop growing. Last week, I was brought so low, but I felt the hand of my father around me, and my father brought me back."
Spavala sam pored njega prva četiri meseca, negujući koliko sam mogla svaku njegovu nelagodnost, razumevajući dubok ljudski psihološki strah nemogućnosti da se pozove u pomoć. Moja majka, sestre, brat i ja smo ga zatvorili u čauru isceljenja. Postali smo njegovi portparoli provodeći sate svakoga dana recitujući abecedu, dok je on šaputao propovedi i poeziju treptajima oka. Njegova soba postala je hram isceljenja. Njegova postelja postala je mesto za one koji traže savet i duhovnu utehu, i kroz nas moj otac mogao je da govori i stimuliše, slovo po slovo, treptaj po treptaj. Sve je u našem svetu postalo sporije i nežnije dok su buka, drama i smrt bolničkog odeljenja bledeli u pozadini. Želim da vam pročitam jednu od prvih stvari koju smo zapisali u nedelji posle udara. Sastavio je pismo, obraćajući se svojoj zajednici u sinagogi, i završio ga sledećim redovima: "Kada je moj potiljak eksplodirao, ušao sam u drugu dimenziju: početnu, nadplanetarnu, protozoansku. Univerzumi se otvaraju i zatvaraju stalno. Postoje mnogi koji, kada je nisko, prestaju da rastu. Prošle nedelje, pao sam tako nisko, ali sam osetio ruku svoga oca oko sebe, i moj otac vratio me je nazad."
When we weren't his voice, we were his legs and arms. I moved them like I know I would have wanted my own arms and legs to be moved were they still for all the hours of the day. I remember I'd hold his fingers near my face, bending each joint to keep it soft and limber. I'd ask him again and again to visualize the motion, to watch from within as the finger curled and extended, and to move along with it in his mind.
Kada mi nismo bili njegov glas, bili smo njegove noge i ruke. Pomerala sam ih kao da sam znala kako bih želela da moje ruke i noge budu pomerane kada bi bile mirne sve sate u toku dana. Sećam se da bih držala njegove prste blizu svog lica, savijajući svaki zglob da bi ostao mek i savitljiv. Pitala bih ga iznova i iznova da vizualizuje pokrete, da posmatra iznutra dok se prst uvija i ispravlja, i da se kreće zajedno sa njim u svom umu.
Then, one day, from the corner of my eye, I saw his body slither like a snake, an involuntary spasm passing through the course of his limbs. At first, I thought it was my own hallucination, having spent so much time tending to this one body, so desperate to see anything react on its own. But he told me he felt tingles, sparks of electricity flickering on and off just beneath the surface of the skin. The following week, he began ever so slightly to show muscle resistance. Connections were being made. Body was slowly and gently reawakening, limb by limb, muscle by muscle, twitch by twitch.
Onda, jednog dana, krajičkom svog oka, videla sam kako njegovo telo klizi kao zmija, nehotičan trzaj prolazi kroz tok njegovih udova. Isprva, mislila sam da haluciniram, provevši toliko vremena negujući ovo jedno telo, tako očajno želeći da vidim da bilo šta samostalno reaguje. Ali mi je rekao da je osetio golicanje, iskre elektriciteta koje se pale i gase ispod površine kože. Sledeće nedelje, počeo je da neznatno pokazuje otpor mišića. Povezanost je napravljena. Telo se polako i nežno ponovo budilo, ud po ud, mišić po mišić, trzaj po trzaj.
As a documentary photographer, I felt the need to photograph each of his first movements like a mother with her newborn. I photographed him taking his first unaided breath, the celebratory moment after he showed muscle resistance for the very first time, the new adapted technologies that allowed him to gain more and more independence. I photographed the care and the love that surrounded him.
Kao dokumentarni fotograf, osetila sam potrebu da fotografišem svaki od ovih prvih pokreta kao majka svoje novorođenče. Fotografisala sam ga kako uzima svoj prvi nepomognut uzdah, slavljenički trenutak nakon što je pokazao otpor mišića po prvi put, nove tehnologije prilagođene da mu dozvole da stekne sve više i više nezavisnosti. Fotografisala sam brigu i ljubav koja ga je okruživala.
But my photographs only told the outside story of a man lying in a hospital bed attached to a breathing machine. I wasn't able to portray his story from within, and so I began to search for a new visual language, one which strived to express the ephemeral quality of his spiritual experience.
Ali moje slike pričaju samo spoljašnju priču čoveka koji leži u bolničkom krevetu privezan na mašinu za disanje. Nisam bila u mogućnosti da oslikam njegovu priču iznutra, pa sam počela da tragam za novim vizuelnim jezikom, onim koji teži da izrazi kvalitet kratkotrajnosti duhovnog iskustva.
Finally, I want to share with you a video from a series that I've been working on that tries to express the slow, in-between existence that my father has experienced. As he began to regain his ability to breathe, I started recording his thoughts, and so the voice that you hear in this video is his voice.
Na kraju, želim da podelim sa vama video iz serije na kojoj radim, koja pokušava da izrazi usporeno postojanje između, koje je moj otac doživeo. Kada je počeo da povraća svoju sposobnost da diše, počela sam da snimam njegove misli, pa je glas koji čujete na ovom videu njegov glas.
(Video) Ronnie Cahana: You have to believe you're paralyzed to play the part of a quadriplegic. I don't. In my mind, and in my dreams every night I Chagall-man float over the city twirl and swirl with my toes kissing the floor. I know nothing about the statement of man without motion. Everything has motion. The heart pumps. The body heaves. The mouth moves. We never stagnate. Life triumphs up and down.
(Video) Roni Kahana: Morate da verujete da ste paralizovani da biste odigrali ulogu kvadriplegičara. Ja ne verujem. U svom umu i svojim snovima svake noći ja Šigal-čovek lebdim iznad grada, vitlam i kovitlam i stopalima ljubim tlo. Ne znam ništa o izrazu čoveka bez kretanja. Sve ima pokrete. Srce pumpa. Telo se podiže. Usne se pomeraju. Nikada ne mirujemo. Život trijumfuje gore i dole.
Kitra Cahana: For most of us, our muscles begin to twitch and move long before we are conscious, but my father tells me his privilege is living on the far periphery of the human experience. Like an astronaut who sees a perspective that very few of us will ever get to share, he wonders and watches as he takes his first breaths and dreams about crawling back home. So begins life at 57, he says. A toddler has no attitude in its being, but a man insists on his world every day.
Kitra Kahana: Za većinu nas, naši mišići počinju da se grče i pomeraju mnogo pre nego što smo svesni, ali moj otac kaže da je njegova privilegija život na dalekoj periferiji ljudskog iskustva. Kao astronaut koji vidi perspektivu koju će mali broj nas moći da podeli, on se čudi i posmatra dok uzima svoje prve uzdahe i sanja da se puzeći vrati kući. Tako počinje život u 57-oj, on kaže. Beba nema stav u svom biću, ali čovek insistira na svom svetu svakoga dana.
Few of us will ever have to face physical limitations to the degree that my father has, but we will all have moments of paralysis in our lives. I know I frequently confront walls that feel completely unscalable, but my father insists that there are no dead ends. Instead, he invites me into his space of co-healing to give the very best of myself, and for him to give the very best of himself to me. Paralysis was an opening for him. It was an opportunity to emerge, to rekindle life force, to sit still long enough with himself so as to fall in love with the full continuum of creation.
Malo nas će ikada morati da se suoči sa fizičkim ograničenjima do te mere kao moj otac, ali ćemo svi imati momente paralize u svojim životima. Znam da se ja često suočavam sa zidovima koji se čine kompletno nedostižnim, ali moj otac insistira da ne postoje ćorsokaci. Umesto toga, on me pozove u svoj prostor isceljenja da dam najbolje od sebe, i za njega da da najbolje od sebe za mene. Paraliza je bila otvaranje za njega. To je bila prilika da razjasni, ponovo zapali životnu snagu, da dovoljno dugo mirno sedi sam sa sobom da se ponovo zaljubi u punu beskonačnost stvaranja.
Today, my father is no longer locked in. He moves his neck with ease, has had his feeding peg removed, breathes with his own lungs, speaks slowly with his own quiet voice, and works every day to gain more movement in his paralyzed body. But the work will never be finished. As he says, "I'm living in a broken world, and there is holy work to do."
Danas, moj otac više nije zaključan. Pokreće svoj vrat sa lakoćom, klin za hranjenje mu je uklonjen, diše sopstvenim plućima, govori polako sopstvenim tihim glasom, i radi svakog dana na tome da stekne više pokreta u svom paralizovanom telu. Ali posao nikada neće biti završen. Kao što on kaže, "Živim u pokvarenom svetu, i imam svetog posla da radim."
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)