Ya never know what’ll happen at the dentist.
While chewing a bagel – always a bagel – something hard appeared on my tongue, and I knew what it was instantly: another broken crown. This would be my third in a year, and of course I had to go to the dentist to have it checked out. The other two were found to have remained more or less intact, and all the dentist had to do was file off the sharp edges, but this one, she told me later with sadness in her eyes, would require a replacement. I soon found out her reason for empathy – it wouldn’t be cheap. But do it I must, and an appointment was made for a week later to get the imprint and a fake temporary tooth while they made the real thing, which I was assured would be with me long after the flesh had melted off my bones.
I had assumed that having the old one taken out would be painless, but the dental assistant, a young Mexican woman (she was actually Mexican born, having moved first to Texas at age 4) first asked me if I wanted the Novocain or whatever shot. “What, is it going to hurt?” “It all depends – what is your pain tolerance threshold?” That was enough for me. The shot went in, which hurt, too, but nothing like the real - deal dental pain, which is one of the worst in the world (see Marathon Man with Dustin Hoffman for a painful reminder). We had to wait for the numbing to take effect, and sometime later she appeared again, the time not quite up. We started to talk.
I don’t recall how it started – I think she asked me what I did for a living, and I went through the sad, tragic, comical, stupid and whatever track of my anthropological career, which then led to writing books. I told her that I was about to publish my second book, one of essays that took events from my life and of those around me and found the deeper spiritual meaning behind them (FYI, hopefully, at last, this book should be published for Amazon and Kindle by September). She asked me what I meant, and I told her, “There is much more to life than we usually think. We are part of the cosmos, and everything that happens here is a reflection of the greatness of this cosmos, filled with a meaning that is deep and hard to grasp, but directed.” Finishing, I noticed a change in her attitude. She had been stoked, and soon after came her story.
“We’re from a small village in central Mexico and my grandmother and mother were into the spirit world. My grandmother did terrible things……(ah, said I, showing I understood – she was a bruja – witch, not simply a curandera - healer)……but not my mother who only healed people. In two weeks she cured three people with supposedly incurable cancer. She said that she had to let go of all bad feelings before she did a healing. Now she can’t, so she can’t heal any longer.”
Pause.
“I see spirits all the time, especially when I was younger. Good spirits and bad spirits too. I have dreams that always come true. My mother says that I should be a healer, but I’m afraid because I can’t handle the bad spirits. If I don’t think about them, they usually don’t come. My boyfriend (a “white man,” she told me) has seen me go through all this and he knows. Sometimes I think I’m going crazy.”
I told her I had lived in Mexico as well as other places in Latin America and that I have read a lot about this, and that she was not going crazy, to which she seemed both relieved and scared. Relieved for obvious reasons, and scared because she really didn’t want this stuff to be true. It scared the crap out of her. She had a prescription medication for anxiety, and that seemed to help. I told her that she was probably stuck with it and would have to face her “power” sooner or later (maybe I was wrong to say this. It just came out.) And that she should get a teacher to help her. And that she should never do anything for pure gain, or for evil.
“I know,” she sighed, having probably heard it all before. “I can’t avoid a lot of this Just this week I made three stop lights go out when I drove up to them. It’s the power coming out.”
She told me that she was interested in writing, and I pushed her to do so. “You learn so much about yourself and what’s going on,” I said, and continued. “We usually have this face, not on purpose, that we take to be the real “us,” but it’s only a superficial mask. Beneath it is an infinity of self, and writing helps it to come out. I often surprise myself when I write.”
She look at me bewildered at the idea that we have a mask that is unconscious. One that we put on on purpose to disguise our feelings, yes, but not one that operates outside our conscious will, and for her, she might be right – for her, maybe her closeness to the spirits doesn’t allow her to get too lost in her mask.
But then she went on. “I know. I think everything is done for a bigger purpose, and little things are all big things.” I noticed that her voice was shaking just as she said, “this is all giving me goose bumps.”
Alarmed, for at this point the old tooth had been drilled out (by the dentist in between our talking) and she was preparing to paste in the temporary, I said, “Ok, OK forget it! Concentrate on my tooth!”
She continued working, but didn’t stop the conversation. To date, the tooth has held up. I think she might begin to write, or at least to look at her talent in a different way. Which, I think, she has too. I do not think this stuff goes away, not if it follows you into full adulthood, and not if you’re a Mexican raised with such beliefs, and you have a very strong maternal tradition for such stuff as well.
I had told her that I did not have such gifts. I didn’t tell her that I was glad that I didn’t, but I am. I understand this stuff from the edges, just enough to get the goosebumps myself, but not enough to cause me to run to the doctor for tranquilizers. At least not yet. It is a burden and has traditionally been understood as such. Some people are predisposed for such insight, and with the help of a traditional culture, it grows in them, but it is not wished for by others. They know the burden and don’t want to be woken regularly by spirits and ghosts, or even angels. We are delicate little things, we who are trapped in our “faces” and we would usually rather live a dull life than one on the edge of the cosmos – where we really already are. We are like people on the edge of a cliff, with all of us yelling collectively, “don’t’ look down!”
I might see her again next visit, and who knows? Maybe she’ll have found an answer to her problem gift. But remember, the next time you go to the dentist – or anywhere else that seems uninteresting – the attendant just might be seeing spirits and perhaps even your own future. She or he might know a lot about you and everyone else that is never said and you should probably be glad in this. It is a fearsome thing, this life when looked on full, as are the gifts that allows one to see deeper into its maw.
Thomas Cahill, a researcher and writer of many historical books, has written one called How the Irish Saved Western Civilization. It is about how the monks of the Island saved the many books and liturgy of the west from the barbarian hordes after the collapse of the Roman Empire, but it is this point in it that I will never forget. Says Cahill, (my paraphrase) “The Irish were persecuted by spirits everywhere they went, and terrified of them. They would drink themselves into a stupor at night to get rid of them, but back they would come, everything and every occurrence connecting them to a frightening spiritual realm. When Christianity was offered to them, they alone of all large cultures welcomed it with open arms, casting aside their torturing spirits as fast as they could.” Should I tell the dental assistant this? I don’t know –as an anthropologist, I don’t want to destroy her gift. But the fear, the fear…
I supposed she already knows of such alternatives as religion and will decide for herself. Good luck to her - really. All in all, you never know what will happen at the dentist, or, come to think of it, anyplace else. FK
Ya never know what’ll happen at the dentist.
While chewing a bagel – always a bagel – something hard appeared on my tongue, and I knew what it was instantly: another broken crown. This would be my third in a year, and of course I had to go to the dentist to have it checked out. The other two were found to have remained more or less intact, and all the dentist had to do was file off the sharp edges, but this one, she told me later with sadness in her eyes, would require a replacement. I soon found out her reason for empathy – it wouldn’t be cheap. But do it I must, and an appointment was made for a week later to get the imprint and a fake temporary tooth while they made the real thing, which I was assured would be with me long after the flesh had melted off my bones.
I had assumed that having the old one taken out would be painless, but the dental assistant, a young Mexican woman (she was actually Mexican born, having moved first to Texas at age 4) first asked me if I wanted the Novocain or whatever shot. “What, is it going to hurt?” “It all depends – what is your pain tolerance threshold?” That was enough for me. The shot went in, which hurt, too, but nothing like the real - deal dental pain, which is one of the worst in the world (see Marathon Man with Dustin Hoffman for a painful reminder). We had to wait for the numbing to take effect, and sometime later she appeared again, the time not quite up. We started to talk.
I don’t recall how it started – I think she asked me what I did for a living, and I went through the sad, tragic, comical, stupid and whatever track of my anthropological career, which then led to writing books. I told her that I was about to publish my second book, one of essays that took events from my life and of those around me and found the deeper spiritual meaning behind them (FYI, hopefully, at last, this book should be published for Amazon and Kindle by September). She asked me what I meant, and I told her, “There is much more to life than we usually think. We are part of the cosmos, and everything that happens here is a reflection of the greatness of this cosmos, filled with a meaning that is deep and hard to grasp, but directed.” Finishing, I noticed a change in her attitude. She had been stoked, and soon after came her story.
“We’re from a small village in central Mexico and my grandmother and mother were into the spirit world. My grandmother did terrible things……(ah, said I, showing I understood – she was a bruja – witch, not simply a curandera - healer)……but not my mother who only healed people. In two weeks she cured three people with supposedly incurable cancer. She said that she had to let go of all bad feelings before she did a healing. Now she can’t, so she can’t heal any longer.”
Pause.
“I see spirits all the time, especially when I was younger. Good spirits and bad spirits too. I have dreams that always come true. My mother says that I should be a healer, but I’m afraid because I can’t handle the bad spirits. If I don’t think about them, they usually don’t come. My boyfriend (a “white man,” she told me) has seen me go through all this and he knows. Sometimes I think I’m going crazy.”
I told her I had lived in Mexico as well as other places in Latin America and that I have read a lot about this, and that she was not going crazy, to which she seemed both relieved and scared. Relieved for obvious reasons, and scared because she really didn’t want this stuff to be true. It scared the crap out of her. She had a prescription medication for anxiety, and that seemed to help. I told her that she was probably stuck with it and would have to face her “power” sooner or later (maybe I was wrong to say this. It just came out.) And that she should get a teacher to help her. And that she should never do anything for pure gain, or for evil.
“I know,” she sighed, having probably heard it all before. “I can’t avoid a lot of this Just this week I made three stop lights go out when I drove up to them. It’s the power coming out.”
She told me that she was interested in writing, and I pushed her to do so. “You learn so much about yourself and what’s going on,” I said, and continued. “We usually have this face, not on purpose, that we take to be the real “us,” but it’s only a superficial mask. Beneath it is an infinity of self, and writing helps it to come out. I often surprise myself when I write.”
She look at me bewildered at the idea that we have a mask that is unconscious. One that we put on on purpose to disguise our feelings, yes, but not one that operates outside our conscious will, and for her, she might be right – for her, maybe her closeness to the spirits doesn’t allow her to get too lost in her mask.
But then she went on. “I know. I think everything is done for a bigger purpose, and little things are all big things.” I noticed that her voice was shaking just as she said, “this is all giving me goose bumps.”
Alarmed, for at this point the old tooth had been drilled out (by the dentist in between our talking) and she was preparing to paste in the temporary, I said, “Ok, OK forget it! Concentrate on my tooth!”
She continued working, but didn’t stop the conversation. To date, the tooth has held up. I think she might begin to write, or at least to look at her talent in a different way. Which, I think, she has too. I do not think this stuff goes away, not if it follows you into full adulthood, and not if you’re a Mexican raised with such beliefs, and you have a very strong maternal tradition for such stuff as well.
I had told her that I did not have such gifts. I didn’t tell her that I was glad that I didn’t, but I am. I understand this stuff from the edges, just enough to get the goosebumps myself, but not enough to cause me to run to the doctor for tranquilizers. At least not yet. It is a burden and has traditionally been understood as such. Some people are predisposed for such insight, and with the help of a traditional culture, it grows in them, but it is not wished for by others. They know the burden and don’t want to be woken regularly by spirits and ghosts, or even angels. We are delicate little things, we who are trapped in our “faces” and we would usually rather live a dull life than one on the edge of the cosmos – where we really already are. We are like people on the edge of a cliff, with all of us yelling collectively, “don’t’ look down!”
I might see her again next visit, and who knows? Maybe she’ll have found an answer to her problem gift. But remember, the next time you go to the dentist – or anywhere else that seems uninteresting – the attendant just might be seeing spirits and perhaps even your own future. She or he might know a lot about you and everyone else that is never said and you should probably be glad in this. It is a fearsome thing, this life when looked on full, as are the gifts that allows one to see deeper into its maw.
Thomas Cahill, a researcher and writer of many historical books, has written one called How the Irish Saved Western Civilization. It is about how the monks of the Island saved the many books and liturgy of the west from the barbarian hordes after the collapse of the Roman Empire, but it is this point in it that I will never forget. Says Cahill, (my paraphrase) “The Irish were persecuted by spirits everywhere they went, and terrified of them. They would drink themselves into a stupor at night to get rid of them, but back they would come, everything and every occurrence connecting them to a frightening spiritual realm. When Christianity was offered to them, they alone of all large cultures welcomed it with open arms, casting aside their torturing spirits as fast as they could.” Should I tell the dental assistant this? I don’t know –as an anthropologist, I don’t want to destroy her gift. But the fear, the fear…
I supposed she already knows of such alternatives as religion and will decide for herself. Good luck to her - really. All in all, you never know what will happen at the dentist, or, come to think of it, anyplace else. FK
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