Mimesis

Chills. Sweats. Nausea. Constant desire to crawl into a hole never to return. Been there? Many times this is just common place when you live in a country that sells awesome, but not always clean, street food. For the last six days I’ve been traveling the road of food poisoning. This in and of itself is not such an issue, although one I certainly don’t need to repeat. There is no pleasantness in this form of discomfort but it is livable.

This time was different though. The crawl in the hole part was much the same but the chills and sweats were replaced with a draining fatigue actively extracting energy at every moment of my consciousness. If given a choice I’m sure I would have just closed my eyes and hoped to wake at some time in the future, but there was no such choice. Between dragging my deteriorating body from one room to the next it was the driving knowledge that in spite of my present ailments, aches, and dare I say it attitude, my focus could not be about me. I was here for a greater purpose.

I’m sure my son thought I was trying a new teaching approach to get him to crawl as I regularly pulled my body across the floor towards him. After his initial staring at my attempts of mobility, he most likely thought I was mocking him, he realized there was a possibility of freedom if I ever reached him. No doubt he would interpret his cries as encouragement for me to get there sooner. One wretched day he seemed to encourage me a bit more. Seems he was desperate to be free from the disturbingly uncomfortable stench wafting into the air. Of course smell is a trigger point for all kinds of emotions, and it did. Then it intensified my nausea causing me to turn and crawl back towards the toilet. With my departure Joshua’s cries pierced louder leading me to turn back to him. And there it was, that awkward moment where you find yourself lying on the floor halfway between the toilet and the crib, reduced to the mere mortal who realizes they have no control over life itself. If there had been an observer I’m sure this would have been a moment of farce watching a grown man on the floor flopping like a dying fish.

As I lay dying, or so it felt, it occurred to me that it wasn’t just in my sickness that my focal point was skewed. Oh certainly it would not be pleasant to vomit on a child, even though a small child does not carry the same sentiments towards an adult, but how often had I truly and completely focused on his needs alone? Now in my incapacitation I could only resolve to devote more to him and less to me. Even in a small guesthouse with minimal distractions on an isolated hill and a singular goal, the self cries out for complete devotion. A constant battle of two opposing forces frantic in efforts to defeat and reclaim my life. One force a poison needing purging the other a requirement for love.

Before leaving Kenya I jokingly told people I didn’t want God teaching me any lessons through the upcoming experience. In my life, lessons from God often come after an uncomfortable understanding that I am not God. A simple little concept that anyone who knows me can clearly see, yet when I place myself first that’s exactly what I am saying. Humanistic actions, justification, and rationalization always seem to seep into me leading me back to me. And so I flop from God to me. Perhaps it was a lack of food for six days that led my thoughts to this point or possibly just the perspective to see the unfolding comedy as a tragedy. Regardless, I am glad for the lesson.

My son on the other hand, well I think he feels I should have got the message a lot sooner.

“So God bruise the heels we’ve dug in ground, that we might move closer to love. Pull out the roots we’ve dug in so deep. Finish what you’ve started. Help us to believe. Keep our eyes wide open.” — Eyes Wide Open by Jars of Clay

Although there are many meanings for Mimesis, most hover around the central definition of imitator or to imitate. I prefer Aristotle’s definition with regards to literature – “Imitation of life”