The Colonists: Three Women, Three Stigmas, Three Masks

Prologue

Raccoon watercolors, that perfect combination of pastels. Pink, purple, grassy green, flaring out from the mask. The usually black mask that, today, was awash in a rainbow of metallic moss and mauve. The effect was stunning, like a lively Venetian mask attached to a ribbon-woven wand, held up to entice, to observe, to hide behind. Yet the black mask of truth lay underneath, hidden under layers of pale yellow sunshine. You can’t see the darkness, the scared, fearful eyes behind the mask, nor could you see the wide-eyed looks of those just beyond the mask, when one first glances at the decay and darkness underneath, a first glance into the seeing eyes of a macabre disease, a tragic secret, or even a fully visible state of being. No, you would need to peel back the layers of smiling brushstrokes to find the black sooty secret behind the pastel face of the Raccoon, the one with the masked eyes made of watercolors.

Who is this brilliantly masked creature with the beautiful exterior, desperately trying to cover her festering secret hiding just underneath her bright, dancing surface colors, the ones glittering amongst the albedo of tightly woven ribbons and pastel watercolors?

Where lay she, who lights others during the day hours, yet sleeps under an iron cloud of uncertainty, shame, misshapen emotions and isolation. She feels pure as white on the inside, her core is pristine, yet this creature harbors a dark classical and medieval belief of badness in black and yellow bile. Starting in ancient Greece, the pillars of Greek medicine were the Four Humours of the body, and their elements–yellow bile equaling fire, blood tied to air, phlegm associated with water, and black bile with the earth. Bile, representing two of the four humours of the body, said, in times past, to explain various ailments and personality types of the human life course. Black bile represented melancholy, thought to originate in the gall bladder, and yellow bile, cholera, represented the spleen and splenic-origin issues and disease. If one’s blood was thought to be corrupted with, say, altered yellow bile, the case would be much more serious. Or perhaps black bile was thought to be in overabundance, resulting in a horrible secret no one dared speaketh, and certainly no one dared go near the afflicted. Bile and humours and how they’re all connected in the human body were a way of explaining the unexplainable, the horrific, in times long ago.

Rubbish to our modern ears, nonetheless, we now know this poor, brilliantly masked creature’s affliction is still viewed as horrific and needs only to be explained away, not understood.

The creature is actually three women.

Three women who could be any one of you.

***

One of the three’s condition, of course, is not bile-related, but as we now know, composed of viral particles. This creature is sick with a once deadly disease, yet she lives and lives quite well, in fact. With proper precautions, she can’t infect or hurt others. With modern medicine and proper care, she’ll outlive you. But they don’t listen to facts and evidence. They’re all of you. The ignorant, the noble, the sad, the wise, the scared, the uneducated, the uncaring, the most caring of souls. Nobody listens to the truth, the advances in medicine. Only the stigma thrives.

Who is such a creature? She’s human, to be sure. What’s her affliction? Where does she lie at night? Where can we find her? And then ask, do you even want to know her? Most would be proud to know her, that is, unless you’re a man, and unless she wanted you to take a step further, unless she wanted you to kiss her, to be intimate, to love. Then men run away in horror, leaving her congealed in loneliness in the little lonely colony of people like her. She’s alive, but lives in death, a widow of no one.

Who is she?

Why, you can say she is a leper of sorts. She’s a modern day leper trying to navigate through a modern day leper colony that hardly anybody sees or even thinks of. You’d never recognize her for anything other than what she portrays to the world, one true lady with an invisible black, sad mask hidden beneath magnificent watercolors shining like the sun. Yet she lives much as lepers lived long ago–isolated, unwanted in the general population, persona non grata, feared, and reviled. Sly, sneaky, on the outside, savvy enough to make it in the wild world, even beautiful, with her unnatural pastels painted to mask the black pain living just inside and underneath all of those warm, calming colors.

The only difference is, instead of the days of old where she would be living in an actual leper colony, today she may live right next door to you or work in the next cubicle. She may have even shaken your hand today or even kissed you goodnight while dreaming of making love to you. She may have rung up your groceries, served you dinner, prescribed you medicine, or defended you in court. She may be your good friend.

The second female creature is also sick with a disease, however, her particular affliction is accepted, much less stigmatized, and so her Raccoon watercolors blend nicely into the colony as well as outside of it, with equal ease. It was not always the case. If she had lived earlier, earlier than 1600 BC, there would be no name for what struck her. But after some mummies of Egypt exhibited telltale signs, and the Father of Medicine, Hippocrates, termed the disease crab, in Greek, humankind turned from believing it to be caused by black bile, to realizing its myriad forms were from viruses, genes, and lifestyles of our more modern eras. Some caused by mere horrible, black luck.

She may be feared by some, but she’s not reviled. Many times, she’s pitied, and others now take her under their wings, lending their own so she can lift beyond her situation. But though within her is the disease once thought to be caused by black bile, in fact, her colonization is easier. She’s free to come and go, to bridge the gap between disease and acceptance.

The third colonist isn’t a true colonist in the sense that she must keep her life struggle hidden. Nor is her struggle hidden at all. Her disease and condition is in full view, not hidden like Elizabeth’s, the so-called leper, and Julie’s, the second creature whose affliction is mostly accepted. Nonetheless, this third colonist faces stigma, societal struggles, and such, outside of what we call normal, for her humor is phlegm.

Not the kindest or nicest of terms, phlegm. When it rolls off the tongue, it’s anathema to lyrical. Of all the terms though, it is very fitting, as the phlegmatic humor is known for its laxity, coldness, sluggishness, and obesity. The phlegmy humor also boasts kindness and cheerfulness on occasion, making this particular mask an enigma. Watercolors can run cold and hot, and can run together at times. Megan’s mask, for Megan is the third creature, requires constant wiping of sweat and upkeep. But the mask isn’t actually required. It’s nice to have, but no mask is needed. The others–Elizabeth and Julie, the other two creatures, colonists–their secrets are safe behind their masks. For Megan, the third colonist, it’s merely kinder to scoot behind the mask in hopes that the watercolors may fade to allow others to see past the facade.

Elizabeth

Around 1550 B.C., a pair of kohl-lined eyes, perhaps, watched while their owner penned the first recorded account of leprosy, describing crooked fingers, and blobs of fleshy bumps on the face and body. Photos of the afflicted show hooded, downtrodden figures with horrific scars, lesions, and granules on their faces and bodies. Greeks and Romans also wrote of horrifically disfigured and crippled people who were believed to pass on the disease very easily, and therefore, must be quarantined from the rest.

Even the Father of Modern Medicine, Hippocrates, knew of leprosy. In the Middle Ages, colonies were set up to keep lepers apart and to prevent the spread. Lepra is the Latin name for scaly, and indeed, tissue loss, thickening of the skin, and disfigurement were the hallmarks of this scary disease. Nobody wanted to see that. Even scarier, no one wanted to catch it, so the victims were all put away into stigmatized colonies.

Varying accounts, say those colonies were isolated, lonely, sad places. Many times they were set up on little remote islands, yet others say they simply became little villages like any other. No matter, lepers must’ve felt somehow different, lesser, and defective and unfit for normalcy and a typical life. We know they were ostracized and treated harshly, simply for having a disease.

Understandably, the disease was scary, but to be human and be banished from all human contact, friends, family, and community, and be sent to a group of strangers far away, is shameful, humiliating, and life-changing. It’s a life no human deserves. Even St. Lazarus, the patron saint of lepers, must not have relieved the psychological scarring which comes from intentional isolation from the rest of humanity. Banishment, forever, has killed many a strong soul.

St. Lazarus spread comfort, as most people long ago believed leprosy to be a punishment from God. Thankfully, as the ages went on, we learned leprosy is in fact a bacterium, a thick, waxy, clumpy bacteria which loves warm, tropical climes. Discovered by a Norwegian physician, Gerhard Armauer Hansen, in 1873, who was searching for precisely the disgusting things he found on the festering, red skin nodules of leprosy patients. In fact, it was the very first bacterium to be identified as causing a human disease in history. It is now termed Mycobacterium leprae or Hansen’s coccus spirally.

Leprosy still lives on today, but there are less than 200,000 cases worldwide, and it has a now-known, tried and true cure. Yet the history of leper colonies and the practice of banishing the people with incurable, scary diseases hasn’t been forgotten. In fact, there is what you may call a modern day leper amongst us, but one with no visible, foreseeable signs. Leper in this day and age is meant more as a literary metaphor for a social outcast, an exclusionary member of society, an unwanted. Today’s modern-day leper is no longer an obvious oddity in isolated, yellow, bile-filled colonies, but a leper nonetheless, cut off and outcast. He or she could be anyone, and you’d never know it. But you will meet one now. It’s the wonderful creature, Elizabeth, with the beautiful mask hiding a desperate, unchangeable secret.

She’s a grown woman, stable, smart, good, and quite magnificent inside, attractive on the outside, secretly harboring a private affliction as much ostracizing and stigmatizing as shunning and branded in fear as leprosy itself. The secret keeps her from truly connecting to others, and especially, it bars her from the one huge honor and treasure of life–love. She’s banished from the chance to find a mate and affection. She can’t date the majority of the world’s available men because of her burden. The black masked secret blocks her from this and from gaining acceptance and understanding from family and friends. For you see, she can’t keep holding up the sparkling mask on the brightly ribboned wand all the time. She can’t spend her days constantly painting a façade over the shadowy truth. To gain admittance to the grand ball of courtship, one must drop the mask, wipe it off, speak the truth, reveal the truth, and then, once she’s exposed, she is forever exiled. She is the beautiful Raccoon with the black mask of gloomy darkness painted over and over with the rainbow rays of watercolors.

***

Like millions of other hopeful women right this very moment, Elizabeth is on a first date, and she’s excited. Dinner, a new outfit, good conversation–all simpatico thus far. It’s a lovely evening, and the air is wonderfully crisp, even for early fall on a Texas night. It’s a night where the air opens up to possibilities, where one stops to taste the breeze and watch the wind.

I’ve been wanting to meet you. Your friend said you were so sweet, something I like… he said shyly, but that’s hard to find these days.

Thank you. She blushed. She too was old-fashioned and had the fast-dying idea of courting, of gentlemanly manners, and of getting to know someone from the bow to the stern, quietly, softly, with piqued interest and surging urges showing just enough.

She has one child, a beloved son, and is just far enough away from being freshly divorced to be suitable, he thought, mentally ticking off her pros and searching desperately for any cons. So far, nothing. He smiled to himself. He didn’t want to go home, something he always felt he wanted to do on too many recent dates.

Ditto for him. He had one son and was just far enough away from the rigors of divorce to abate any sourness and crises. And, add to that, he’s very handsome and appears kind. And funny! She noticed right away and sighed to herself, a heartfelt, low, mourning sigh. She wished she were someone else.

What an uncanny set of links they could’ve connected. Elizabeth was the picture of elegance and stability, almost having a regal, royal air about her that men found both intriguing and comforting because she didn’t wear it highly or mightily. Her dark hair was sometimes in a sleek bob, but long enough to sweep past her shoulders, naturally curly, but she wore it both sleek and curled, depending on the occasion and mood. Tonight, it was straight, shiny, and swingy. As she had aged, and especially after her divorce, she thought the sleek look played with her sharper features. Pretty face, elegant, classic clothes, tasteful but good jewelry, everything thought out to perfection, yet still extremely accessible. To everyone who knows her, she’s deemed very normal, stable, with an excellent head on her shoulders, smart, funny, many thinking her a great catch.

But she’s anything but.

For she is the creature, and right now, she’s hiding behind the mask. Only the dancing watercolors are showing.

And once she tells him, this handsome, funny man, the one thing and the only thing that takes her out of the regular dating pool, spewing her into another, a cesspool, he’ll cut the evening short, never to speak to her again. She’ll have to erase the pastels of the mask. And then he won’ even shake her hand goodnight. He’ll flee as fast as he can politely, or not, do so. Dear Elizabeth will be branded leper without any outwardly obvious mark, without actually having the actual disease of leprosy, but having the entire stigmatization which surrounds the word. Leper, persona non grata, an unwanted person, a pariah. But she’s obligated to tell him, and tell she did.

She dropped the mask.

And exactly what she thought would happen, did. He cut the evening short, never to be heard from again. He fled as fast as he could. He didn’t kiss her goodnight. He didn’t shake her hand. He didn’t hug her. She cried into her pillow that night, yet again. Again. Another failed attempt at love, the treasure of life. The hurt gnawed like a hunger.

This scene that played out could’ve been one in which many women were part of, for surely there were other creatures out there, trying. Many more were home who’d stopped trying. All were crying. But in this scene, unbeknownst to Elizabeth and her date, they were being watched.

What’s she doing here? She didn’t mention she was seeing anyone.

The other woman had just walked by with a friend, seeing Elizabeth sitting at a table, smiling, looking happy. She’s always so secretive! The woman laughed to herself. She was secretly intrigued, happy for Elizabeth, but also curious, and a little jealous. Elizabeth always seemed to have it all. A sentiment Elizabeth would’ve found impossible to feel. For anyone to think I had it all? Ha!

Though it was strange how they, he especially, seemed to just cut the date loose, and he almost ran out of there. At least, in hindsight, he seemed to remember her being there and hastily returned to the table and escorted her out of the restaurant. The watching woman pondered that for a moment before a smirking smile emerged. Ahh… they just can’t wait, can they? Hmph! She winked in Elizabeth’s direction, though she knew Elizabeth hadn’t seen her. And with that, she returned to her own friend and her own table, having no idea that Elizabeth had cried immediately upon returning home, or why.

You see, Elizabeth doesn’t have actual leprosy, but she does have what you may call the modern-day equivalent. She’s HIV positive. She’s infected with viral particles which are feared and reviled. And though she’s very attractive, a productive member of society, extremely healthy, and lives a completely normal life, men shock, twist, turn, cringe away from her once they learn what’s inside of her body. Many think being HIV positive means she has AIDS and will die. They grew up with the idea in the 1980s and 1990s, and even though things have changed and treatment has gotten better, the idea of an infection meaning a death sentence remains. No matter the love, compassion, and everything that’s inside of Elizabeth, it’s the virus they see. Nothing else. Everything else gets clouded by those three letters. She is an outcast.

She is a modern-day leper.

While she doesn’t have the actual disease of leprosy, she does have HIV. And thus, she may as well have been a leper in this modern age, for she certainly feels the stigma that goes along with a feared disease. A societal leper she is. Most importantly, she feels like a leper in the way modern society uses the term. An unwanted person. Banish them! Someone to be feared, and someone to be put away, expelled from the norms of streets and beds. Elizabeth felt a special affinity for lepers and their colonies. She knew how true lepers of old must’ve felt. And it was awful. It was lonely and isolating, the soul exiled from what could’ve been. It divided her from the rest of her normal world and kept her from having it all, as her potential would’ve allowed her but for this unfortunate kink in her fate.

***

Being a modern-day leper is no easy task. It’s a large, lonely branch of one’s life, sagging down towards Earth, almost cracking under-weight and pressure. It constantly tugs a spirit down, threatening to break at any time. Lest anyone think it’s easy, imagine revealing your perfectly organized French closet, with black and white toile wallpaper, crystal chandelier, white, soft rug, and scarves, purses, shoes, and chic clothes. Then push back a matching toile curtain from its wrought iron rod and reveal your secret–a festering carcass, barely living, deep inside an oak chest, deep within your closet. Then watch as the carcass unfurls a gold scroll, with the words I am HIV Positive in beautiful script, just enough for one to read it. It’s barely alive, never comes after you, and poses no real threat if properly respected, but it makes itself known by its mere presence and its literal sign. Immediately, people gasp, draw back in fear… the curtain falls as they flee as far away from you and your perfect French closet as they can. And they stay there, far, far away. Forever. They don’t want to even look at this festering, sickly beast with gentle, knowing, sad eyes. Some would kill it if they could.

Everyday life living with HIV is fine, even easy to navigate. Like Elizabeth, one can work hard, make a good living in a solid career, be a wonderful, doting parent, run a household, laugh with friends and co-workers, and learn something new every day. The afflicted can have dreams, make New Year’s resolutions and keep them, meet and surpass goals, and achieve more than ever imagined. But it’s the dating life, the intimate path to the prize that humans seek called love which is almost unnavigable even in the normal world. If one has HIV, like Elizabeth, however, one soon learns it’s nearly impossible to date outside the leper colony, outside of people who don’t have the same infection. One then must turn inward, towards the yellow colony, towards the misfits and banished people, because that’s where the prize can be possible. If the prize exists at all.

Julie

Julie, the second creature, the woman who’d seen Elizabeth in the restaurant, who thought Elizabeth hadn’t a care in the world, has cancer. Had, but we all know that once one has it, it’s there. Even if it’s gone from the body, the experience is always there. The fear, the anger that this could all be taken away. Crab. The morphology of such a sharp word comes from Middle English crabbe. Some experts say it derives from the 12th Century and could’ve originated in Old English, from ceorfan, to carve. Certainly, the old crab disease, now called cancer, carves out one’s soul, even if just a sliver. Sometimes it carves out the entire thing, leaving nothing.

Mummies were first recognized to have cancer, from observations of tumors, and references to this plague were first found in the Edwin Smith Papyrus in about 3000 B.C. Then, the description was blunt and brutal, the same prognosis relatively unchanged for centuries. There is no treatment.

Thankfully, things did improve, and education taught humans black bile and even irritation can’t cause cancer. Further, it was believed, at one point, cancer was contagious. We now know certain passed-on viruses can cause cancer, but as a whole, cancer is not contagious.

Cancer-stricken creatures, for animals as well as humans can succumb, weren’t banished, though the stigma remained for a long while. However, stigma or not, cancer is still a life event no human deserves. As with Elizabeth, Julie feels isolated from society, not fearful of sharing her affliction with her friends or family, but when it comes to revealing her scars to her potential dates, well, even St. Peregrine, the patron saint of cancer, can’t relieve the psychological burden which comes from having to reveal the deep damage scarring one’s humanity. For even in the best of outcomes, one is forever scarred upon hearing such diagnosis.

Cancer lives on in this, the year 2013. There are 1.6 million people diagnosed with reported cancers. Most cancers are reported, but not all. Cures have come, and more are on the way. Once unspoken, cancer is now accepted, rallied around, pitied, and attempts to kill it are applauded. Cancer patients like Julie aren’t unwanted. They are embraced, a wonderful thing. But today’s cancer patient must still navigate a colony, one that, when it comes to mating, may be tough to reveal. Some may view a woman with cancer as a type of leper, an unwanted, a liability, or something they just cannot worry about or handle. You may think that cruel, but reality sinks in very quickly once the mask is dropped. Some humans simply can’t handle such a fate, even if it lives in another. So Julie still feels cut off, outcast, isolated in certain ways. And such creature could be anyone. You may never know it. But you will meet one of these beings now. It’s the wonderful creature Julie, with the beautiful mask hiding a desperate secret, thankfully changed now, but still a part of her. Any serious relationship would have to involve dropping the mask. It simply wouldn’t be fair otherwise.

Like Elizabeth, Julie is a grown woman, stable, smart, good and quite magnificent inside, attractive on the outside, secretly harboring her private hell of a few years back. Julie went through cancer, diagnosis, treatment, side effects, and finally, a cure. And yes, she is cured, for it’s been five years now. I am cured! she yelled at her last doctor’s appointment. No longer a frozen echo in her dreams, this yell included hot tears, loaded on the breezes of hope.

But now that she could live, would the secret, her past cancer diagnosis and treatment, keep her from truly connecting to others? Would it, especially, bar her from the one huge honor and treasure of life–love? She’s not exactly banished from the chance to find a mate and affection like Elizabeth. She has a better chance to date the majority of the world’s available men in spite of her burden. Julie’s masked secret did block her from gaining acceptance and understanding from certain family and friends; they just couldn’t or wouldn’t be there for the bad times. And so, Julie wonders how to find the right man, who will stick around through the good and bad. For you see, she cannot keep holding up the sparkling mask on the brightly ribboned wand all the time. She cannot spend her days constantly painting a façade over the shadowy truth. To gain admittance to the grand ball of courtship, one must drop the mask, wipe it off, speak the truth, reveal the truth. And then, once she’s exposed, what will men think? Some may exile her, but probably, maybe, most will hug her, kiss her, and move forward. She is also the beautiful Raccoon with the black mask of dimly lit darkness painted over and over with the rainbow rays of watercolors.

***

Like millions of other hopeful women right this very moment, Julie is on a date, a first one, and she is excited. Dinner, a new outfit, good conversation–all simpatico thus far. It’s a lovely evening, and the air is wonderfully crisp, even for early fall on a Texas night. It’s a night where the air opens up to possibilities, where one stops to feel the breeze and listen to the wind. Julie’s breeze carried with it more acceptance, hope, and opportunity than Elizabeth’s, but the warm breeze could still detach from its smooth journey, shifting and cooling and icing opportunity and hope. It’s a gamble which way the breeze will continue. Julie’s gamble comes with less risk, yet her odds are still not quite even.

No one is watching her in the restaurant, judging her so cunningly. No one is snickering that she and her date can’t even make it to dessert without tearing out of there and into bed. Julie wears her stigma well.

I’ve been wanting to meet you for a while. Your friend said you were very smart. I like that, he said boldy. It’s a bit tough to find these days, but I like that I can talk to you, and you actually have opinions."

Thank you. Her slightly sunken cheeks blushed. She knew the ravages of the toxins used to cure her had affected her looks. No longer as confident, she nonetheless exuded an old-fashioned calm and classiness that her generation of men liked.

She has one child, a beloved daughter, and is just far enough away from being divorced to be suitable, he thought, mentally ticking off her pros and searching desperately for any cons. So far, nothing. He smiled to himself. He didn’t want to go home, something he always felt he wanted to do on too many recent dates.

Ditto for him. He had one daughter as well and was just far enough away from the rigors of divorce to abate any sourness and crises. And, add to that, he’s very handsome and appears kind, though slightly sure of himself. She wondered if her loss of confidence made her overly sensitive to confidence in others. Maybe he’s not overly confident, she thought. Maybe I’ve lost too much that I can’t recognize its normalcy and desirability. But he is funny!

She smiled as she listened to his childhood story of getting stuck in a box. He told it in such a way that was very funny, and he noticed right away she had a twinkle in her eye, an intrigue that made him feel good. She’s interested… he thought. What he didn’t see was Julie sighing to herself. A heartfelt, low, mourning sigh. She wished she were someone else.

What an uncanny set of links they could’ve connected. Julie is the picture of grace and stability, having a softly uptight air about her that men find both responsible and attractive, because she did not wear it too highly or mightily. Her light brown hair hung down, just long enough to curl right at her shoulders, somewhat wavy, but she wore it sleeker tonight. Tonight, it was straight, shiny and swingy. As she had aged, and especially after her divorce and cancer treatments, she thought the sleek look played with her sharper features. Pretty face, graceful features, classic clothes, tasteful but good jewelry, everything thought out. To everyone who knows her, she’s deemed very normal, stable, strong and strong-willed, with an excellent head on her shoulders, smart, funny, many thinking her a great catch.

But she is anything but.

For she is one of the creatures, and right now, she’s hiding behind the mask. Only the dancing watercolors are showing.

And once she tells him, this handsome, funny man, the one thing, and the only thing that takes her somewhat outside of the regular dating pool, spewing her to the side, someone with a major life issue to ponder and live with, he’ll cut the evening short, thinking at the moment anyway, to never to speak to her again. She’ll have to erase the pastels of the mask to reveal the truth. And then, he’ll shake her hand goodnight, and he’ll even kiss her, thinking he will see her again. And he’ll even call her again a few times, pondering this all over in his head. But soon, he’ll flee. Dear Julie will be branded as a cancer survivor, one who’s strong and admirable but still with something that some men in the dating arena simply can’t or won’t, handle.

Like Elizabeth, Julie has no outwardly obvious marks, yet she has to wear the mask at first, dropping it only when she deems it crucial to moving forward. Remember, with friends and family, Julie’s mask sits on the shelf, unnecessary. But like it or not, there’s