Precious Sunday

It was one of those Sundays: gloomy, cold, the threat of rain. it was an indoor-by-the-fire-with-a-good-book Sunday, or, better yet, it was a movie Sunday. And since I'd been wanting to see Precious after all the hype--and not the Oprah-hype, that's just noise--Carlos and I planned an escape to Columbia for the show.

We made sure to get there early because, well, once church lets out it's anyone's game, so we hit the 11:30 AM show and were able to get our favorite back row seats. I was prepared to see a fabulous film, extremely well-acted, because I'd seen clips from the movie and seen Mo'Nique, Paula Patton and even newcomer Gabourey Sidibe interviewed around the TV dial and the net. But what I wasn't prepared for was the emotions stirred up by the film. Just simple scenes with quiet dialogue that made you think.

Everybody does something good.

It made me stop and think how easy it is for us to devalue one another, to degrade one another; and I'm not talking just about the LGBT community, I mean. All.Of.Us. How often we toss aside the feelings of another human being because we're just too busy, or we don't really know that person, when it might just take a second to make someone feel good about themselves.

There are all kinds of abuse in the movie, from fists to frying pans, shoves to curse words. And in that theater you could sense the audience tighten up oh so slightly when the violence started. But then Precious, because all she knows is physical abuse, uses her hands to combat those people with whom she's angry; a smackdown of a boy in her class, the shove of a small girl outside her apartment building, and the audience laughed. Laughed. Shoving. Hitting. Slapping. Spitting. Laughter. At first some of it sounded like nervous laughter, but some sounded as though the person actually thought it funny to see this sudden outburst of violence, and it made me wonder.

How many of us live that kind of life and don't tell a soul? Is that why the laughter seemed nervous and tentative, because that person believed they could laugh and make it all go away? Was the laughter due to an inability to cry over that form of violence? See, I cringed at the violence, whether it was aimed at Precious or coming from Precious, because I knew she was completing a cycle of violence that might continue in her own children. It wasn't funny. It was sad.

What's the first thing you think of when you think of home?

For Precious, it was dodging a frying pan, but what is it for you? Is it love? Is it indifference? When you look back on your childhood, is it happy memories that come first, or those other kind? I remember snapshots of memories: my Mom in the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day wearing the most beautiful smile because she was doing what she loved best, taking care of her family. My Dad taking me to an art show in San Francisco because he knew that's what I liked to do.

I love you, Precious.

Easy words. I love you. But we don't often say them to one another. I know I didn't. I remember, eons ago, when talking with my sister on the phone, just as she was saying goodbye, she said, I love you. And I said, Thanks. Thanks, really? It wasn't that I didn't love my sister, I did, and do; it was more about me being closeted and feeling that sense that maybe I didn't deserve love, so I couldn't say it. I was ashamed of myself for not being able to say those words out loud--of course, I'd always signed cards and gifts with Love, Bob but I never said the words; that was a wake up call. Now it's second nature, because I feel it, and know it, and realize that I deserve it.

We are all Precious.

We all have suffered some form of abuse, to some extent, that sticks with us, whether it be violently physically, or just feeling left out and ignored. It's all a form of abuse, and none of us deserves it because we are all precious; we all do something well; we all deserve love, to give it and receive it.

We are all precious.