I was truly uncomfortable. Sweat trickled down the sides of my face, seeping from my temples. I felt tense, I could feel the tickle of perspiration rolling down my sides and soaking into the waist of my shorts. My senses were on overload, all the bells and whistles were sounding. I was trying to understand the situation, a new situation, a situation I have never been in before. I have had no experiences like this in my life to draw upon, and I had no teacher to lead me through. I prayed for wisdom and a clear mind and a heart of love.
I stared at a picture of Jesus, the most beautiful picture of my savior I have ever seen. Christ seductively staring back from the calendar, a gorgeous woman with a beard, confusing me as I prayed in his name for strength. But, I couldn’t worry about Drag Jesus at the moment, I had to answer the question…what was I, daft, dumb, a mute?
“What’s your name?”, the beautician purred. I was sitting in a chair in a beauty salon in Puerto Galera, on the island of Mindoro.
“Scott”, I blurted out, my own name sounding funny in my ears. “What is your name?”, I asked, remembering my manners.
“May (giggle)”
“Nice to meet you, May” I stammered. I felt like I was in 7th grade having a conversation with a girl I had just met at the mall.
May giggled again, and gently tilted my head to continue trimming around my ears.
“America is the country of my dreams”, said May wistfully.
“Really?…” and then silence from me, as I looked in the mirror and saw beads of sweat forming on my forehead.
May said something I didn’t understand, and I said I didn’t understand, and May said it again and I needed an explanation of friends who write letters to each other and then I understood that May had said “Pen friends”, so I yelled out in a eureka moment, “Oh, PEN FRIENDS”. I said that I knew this idea as being called ‘pen pals’. And I laughed, and I wasn’t sure if I was being asked to be pen pals and I was getting a bit uncomfortable with May’s flirtatiousness.
I wasn’t sure if this was what Richard Rohr calls either ‘liminal space’ or if this was the ‘liminoid’ (the liminoid is a false liminal, an example being almost anything we do in a modern church). But I am pretty sure I was at my threshold. The root of liminal is ‘limen’ which is latin for ‘threshold’. Rohr says that liminality is an inner state and sometimes an outer situation where people can begin to think and act in genuinely new ways. He says this is that graced time when we are not certain or in control (and I was not certain or in control here), it is when something genuinely new can happen. Nothing fresh or creative will normally happen when we are inside of our self-constructed comfort zones. Rohr says this is the ultimate teachable space, and many of the spiritual giants tried to live their lives here.
Was I in a space that would lead to some form of spiritual acromegaly or gigantism? Was this time of May flirting with me going to make me some kind of Andre the Giant in my being? How had I been sucked into this? How do I behave here?
The ‘situation’ had started innocently enough. Linnea was busy working on her emails on the only available computer in the cafe. It was too hot in the room so I said I would wait outside, and I saw a salon that advertised student haircuts for 30 pisos, or about 70 cents. I figured a quick student haircut was affordable in both time and money, so I dodged the motorcycles and walked down to the shop which was below street level and dark. My eyes were adjusting and I saw the feminine form sitting there waiting and I assumed she was the haircutter or beautician or whatever she would call herself and I asked this beautiful woman how much it would cost me for a hair cut and she said 80 pisos and I raised my eyebrows and said I would be right back.
I told Linnea that I was going to get my hair cut across the street and off I went, praying, “Lord Help Me”.
As I sat down and that plastic thing was put around my neck to keep the hair off me, my instincts were affirmed. This hairdresser is or was a man. I couldn’t run away, and knew I needed to sit here and be in this weird spot. I knew I needed to love this person that seemed so weird to me. I prayed for blessing for, uh, him or her. I prayed that I could show love and maintain a conversation. I prayed that my haircut would come out ok.
As May cut my hair, I tried to ‘remain’ cool. I have never understood the ‘ladyboy’ phenomenon in Asia, and I was plying my ‘vast’ resources to this understanding. The vast resources of understanding others that I have learned on the football field, the weight room, and in the moving trucks. I was sitting in a chair in the Philippines, getting my haircut by a ‘ladyboy’ and wondering about May’s dad. Wondering about the whole nature vs. nurture issue, father wounds.
I was wondering about this flirtatiousness. Is this really being flirty or is it not? Was May flirting or just being a ladyboy? Does it matter? How do I hold a conversation here? Do I talk to May as if he were a she, or a he? I saw a poster for a beauty contest on the wall. Do I ask him, uh, her if he she dreams of being Miss Villa Anna, or does May have a client that s/he does hair for?
I was on the verge of total melt down when Josh, Alissa, and Leah walked by. I yelled for help and they came in to enjoy the fan. Josh got a picture of us.
My haircut came out good enough to get a nod of approval from Linnea, but it was not only my hair that was different. Something in me went out to this person now known as May. I had never actually interacted, to my knowledge with a ‘ladyboy’, and I felt some empathy or sympathy to May.
May still plays in my head, I still pray for May. I don’t understand any of the cause and effect, the right and wrong of this ladyboy stuff. I don’t know May. But I do recognize loneliness and sadness and confusion and my heart has been touched to love a little more, I wish I had had the ability to be fully comfortable in that chair and to talk about that person pictured in the calendar, but our comfort zones stretch little by little.
