“Scientists tell us that human life on this earth is 50,000 years old, or 150,000 – whatever their numbers are. But I believe we are much older than that; that life itself is much older. I can see this as if I am remembering. You know, I feel such affection for human beings. We can do so much. For instance, a tree is sick: we can find a way to heal it! The tree can’t do that. I think we all were together once, we were – globules, that’s the best way I can describe it, we were little globes floating around, bumping against each other, streaming along. We knew each other; but most people forget this, I guess. They don’t pay attention to it, and don’t remember; they don’t try to remember, or don’t want to remember. But I remember: we were all connected, we were all floating around together. Now when I walk down the street and pass so many people I am thrilled, because I’ve known all of them! We walk right by each other now, but we all came from the same source. This makes me so happy!

-Sasha Choi

Sasha Choi is one of those, whom some in pity might call a damaged person, who walks along the perimeter of the visible world, who sees what we do not and knows in advance that which we might perhaps come to learn. For some years she has been passing through my life, insisting gently but firmly that I pay attention. As I do, for long moments, then glance sideways, then slightly withdraw. Tactfully, patiently, she too withdraws for a time, until gradually I will become aware that the phone is going to ring and I will hear her voice again.

I will wonder, is she safe? Will I really try to hear her? What can I do for her? (Or, can it be that she is watching out for me?)

In May, she set off across country on the train. Her journey was interrupted, however, when she began to talk rather too urgently to strangers. At a small station in Colorado the train made an unexpected stop, and she was carried off by the police and placed in a mental home. She phoned some days afterward to tell me what had happened. This occurred not long before the summer issue of this journal went live, and so I wrote about her in “Endnotes.” Several readers responded in sympathy and with fine, almost anguished recognition. Cynthia Tedesco, whose story “Suitcases” appeared in the same number, was moved to write: “Sasha Choi reminded me so much of some my patients at Creedmore State Psychiatric Hospital when I was there very briefly (9 months) as an Audiologist many years ago. I kept wanting to say to those souls, ‘Sh! Just don't tell this to your doctors and social workers!’ There is nothing in our culture to honor their gifts and protect their lives. Nothing.”

Since then, Sasha has contacted me twice. I thought I should pass on the word that she is safe.

On August 17 she phoned to say she had been released from the mental hospital, where she had been held for thirty days while on her way West, and was with her mother in California. She sounded fine, whole, happy, strong. It was good being with her mother, who needed her, she said, and she speculated that perhaps this was to be her work now. She had chits for “pretty good” housing nearby, but would probably stay with her mother in the apartment, for a while at least, to see how that would work.

But was her father living there? I asked. Yes, she said, and she was still afraid of him; but he was more afraid of her, because he was going to die first and he knew it. (She implied a mental battle being waged between them on a shamanic level.) She felt she should stay at home, too, because it was time to face her father. She had to learn how to do this at last. She felt she could handle the situation. It would test her, but she welcomed the test. She felt she would learn a great deal.

She wouldn’t stay on the phone long, as her father would soon return, but wanted to let me know that she was all right. Perhaps I could forward the cartons of her journals, that are stored in my house? She would write me a letter and tell me where to send them. Of course I would. I was glad to hear from her, and told her so, warmly.

She phoned again, on September 14, I believe it was. She is still in Southern California, and is happy to be with her mother, but finds life difficult in the small apartment with both parents. She was calling to ask if I would recommend her to the committee in charge of a nearby apartment complex she has applied to enter. Yes, I replied; with enthusiasm. She sounded tired but said she feels resolute. In the days before September 11, however, she had been depressed and in pain. “You know I feel the weight of such things in my body,” she said.

Yes, I said.

I mentioned the piece about her in Archipelago and the friendly responses it had received. She had forgotten about this and was puzzled, or concerned. She asked how she could read what I had written. I would mail her a printed copy, I said. She gave me her current address, for the copy, and promised the new one as soon as possible for sending on her journals, but said to wait till she moved and had room for the boxes. Again our conversation was brief. She did say that she might write me a letter, after all, not like the earlier ones from the mental hospital (there had been two; they were difficult reading) in which she hadn’t even made sense to herself because of the anti-psychotic drugs she had been given, but calmer.

I felt that she is clear and thoughtful and has a great deal of work to do, and that she has set her mind to do it.

-KM

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