I am no stranger to the stares. In my experience, gen pop struggles with navigating…difference. Do we make eye contact with the kid in the wheelchair? What about that guy with no legs speaking into a tube with his throat? The man covered in tattoos and piercings? 

Difference makes us uncomfortable, unsure, throws us off our game. We fumble the football. Cause a scene. One memory of a public restroom visit with my five-year-old niece is particularly seared into my brain. As she was drying her hands, hair blowing in her face, I saw her slowly looking around at what I was also slowly realizing, which was everyone looking back at her. Some secretively, some not so much.

She was five and had all the ideas, but also none.

Aunt Tosha, why is everybody staring at me?

Fuck. 

I don’t know Analise, I guess they’ve never seen anything like you before. You’re one of a kind. That’s kind of cool, right?

I lied, a little bit. I did know why they were looking. Ani looks different (see above). But the rest was true. They are one of a kind. And nobody’s seen anything like them. Now they’re 23, and the world is still the world, and they’re still navigating their place in it, just like everybody else. 

They are who they are, care but don’t (not everything is easy to shrug off), and man oh man can they make people smile, especially as a tot. You ever seen a toddler with metal bars coming out of their mouth to incrementally pull out the bottom jaw while pushing around a tiny walker with tennis balls on the bottom because they’ve spent so much time in the hospital fighting all the battles life tossed onto their life path that they never even got the opportunity to learn to crawl? And now here they are, just beaming up at you from their newly heightened position of two feet off the ground like, can you believe my good luck!?!?

Eye contact is human, it’s connecting, reassuring, meant to be shared. Pair that with a smile, oh my gosh, how lovely. Everybody wants to be seen. And being seen is worlds apart from being stared at. I mean, we’re all different. But the level and direction of “difference” that deviates from our own center of norm often drives our comfort level with all that difference. And that can be one fine jump rope to double dutch with.

Anyway, all that to say, I struggle with this myself, but like, with a twist. Like a rabbit hole twist. The kind where I go down it and basically stay there. (help!)

A few weekends ago I was with some friends at one of the many neighborhood festivals Madison celebrates throughout the summer. Live music, delicious food, local art vendors, excellent people watching. 

I was enjoying all those things at once when I saw her. She was completely yellow with a tint of green. I aged her in her late teens, but my friend Tynille thought she looked ancient. We’re gonna go with my interpretation, seconded by a few around me, and I’m only offering this information because this is how extremely confusing the entire situation was. 

Her left calf was heavily bandaged, red on white bleeding through. She was walking slow, carefully, as if in pain, trailing behind a much older woman in pigtails and a short denim romper, holding her hand for support. The pigtails made a bee-line for some open chairs, sat the yellow girl down, and scurried closer to the band, bee-bopping to the tunes, leaving the girl to rummage aimlessly through her bag, finding seemingly nothing.

The last thing I want to do is jump to conclusions, ever. But. I’VE SEEN TOO MUCH TO STOP THE QUESTIONS IN MY HEAD.

And against my better judgement, here is a list of all my thoughts. 

WHAT THE FUCK?!?!???!!!
Why is that woman dragging that sick girl?
Why is her skin so yellow? 
Is that jaundice? 
Can adults get jaundice? 
I don’t even really know what jaundice is, but that screams jaundice. 
OMG. Wait. IS SHE OKAY? 

I could feel the guilt creeping in.

You’re being ridiculous, Tosha.
Like. What if…
This is her dying wish? A local outdoor festival. She just really wanted to hear live music, breathe the fresh air. People watch. And here I am, doing the same thing, thinking all these terrible thoughts. She’s just trying to exist.

But, also…

What if that pigtailed lady doesn’t have the best intentions? She seemed awfully excited to catch the band. What if this is Munchausen’s by proxy? Shit. Argh. Ooof. AHHHHH. SHITSHITSHIT!

Regardless of the reality of her situation, it really does NOT seem like this festival is where she should be at this very moment. But WHAT DO I KNOW??

Do I say something?
Do I not?
Who am I if I do? (A good person? Bad?)
Who am I if I don’t? (A bad person? Good?)
Is anyone else noticing this?
IS THIS WHO WE ARE NOW? THE SAY NOTHING PEOPLE???
Am I the only one having this internal dialogue???

In my head and possibly in reality, I caught pigtails looking at me observing the situation, probably hearing my thoughts, and I felt her make a decision to make a move. Away from inquisitive eyes. They scurried away. I didn’t see them again. But I did feel compelled to confirm I wasn’t seeing things in general. I do this a lot, seek eyeball confirmation. I’ve got a lovely imagination, so it’s nice to check-in.

Others noticed. A nurse in the group of new stranger friends even confirmed it looked like jaundice. Everyone agreed it was odd. But when I told them how far down the rabbit hole I went with my line of questioning, that’s where we diverged. While they had noticed, they had also moved on to the rest of their day with no follow up questions.

And here I am, over two weeks later, still thinking about it. I don’t know how I should feel about it. I don’t know what I should’ve done. But I know what I did. Nothing. Was that the best move? Time will tell. But I don’t even know if that’s true this time. 

Time may never tell, at least not me.