Rocks in My Pockets

Signe Baumane: I sit at a living room table patiently cutting a sign that says 40 out of coloured cardboard. Her husband is turning 40 and this is a surprise party for him. The sign I'm cutting out is pretty meaningless on the scale of the Solar system. Tomorrow it will be thrown out in the garbage and forgotten but today it connects me with people. As the guests come in I show them where to put their coats and point them to the bar. We chat, we laugh. I move the muscles of the mask that covers my pain, it becomes a face again. The feeling of warmth and love melts a small part of my pain. I am a tiny particle in the bigger body of humanity. Acknowledging it and extending my hand to other people saves me from slashing my wrists with a kitchen knife.