Subjective Condition

A woman swims up to me in the clear blue-green Aegean. We agree that the water is beautiful. She compliments my Greek—I am taking weekly classes—and she deems this good, but really, I should study Ancient Greek, it is from where every civilization springs, after all. I can hear the waves from my hotel room. I have trouble sleeping, I explain, so it soothes me. “Did I know that sound healing came from Greece?” she asks. Hippocrates, a Greek of course, invented medicine. All we know is from him, she tells me, though we have lost the connection between science and the soul; doctors are technicians, no longer philosophers.

I am in this sea to heal from a brain injury. It’s been several months since I fell down a flight of stairs, then later slipped on black ice, hitting the back of my head in the same place three times in a short period. A dull ache, a pain in the front of my face, is my constant companion now. I get dizzy for no reason, have to sit down on dirty stoops or sidewalks when the world spins away from me. I forget things, simple words or events. Friends say, “I told you that already!” with irritation, and I am reminded of my mother, who I cared for as she died of dementia and cancer. I turned her need for repetition into a fun game to see how many ways I could say the same thing. I promised myself I would never to be impatient with her, because my father always was, but my friends are not my child, and they expect me to keep up. When I remind them I have a brain injury, they roll their eyes.

“How long will that be your excuse?”

“Buck up, there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Don’t be a pussy.”

These are things friends have said, as they blur in front of me, as I type a few sentences, then fall into a deep, unrestful slumber, one I wake from even more confused than when I closed my eyes. The neurologist says I could be like this for two to three years. I am in my doctor’s office, crying because of dizziness, and he looks at me as if I’m an alien. “Well, the scans show you are okay.” I contact someone in human resources to explore the possibility of a medical leave. She says the insurance company might not approve it because there’s no concrete evidence. There must be an ancient Greek word for a “subjective condition,” the expression she uses several times in our short call as I insist that my symptoms are real.

“I am Eleftheria,” the woman in the sea says. This is my favorite Greek name—it means freedom—and she is pleased I know it. I came to Greece to free myself of a burden, my physical therapist said the sea and sun would help. But my head gets heavy in the water; the mountain in the distance doubles. I want to start anew here, so I tell Eleftheria none of my troubles. My world is spinning as she says, “You will read Plato, start with The Republic, you can understand nothing of the world without it.” I see the rainbow umbrella I borrowed from the motel owner flying away on the rocky beach, so I quickly ask if I can start with the English translation first; she nods in assent.

What is your name she wants to know as I struggle against the waves to reach the shore, they are pulling me back to her, and I can’t get a solid footing on the uneven and slippery sea floor. Rebecca. “Oh, it is Hebrew,” she is not asking, but “yes,” I say. “You are from a very old tribe; you too understand ancient wounds.” I want to tell Eleftheria my troubles, hear her say something comforting, a unique and wise perspective on my new problem. But I am near the shore now. I look back at her; the salty water stings my eyes, blurs my vision, turns Eleftheria into a chimera, also a Greek word, in the blue-green sea.