compadres-

One of the more profound experiences of hospitalization are the temporary friends one makes. We are community creatures, us humans, no matter how confused or even deranged we might be at times, and there is enormous comfort in reaching out and sharing. Togetherness is possible, for many anyway, even under dire circumstances. All of a sudden painting each other's toenails in rainbow colors becomes an immense luxury and total delight. Hospital lunches are gourmet meals and the daily dazed walk around the building offers a precious taste of freedom. Remarkably one encounters more heartfelt sweetness between total strangers, more care, more sharing of real laughter and profound tears in the closed wards, than in any other situation. Maybe because everyone is so raw, so out of control, so unable to hide their emotion... I never saw much rage. Despair, yes, anger, not so much. But of course that is probably due to the heavy medications everyone is on.
None of my hospitalizations were voluntary, and there is nothing I'd like to avoid more in the future, but despite the trauma of those experiences, the people I have met, have left a lasting impression in my heart and mind, and I often think of them. Each person I came across was dealing with enormous mental suffering, each one of them was in their own way trying to put one foot in front of the other, and I can honestly say that there is not much as moving as a scrappy bunch of mental patients singing hotel california, accompanied on guitar by nurse Bob.
There was Rose, she and I cleaned up stray cigarette butts and I couldn't quite understand why she was there, she seemed so sweet and happy. Or Cecilia, who had the bearing of a proud hacienda owner, with her powerful voice and her controlled manner of speaking, a straight-backed dancer in her own world. Robert with his far-away eyes and a lovely smile was enduring his pained mind confined to a rolling bed. Jeffrey and Niomi, the young lovebirds, about 18 years old and homeless, were exchanging secret kisses, amazing that even in mental lock-down romance can flourish. Sharon said she lost her only child in 1985. Since then she no longer wanted to live. She went in and out of reality. You could tell by her hair, it iwas either neatly put up, or flying loosely around her shoulders. At some point she started screaming to leave and ended up sitting completely fallen into herself by the exit door. On the ground. Shrek, I don't know his real name, wore camouflage clothes day and night, and would communicate only through his Shrek doll, whom he hugged like a baby. Tom obsessively collected towelettes, and proudly announced one day after lunch: "I don't smile, but it helps." Very dear and funny was Kayla, a former tv production assistant whose only desire was to get electro-shock treatment, the sooner, the better. I can only imagine her level of struggle. And there were so many more. Profoundly depressed, schizophrenic or manic depressive people, all under one roof for a brief period of time. I often wonder what has happened to all of them, where did they go? Who picked them up? I did run into one person from ", a woman whose name I did not know because she would not talk. I sat next to her on a bench, on which she more than likely lived, and we drank coffee together. She still did not talk much, mostly she cried.