16th
“Do you have a tendency to peace?” she asked
I was slowly drinking icewater in the waiting room of an x-ray and ultrasound clinic in Turkey and a woman smiled at me, put her hands over her low belly and asked “Do you have a tendency to peace?”.
I considered the question carefully. I’m actually quite interested in peace psychology and I often wonder about the characteristics that equip communities and individuals in peacemaking and “structural peacebuilding”. Also, by gently placing her hands over her low belly it was like the woman was asking me if I had a tendency to peace because I was a woman, a potential mother. I wondered if this conversation might, Katha Pollitt-style, debate difference feminism…
But all things considered, I was about to have an ultrasound and this pretty and professional woman, with her heavy Turkish accent and earnest expression was probably communicating something else…She probably wanted to know whether I was ready for the ultrasound, whether I’d drunk enough icewater, whether my bladder was full. Oh. Peace=piss.
“You have a tendency to piss?”, she asked again, amiably. I smiled back, appreciating her efforts to speak English to me, and nodded that I was ready.
