Be Ridiculous

Karen Leu

It’s been too many years since I’ve believed humans possible of creating beauty. So it was a shock to the walls around my heart to witness a group of people who, granted, don’t know each other THAT well, and who aren’t united by any particular religion or dogma choose to wash each other’s feet. This ritual took me back to my evangelical Christian days and so deeply symbolizes love, service, and devotion that I have long fantasized of doing this very act with my imaginary partner as we decided to commit our lives to each other. Of course things would align such that the first time I actually participated in this ritual was not with my beloved but with a married white, Canadian man decades older than me. 

The way Suélen sang while washing Nuno’s feet, as if giving her own daughter a bath. How jiordi and Yeyo added flower petals to the water that washes the dirtiest part of our body…

Maybe this is enough for now. Maybe this is all we need to do with each other before we die. Maybe if we instituted the universal human right of having one’s feet washed because we decided that everyone deserves at this small moment of being treated as sacred. I don’t know. But you all showed me beauty and I am grateful.