"Dancing With the Clown of Love" - The Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women's most recent performance, in partnership with Women's HIV Program at UC San Francisco, is an exploration of love, life and wholeness, from women living with HIV. After the show, the group was given an assignment by Medea founder Rhodessa Jones (Lady Rho) to write about what is happening in our lives now. Where are we at? Who are we now? How does the world look? How are things different?
Here is a response from one of our own Medea Project company members, Cassy.
With all the pain HIV caused me, I have found a way to live with it. I have found away to have faith, and not fear my future, but to embrace today. I have surrendered and accepted the fact that HIV might always be with me. I’m powerless over HIV and what might happen. My life has and may become again unmanageable because of it, but I will not let HIV stop me from living. I will not let HIV stop my dreaming; I’m prepared to fight, and don’t have to be afraid anymore.
There are many things I can do to slow the destruction of HIV, to lessen the pain. It may be able to damage my body, but I will not let it damage my spirit. I will not hide from it, and HIV cannot have that power over me. I will not let it!! I’m continuing to have a positive attitude toward the rest of my life because life doesn’t stop after diagnosis. My life keeps going on. I have to keep that attitude of optimism and not look at the bad things related to HIV. Well it does have its side effects that go along with it, but also there are positive things about being positive.
For me personally, it’s being able to share my story, I’ve grown a lot through these challenges in my life, and it has given me character and definition and a feeling of compassion. I’ve done well, so hopefully I’m a role model of what is possible. However, where there is despair there is hope. I have a strong HIV positive community that provides emotional support and counsel for its members; and as long as I use them responsibly, medical advances now give me every opportunity to lead a normal life. I’m one example of someone living with HIV and managing my health care well.
How does the world look now? How are things different today? There are many other HIV positive people who are isolated, either by the physical manifestation of illness, or who simply don’t have the confidence to ask for help and support. I have learned one thing from my experience since the day I found out that I was positive. It is that if we don’t ask for help, no one can guess that we need it. My positive experience in every sense of the phrase is that there is an overwhelming amount of unconditional love and support when you ask for it.
I was diagnosed being positive. It was really hard to deal with at first, but now its just part of me and my life. I can’t turn back the hands of time, so I accepted it as a part of me, but not who I am. I’m still a mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, and a wife that has been living with HIV for 24 years now. At first I was scared and lost, but now it feels like a chronic disease that I have some control over, with the help of modern health care. I’m living a normal life. Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it is about learning how to dance in the rain, if I can do it, live through it, survive through it, grow stronger from it, heal from it. So can you.
I realize that I’m a very fortunate woman due to that fact. I firmly believe that by being open and honest and making people realize that we can make a difference from the inside by showing the world that, yes this is a horrible disease, but everyone deserves the right to be treated with respect -- that I am happy to be able to stand up and be counted.
