Weary is gateway to Wonder

Bronx,  NY

It started out with me oversleeping. I got to the college where I tutor and was the first one there. Phew. Then slowly the students started coming in. This is our last weekend before winter break. So many papers to proof; students to help, that soon I was overwhelmed and left for the solace of the bathroom stall. Then, back to more harried faces asking me to work a miracle. Why didn't you come sooner, or more so throughout the semester, my mind scolded. But I tried not to judge. Two with dyslexia, one a non-stop chatterer, and three circling me, I wanted to get out of there as much as they did. And finally I was, but not before one last frustrating hour.

On the "prison bus" as I call the Hutchinson bus that takes us from Mercy College to Weschester Square, I saw the large group of parents and children. It was the ACS Holiday party. This bus was small, how would they all get on? I wondered. How much more? I stood in the back with about eight of the children, who sat on the floor, around me. I found myself talking to them, their faces painted as butterflies Big Bird, and tigers. I commented on all the shopping bags, seeing many stuffed animals filling the bottoms. "At least we got something," said an older child, about 10, the one painted as Big Bird and I wanted to give her everything this world could muster. Her mother stood my me on the bus. I felt her smoldering sadness.

Getting on the 6 train at Westchester Square, I felt weary, and while holding a hot tea, I sat down and closed my eyes, listening for 125th, my transfer. When it came I bolted for the 4, getting on, and gaining a coveted seat. I closed my eyes again.

Westchester Square/Tremont Avenue

But something caused me to open them a few stops later. I saw a woman as tall as a sycamore, dressed in brown and holding a brown cane standing across from where I sat, by the door. I waited to catch her attention and to indicate she could have my seat. As soon as she saw me, she spoke in Spanish, telling me she was fine, but thanking me. I thought this odd since she had a cane! A good commuter gives up their seat to anyone with a cane, or who is pregnant, elderly, or with children.

I closed my eyes again only to feel her come and sit beside me soon after the stop at 86th Street. Even now as I am telling you - I am still in sublime shock - over all of this. She sat down and her elbow brushed my arm and you know how sometimes when you are tense, a slight touch can activate a healing point of relief? I was thankful for that, but that was just the beginning.

She began to talk, looking straight ahead as if remembering something from the day, and in fact she was. She said she had witnessed what I determined to be domestic violence while "out in the field," so she must be a social worker or home attendant. I found myself not shying away from a stranger's talk. Nor did I feel like she was a runaway conversationalist, just talking to hear her voice.

But she kept saying, "sometimes you have to report it," and each time, I agreed with her. I thought we must look so funny together, this light, brown-skinned woman wearing braids caught at the ends with red rubberbands, next to a weary white girl with a braid trailing down her back and loose pieces of hair around her face..

She talked of how everyone can be helped to function normally, even those who they say are "special". She told me of a three year old Jewish boy whose parents told her would not eat. She took an orange and peeled it, letting the rinds fall to the ground, she told me. She said the little boy picked it up and put it to her tongue. She accepted it, and it was the start of him beginning to receive his own food. "Today he is in college," she tells me, smiling. "And now I have hundreds of people asking for my help." And I believe her.

She read my mind and asked me how old did I think she was?  I looked and blushed. "You can go high or low," she said. I played it safe and said 65. She put her head down as if to laugh, looking up, her eyes vibrant, saying, "I will be 95 on the 25th!"

Shut up!" I said.

"Yes, I am," she answered. "And I am on my fifth pension!"

I reached for my bag, scurrying for my notebook, "Please, you have to let me talk to you," I said, suddenly out of breath. "You see," I stammered, "I have this memoir program, well, I have another program, but it hasn't really taken off, yet, but you will be the first, and well, it's called Elder Campfire, and it is about what we want to say to the future children in our families about what we have learned while here," I said, stammering on and writing my information on the paper. As wild as I felt, nothing felt forced. This felt right. Natural. Normal.

"I want you to," she replied and then she shifted. "I, I mean, yes, you will talk to me, and yes this night it all changes," she said, looking upward, "and this is when it will begin, but I want you to know that God wants you to go home and to take out another piece of paper and to write down, to sit down and to write what you want and what you need, what you really want to happen in your life."

I stared at her, feeling her words in my solar plexus.

"I will do it," I said to her.

"You know, I let two trains pass, and when this one came my friend went to that car and I came to this one," she said. "I knew I was supposed to meet someone and here you are. And I want you to know that angels do not always bring the message. Sometimes it is from people, people like me. And when you see the light," she said, pointing upwards, "don't be afraid. When it comes you will never be the same again."

And I said thank you to this messenger. Humbled, stunned, shook, I rose to leave the train. I didn't want to go. "Please tell me we will speak again," I pleaded. "I will contact you," she said, smiling wide, and as I stepped onto the platform, I hurried hoping to catch her stare in the window and to wave, and to connect again. But her head was down. She was putting my paper into her purse. And her expression was calm, unpretentious, serene, matter of fact, at peace.

I trembled from the grandeur all the way home. I am still moved. Whimpering into my scarf, I walked home, mouth open, no words coming out, no tears, just an all-encompassing feeling of relief and grace.





Dedicated to Tito Ortegon, the most handsome man I never had, but Ida let him carry me home one stone cold drunk night. Te amo to Ida, Tito, and the darling babies that followed.