On My Walk To Work
I step out my door and take the first sniff of today’s air — always the ripest for the nose, when ere its been accustomed since waking to the indoors. A temperate sharpness of brisk air which is the world’s vital invite to come outside, stir about, and mix one’s presence with kind company.
I slowly make my way down the stairs and notice hanging on my neighbor’s fence a bright side of green wooden letters which reads:
“Live Simply”
Was this today’s lesson?
I walk my customary path to work, passing by the churches, eyeing their out fronts for signs of the quiet beauty of sacredness treasured within. The backside of stain glass windows, when the figures are unrecognizable, the colors dull, and the sunbeams withdrawn, only increase my desire to what it’s like in the front face, when an hour in the sun’s favor re-stains the glass in such a bright, rich glow that you forget the materials that compose the religious scene portrayed: in a glance the window seems a magic casement whose supernatural capacity is in serving as a portal to the past, bringing two moments onto the same present plane to be experienced as such. The spirits are resurrected, re-flamed by the shine of the sun.
Another aspect I delight in of this particular church is that it is composed entirely of neat, organized red brick, whose white lines are still filled in and straight like the freshly laid layers of a cake, and which has, adorning above one of the door ways, a cross chiseled of gray-white rock, spotted dark by the dirt in the air, and whose edges have been rounded by the rain, so to appear more as a solid X. I imagine this contrast of a new foundation and an old top, to be an illustration of a characteristic in the worship of religion. In every person does the belief, once implant, is born fresh, nurtured by the life force which supports the means; but the divine end, which is greater than us, keeping our thoughts among the clouds, is ancient, and kept as its phenomenal peers the celestial spheres.
I turn to the busy street and find such an assortment of people, which from a glance of their appearance portrays their collected range of origin and upbringing, that I feel I have been spared a glimpse of the globe and the infinite variety of its beauty. May I sum up what I witnessed.
First, a young man and woman walking side by side, the man courteous to place himself between her and the road. Their gloved hands were latched together, and they must have been speaking of matters of most private important for as I walked by they went hush, as though I served as some sign of the public which seemed to constantly, at the most inopportune times, to encroach and interrupt their moments of intimacy, risking the stifling of a still budding love.
A mother and her young boy, also holding hands, making their way somewhere? A sweet shop, or back to the car in the parking garage, his tiny feet aching for so many steps across the sidewalk. I stare at how her clasp gently imprisons his small hand, and revisit inside myself the sensation of when I followed my mom, dawdling by her side, my mouth voicing in incoherent phrases whatever my eye fancied — when I would look up to her and feel the comfort of love embodied, the sole person in this world who, in some extraordinary capacity, knew what I felt, could hear the whispers in my heart, and could assuage its concerns by producing from a coat pocket or in her tone of voice the honeyed remedy.
Up ahead a young man, likely older than me, walked passed, hands in his pockets, which made me aware that I had my hands hidden in my pockets as well, though it was not particularly cold (and if it would turn so I brought gloves). There was a loneliness in his figure which again was brought upon me. It could be that the pain in the heart, under the weight of an unbearable solitude, wishes to avoid any more suffering from the outside by eliminating one of the senses, that of touch, so if any sorrow would plague him it would come expectedly through the eye or ear.
I sympathized with the loneliness, yet it was quickly shrugged off by my surroundings, hinting at a different reality which reeled around me.
A group, a gaggle rather, of white-bonneted women crossing the street, all wearing plain one color dresses decorated with one flower pattern repeating. They were all spinning their heads eagerly noting the new. To see modern car models pass in front of these conventional women of a former age brought the past to life for me — here was the modernity which lies behind. My imagination overcame that distorted perception which would stow away such dresses and beliefs in some lost closet or behind a display case, envisioning any one who wore these artifacts to be playing a part, serving as representations but not the real thing, that is, not the thing as I experienced it. Now, with the past existing in the present, the gap was abolished, like bringing the ends of a piece of string to jump the length. My imagination began plowing through once infertile soil, and I learned in their faces their simple virtues.
More and more people flowed onto the streets, passing up and back and across me talking and walking and standing. Couples young and old, groups small and large, coming out of alleys and into shops, alighting from cars and leaving from restaurants.
A woman of South American appearance sat on a motorcycle by a gas pump. A man, whose features suggested the Far East, stood by her side chatting. I had wished I came upon them sooner, when they first arrived, so I could watch the woman take off her helmet and sway her hair, have the locks unwind and spread across her shoulders, stretching their elegance and letting the beauty breathe, as when a flower unclasps its petals to release the perfume of a blossom.
I see a nerdy couple in their youth come from McDonald’s. I had seen them before. Were they dating then? Are they now? Isn’t it pleasant that I could not tell between a committed relationship and a close friendship? No doubt some common interest brought the two together — you could read it on their apparel — and bound them, this interest being some hobby obscure to those who also attend their school, which had made them feel frightfully alone before their meeting, for the four walls of academia had been their world most of their life.
I wait by the crosswalk to change. Up ahead is the barber shop whose front is all tall glass windows. They must have a strong pride in beautifying appearances. It felt as though I was peeking into the workshop of craftsmen, all in the varying stages of skill in their apprenticeship, under the guidance of a master whose name hung above the door. A young man passes by the shop window, looks inside, raises a fist, shakes it slightly, and smiles, a non-verbal “Hell yeah” or “Let’s go” or “You got this.” Oh what memories did they share? Was the passing man a close friend of the one barber and, knowing all that he had been through, physically and emotionally, it excited him to see that the same person who was unemployed, sinking their income in addiction, sighing plans of suicide, is now upright, moving his hands to serve others with a smile, and the fist pump an encouragement, a silent statement of pride in the accomplishment?
My heart began to swell; I took a deep breath; I know some following sign of genuine good would make me cry for the kindness we give to others.
There was a woman on a short ladder washing the inside of her store front window. And that was it. I had to latch my lashes, and turn my face, embarrassed at the prospect of people catching sight of my tears. She must have been a mother, her children are in a nursery or at school. Perhaps a single mother, working at this hour…and I imagine all the treats and goodies this mother buys for her little ones, who pay her back with innocent giggles, mischievous smiles, and “I love my Mom” drawings which adorn the fridge, giving a quiet grin on her face every morning as she waits for her coffee.
