On a weekend afternoon I’d driven over to one of my favorite parking spots needing a bit of fresh air and sunshine on a day with the kind of chill that often makes old bones ache and movement painful.
A older woman, large eyes peering out from under a baseball cap, was attempting to back into one of the parking spaces next to me. I motioned ahead to two spots closer to the water telling her she’d have a better view there. As I was getting ready to leave she backed into the spot next to me and motioned she wanted to talk.
Beginning with profuse apologies she then rambled: she was 72–she was widowed—she’d recently taken a fall—she was carrying stuff in her car waiting until she could give it away—she was sleeping in her car to “test out” what it would be like to drive across America in a used van she hoped to purchase—she’d given up her apartment.
I thought I saw worry and fear in those large eyes but I did not know, or trust, where this encounter was headed. My physical need in that moment was to be lying down on my bed not sitting in the car, an audience of one trying hard to listen while questioning what my role was in this situation and trying to think through flooding pain. After a bit my body discomfort overcame whatever I was being asked to do, and I made my excuse and drove away.
Later, a friend reminded me of a recent encounter she had experienced in a different town with a homeless, car-bound woman who, eventually, asked her for money while she was getting gas. With troubled thoughts and accompanying compassion my friend gave her the largest bill she carried in her wallet.
There are hundreds of questions below the two sketchy, skittery “conversations” that took place. Whatever was beneath the stories each woman told, there was the truth of two women in troubling circumstances. One story is disturbing, two stories exponentially more so. Are there women panhandling from their cars that have become their homes? Have they come here because it is seems safer or because it is cooler in these summer months? Our two encounters seem unlikely as happenstance and each carries unpleasant resolve.
My chance encounter turned my woes into a grateful “Thanks” for my circumstances. “Old age is not for sissies” said my mother and through each new awareness and, with what is learned in conservations with fellow travelers, there comes the challenges aging brings. There’s the daily unfolding knowledge that we can no longer power ourselves through or do simple tasks that once would have easy. Old bodies often hurt. A lot. Sometimes there are blessings and occasional grace that allows seeing bigger pictures and contexts. Sometimes, alone, we just get through the day as best we can.
What are the things we need to know before we pass from this life? What are the responsibilities each of us holds in seeing our world with flashes of what might resemble wisdom? If indeed wisdom is present, then how do we share what we’ve learned?
And now there’s this new question: What is our role when our paths cross troubled (and troubling) souls?
We are emerging from our pandemic induced isolation and we are finding our lives altered. In my life a daily Zoom connection hosted by our local public library became a slim digital thread, a connector where I could check in and hear how others were responding to our abruptly changed world. This come-and-go group had gotten to know each other over the stretch of time when most all of us only went out when necessary, masked and constantly on alert, doing our errands as needed but feeling safer when back in our own abode. It’s more than a little painful remembering how much the constant political upheavals were rattling our already shaky selves so, in the beginning and until things started to calm down, politics was a constant theme in our discussions.
Sandwiched in between our fears and our rants were pieces of our lives that we shared with each other. The flat screen faces were kind and thoughtful. They responded in quick bursts or sat back and listened, allowing our inner cores breathing room as judgement surrendered to compassion and understanding. We heard road trip stories, family stories, and (joy!) saw pets take over screens as we ooood and awed, especially if we were living alone without furry companions. Linking the serious moments was hilarity in daily jokes and lightening quick puns. We literally laughed and cried together.
As the months went on various people joined the group or left the group, mostly without any fanfare; it was always understood we were self selected. Our library teamed up with another library in Illinois and our screen face friends expanded to include friends or relatives and those who found the group by digital miracles. Geography made everything expand in ways that would not have been previously possible but we expanded by age range and circumstances too.
After vaccines became widely available literal breathing room crept into our lives. One person’s willingness to translate a desire for three dimensional experience instead of the flat screen images provided an opportunity for some of us to gather together, in person, in a living room, and on a porch! Now we know somehow something extraordinary has happened, something new in our world, a thread of possibility formed out of a truly strange time, a possibility which might never have occurred without this crack in our world that made new ways of being possible.
None of knows what lies ahead. I suspect many of us sense we have undergone permanent shifts. We are listening and watching, wanting to incorporate who we once were with the person we’ve now become. Finding fellow explorers, kindred spirits, in unexpected ways and places, is the crack of which Leonard Cohen wrote: “the crack where the light comes in”.
The birds they sang At the break of day Start again I heard them say Don't dwell on what has passed away Or what is yet to be
Ah, the wars they will be fought again The holy dove, she will be caught again Bought and sold, and bought again The dove is never free Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets in
We asked for signs The signs were sent The birth betrayed The marriage spent Yeah, and the widowhood Of every government Signs for all to seeI can't run no more With that lawless crowd While the killers in high places Say their prayers out loud But they've summoned, they've summoned up A thundercloud They're going to hear from me
Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets in
You can add up the parts But you won't have the sum You can strike up the march There is no drum Every heart, every heart To love will come But like a refugee
Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets in
Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets in That's how the light gets in
Each year I approach the arrival of June as if I’ve never experienced it before. June is fickle and feckless, it’s weather moves from cloudy, dark, and cold to sparkling warmth and graciousness, then back to cold again.
June is the sound of the fog horn and seeing approaching gray swirls that turn into gray walls that hide that which, only moments ago, was visible. Sometimes the gray creeps in from the sea, the silent lowering mass decreasing visibility of the water. Fog enshrouds everything bringing a particular kind of quiet but one with a dank chill that penetrates to your bones.
This year the fringe of rose bushes that marks the transition between “lawn” into rocks seems to be thriving. These roses were nearly wiped out by onrushing ocean in storms these past two years. Perhaps unaware of dire climate change predictions they are full of bright pink blossoms hopeful and cheery.
When the nose-tingling scent of the briny sea mixes with the sweet smell of the roses it’s possible to close your eyes and get lost in the contrasting scents. A waft of brine sharpens everything, the life and death of the sea in your nostrils, your senses reminding you to pay attention. There is more going on here than you let yourself know.
June is sight and sound and smells changing moment to moment, endless and unexpected and, sometimes, uninvited. Nothing puts a damper on a June party faster than a thick fog. But when the skies are bright and the rose bushes vibrate with pink life June is pure promise.
And only in June do the spikes of lupine shoot up from the green tangle of the fields. Their predominant purple with occasional pinks rise and sway in the onshore breeze. Beware of lupine fields massed along roadsides. Cars stop abruptly leaving little room to pass as their occupants spill out of the doors camera phones armed and ready. Lupines are an iconic image. Who doesn’t want to share their beauty?
June is when the sea is dark blue with white spray joyously flying upward from the rocks. June is the roller coaster, the seesaw balance of heartbreak and joy and you are along for nature’s ride. June teaches us to be flexible and to temper our desires as it holds hints both of the winter’s passing and of the coming summer joy.
I am unexpectedly still by the sea grateful for the extraordinary beauty surrounding me and all who travel here, each of us feeling the particular aliveness this turbulent transition from cold to warm allows, perhaps one last chance or maybe more, we look for promise and hope the hallmarks of June.
The Marginal Way 