Circling Around

“Could you just circle around, please? I’ve got to wait on these other people.”

Time was short when I pulled up to the pharmacy; I knew that. There were just ten minutes before the posted lunch break. I’m not sure what it was about her request that broke me. Maybe it was the music—it always seems to be the music.

Thoughts of mortality are strong lately. My therapist says it’s not just me feeling the angst—-the displacement. We’re aging. We’re changing. Things are happening. We have no control.

The young man’s voice was quiet and profound as he shared that he never thought he would be in the situation that had presented itself on this day. Together, we struggled to set up a new cot where he would sleep during his first overnight at the warming center. His story was similar to those of my sons and daughters, to mine, and to yours. And like the rest of us, he didn’t expect to find himself here.

Me, you wouldn't recall, for I'm not my former It's hard when, you're stuck upon the shelf. I changed by not changing at all, small town predicts my fate. Perhaps that's what no one wants to see. I just want to scream...hello...

These lyrics from the Pearl Jam song, “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town,” played through my phone as I stared at the pharmacy tech that had asked me to “circle around.”

What I really heard was “go away.”

“You’re being difficult.”

“You don’t matter.”

**********

I begged her to sleep as I held her on my lap in the white wicker chair that had rocked her brothers before. We were be reading Little Fur Family, my favorite Margaret Wise Brown book that has offered a different sort of comfort to each child that I have held and rocked.

Don't be afraid. Don't be scared. I'm here with you. But what if I'm scared, too?

I saw a middle-aged woman walking into a downtown restaurant just the other day. I don't remember which restaurant it was, but my memory of the woman is bright as the January snow on a sunny morning. I first met her when I was in college. My friend and I were helping at a church that provided shelter for people in the community that had no place to sleep at night. We had to arrive sharply at the start of our shifts, as the doors were locked once everyone was accounted for, and no one could come or go until seven in the morning, at which time all the guests were sent forth into the shadows of the community until evening fell once again.

"Maybe you could do something with my hair." I turned to find the source of the meek voice, and I was face-to-face with a girl, a woman, who looked to be about half a decade past my nineteen years. She had a sweetness and youthfulness about her that matched the lisp in her words. There was something, though, behind the wonder of her wide eyes, that led me to believe that her childhood had been met with circumstances that had tried to take some of that innocence away. As I French braided her hair, I must have secretly wondered how she had come to be here, how she had come to be a guest at the shelter.

"I'm hungry for brownies!" The booming voice came from a man just a few feet from me. His commanding presence and permanent scowl evoked fear from a place deep inside of me. "I want brownies." He again caused my spine to stiffen. I peered toward my friend, and the collective decision was made. This guy was going to get brownies because we were afraid of what would happen to us if we didn't come through. There were no eggs, but the "person in charge” unlocked the basement door so we could venture into the darkness to buy a dozen from the convenience store up the road. The man, expressionless, devoured brownie after brownie as we looked on with a combination of terror and relief.

There is another man that walks to a rhythm. He takes some steps, spins to face the opposite direction on the sidewalk, takes some more steps, then spins to his original spot and continues along. I wonder where he is going. I wonder if he knows. He looks somehow familiar, like someone I may have known many years ago. I may wonder, but there really are no answers.

I seem to recognize your face

Haunting, familiar, yet I can't seem to place it Cannot find the candle of thought to light your name

Lifetimes are catching up with me.

—more lyrics from “Elderly Woman”

We have known all along. The darkness has gotten darker, and nobody can find the lights.

I can hear those words again, and I think of my tiny book which is covered in fake fur. The words, even the thought of those words, still my soul.

When she was very small, I took my baby girl to Oakbrook Mall. She was crying. She was usually crying. "Take that baby home and put her to bed!" The words of a stranger bit through my being as tears welled in my eyes. I wanted to tell this person that my little girl doesn't sleep, that she is never settled, and that I just thought we both needed a little time walking in the fresh air where the tulips were in full, perfect bloom. I stayed silent. I should have said what my friend had the courage to say when his young family was met with jeering and condescending stares from fellow restaurant patrons.

"You have no idea what they have been through."

I have no idea what she, the girl that I have held and rocked, has been through. And I will never, ever know.

When I saw the woman the other day, nearly thirty years from our last meeting, she was with another woman. It seemed that they were friends. They both looked happy, smiling, and engaged in conversation as they entered the restaurant. The passage of time, it appeared, had been kind.

Braids, brownies, or even just someone to sit alongside you; if it's what you want, if it's what will make you happy at this moment, then that is my wish for you, that we can overcome the fear—the fear that holds us back from recognizing the best parts of others.

—adapted from a passage entitled, “Into the Darkness: Factory Sealed,” written June 22, 2015, from my memoir (Isn’t That Enough; Musings of Mothwrhood and the Meaning of Life)

.*********

I pulled around the building as I had been told to do. The driver in front of me collected his medicine and drove off. I was back at the window before the lunch break, fighting the confusion through tears that surprised me with their urgency.

“Sorry about that,” said the tech as she passed me the brown medicine bags. I drove away as I heard Natalie Merchant, Billy Bragg, AND Michael Stipe’s version of John Prine’s “Hello in There.” I guess it has been a while since I had had a good cry.

Old trees grow stronger

And old rivers grow wilder every day

But old people, they just grow lonesome

Waiting for someone to say

Say hello in there

Say hello

Say, say hello…

I cried for the young man at the warming center who I couldn’t get out of my head, for my aging parents, for the misunderstood, for the overlooked, and for anyone who had been made to feel less important than they are. When the pharmacy tech asked me to circle around, she was just trying to keep the line moving so all customers could be served before she closed for lunch. In circling around, I see more clearly the lessons I have learned in this small town🩷.