The Upside of Downhill

On my 50^th birthday, my Aunt Cindy (who is seven years older than I am) sent me a birthday email: “It’s all downhill after fifty.”

I don’t know if that will be true for me. I’ve had some rough decades. In my thirties, I got divorced and came out to everyone I knew. In my forties, I had two brain tumors, neurosurgery, radiation, the swine flu, pneumonia, and food allergies that caused me to lose forty pounds. I’m hoping to be on a plateau, or at least on the plains, for my fifties.

In case I do head downhill, however, my friend Marcia (whose hair is beautifully white) and I started listing the advantages of going downhill: you don’t pant like you do going uphill; you can coast; you don’t sweat. My friend Rod titled the list: The Upside of Downhill. 

More friends arrived at my birthday party and kindly did not take off their shoes as the “Welcome to Geek Love, aka Mary’s 50^th Birthday Party” directed. Our house filled and spilled into the backyard with people I love, each of them having brought me a poem or a quotation as a gift. My friend Karen had decorated my “Winged Words mailbox” with birds and butterflies (other winged beings), and friends stuffed their offerings into the mailbox, offering a second copy to me for a scrapbook (or two—my friends are overachievers, and many of them brought multiple gifts). My friend Ellen has chosen two scrapbooks and (bless her) will help me put it all together. (If you haven’t yet sent a poem or a quotation and you would like to, I’m willing and eager to accept your gift from now until forever.)

When Ann and I return from our trip to DC, we’ll post the mailbox at the bottom of the stairs, near the sidewalk, and I’ll keep it filled with poems and quotations, so that passersby can take one and leave one for others. I plan to start a new blog, too. I’ll continue this one, and on my new blog I’ll post a poem or a quotation each day, so it will be a virtual Winged Words Mailbox in case walking by our home isn’t handy for you. I’ll tell you when it’s ready. You’ll be able to access the blog at www.wingedwordsmailbox.blogspot.com

Guests spanned the ages from young Pearl, who is seven months old, to Annabella who is almost 94. They also spanned my life in Seattle, from my long-time friend Rose whom I met soon after moving to Seattle 23 years ago to my student Sara, who was a student 21 years ago, to current classmates at the School of Social Work and church friends and neighbors and….

So far I’ve been fifty for eleven days, and so far downhill is great. On my birthday, Ann and I had a quiet day together. We went to the Olympus spa to sit in hot rooms of sand or charcoal, ate a tasty Korean meal in our shower caps and flimsy bathrobes (courtesy of the spa), soaked in hot tubs of various degrees of hotness, and got scrubbed and then washed in olive oil, warm milk, and honey until my skin was as smooth as it was fifty years ago.

On my first night at fifty, we went to a Pisces party where those of us who are watery and wise, born under the sign of the fish, danced and breathed as if we could do this under water. The dance is held at a senior center, and when we signed in we had to check a box to indicate whether or not we were over fifty, and so—for the first time—I signed in as a senior. (The event was free, so there wasn’t a discount.) My friend Donna and some friends of hers, all fish, have been celebrating our sign for 25 years. Ann danced a little, and I talked with Gude, a dear friend of our friend Chris’s who died in January, and then Donna, Chris’s partner, joined us and Ann returned.

Though I miss Chris, I felt her presence with us, and she bequeathed Donna, Gude, Ann and me one to another as friends. Another friend of Donna’s wore a Hawaiian shirt that had been Chris’s, so out of the corner of my eye I would glimpse her and forget for a moment that Chris is gone. At one point, we watched a couple dancing gracefully together, and I asked Ann who that was. “That’s Lipsky.” She reads my blog! Ann brought her to me so that we could meet. I felt shy.

We couldn’t stay at the party too late, because the next day we had an early morning flight to Minneapolis, where our previous student Chancey has started a charter school for kids living in poverty to go to kindergarten. Ann taught Chancey in Calculus, and I taught her in American Studies 17 years ago. Chancey has made the effort to keep up with us over the years, visiting when she comes to Seattle to see her parents, and I feel so grateful for this long-time connection. The visit was too amazing to condense into this blog entry, so I’ll post an entry about it another day.

Chancey took us to the airport at a ridiculously early hour the morning after our day at her school, and we flew on to Washington, DC, where we went to the National Museum of American History that day, the Holocaust Museum (another adventure too big for this one blog entry) the next day, and the National Museum of Art the following day. Our friend Genevieve’s mother Donita, who is a docent at the museum, took us on a tour, and it was amazing to witness the art from my Art History text book in college as well as to witness Genevieve’s mannerisms and walk in her mother.

Our last morning in DC, we circumnavigated the mall as we honored the presidents and soldiers who are memorialized there. The last memorial that we visited, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s memorial, was the only memorial to peace. The man, a martyr, was carved from a mountain of stone and the great orator’s words were inscribed on a wall around the monument. Ann took my picture by “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits,” and then I took her picture by “True peace is not merely the absence of tensions, it is the presence of justice.” I was exhausted from all of the walking, but fate was kind and sent a cab to pick us up and take us to lunch. More evidence: this going downhill is working for me.

From there, it was on to the DC train station, where the system was disorganized and confusing but our fellow passengers were kind, so we made it onto the right train and off at the right stop in Maryland where my Auntie (pronounced “Ontee”) Myra awaited us.

That was Friday, and we had crab soup for dinner before going to bed early (bless Myra for both), and Saturday Ann and Myra raced around the nearby trails while I slept late and did yoga before my younger cousins Anna and Mark arrived. We caught up over crab cakes for lunch and some more chatting back at Myra’s. (I hope we didn’t bore my youngest cousin Mark too much with our talk of health issues. I remember well when my grandmothers talked on and on about the price of peas, and I could hardly sit still for their enthusiastic chatter about such a boring topic.)

Sunday morning, it was back to the train to DC where we were meeting my previous student Angela (25 years ago!) and her partner Maryann for brunch. I don’t think I’ve seen Angela in those 25 years, and on email she had told me she looks just the same (only older and maybe pudgier), but I would not have recognized her if she hadn’t waved her arm from across the train station. It was so amazing to see this young woman who had struggled as a teenager now confident, calm, centered, successful, and beautiful. She and Maryann, her partner of 12 years, seemed easy and kind to one another. This visit did my heart more good than I can express, and again I’ll have more to say about this visit another day.

We have had a fine vacation, celebrating my birthday by celebrating so many words and people and memories that I love. Today we are flying back to Seattle, and my heart is full.

Yes, I think my fifties are going to go downhill, and I think I’m going to love them.

Forever Friends

My childhood friend Ande's mom recently found a card that I had given to Ande, maybe when we were in high school. I had drawn Snoopy and had signed the card, "Your forever friend." At that age, friendships only seemed legitimate to me if they would be forever.

Though I made friends easily (as I remember it) in my pre-teen years, I had also written Ande a letter when I was five or so lamenting that she seemed to be better friends with other girls in the neighborhood than with me. Ande's mom found this letter in the attic, sealed and marked, "Open this letter in seven years." I always was an intense duck.

I remember the struggle I had making friends during my ugly duckling years (many of my teen years), and I remember how odd I thought it was that making friends became so much easier as I turned into a swan. (My Swan Stage was a brief period, and a weird one.) The role that my beauty (or lack of it) seemed to play in making friends made me a little cynical about the depth of friendships that I yearned to be so deep.

Now that I am approaching my golden birthday (five-oh), I think of myself neither as an ugly duckling nor a beautiful swan, but just as me with an unfortunate inward turn of my left eye that keeps me away from mirrors. I know that some of my friendships will endure and others will fade over time and that some of those that fade will re-emerge over even more time. I know that, at this time, I can't tell which ones will endure and which ones will fade, and that I will welcome back any friend who was lost but now is found like a father greeting his prodigal son.

The song from Brownies stays with me:

Make new friends,

But keep the old.

One is silver

And the other, gold.

I am so grateful for the silver and golden friendships I have now. I think my experience with brain tumors made me more aware of the preciousness of those friends and the fragility of my time with them.

My friends Pea and Lori and I have been getting together every month or two this year, intentionally deepening our friendships. Getting together is challenging. Before we even get together, there are logistical hoops and loops: Lori works two days a week and has other plans; Pam works intensely at times and casually at other times, so her schedule’s tough; I go to school a couple of days a week and have other responsibilities to calendar, and I fatigue easily, so I can only visit Lori on a day when I have no other plans.

To schedule a time to get together, first I contact Pea. Once Pea and I have a few dates when we could visit, I call Lori’s home and talk with a caregiver who has access to her calendar, and we try to find a time that works. If Lori’s there, she gives the yea or nay, but if she’s not the caregiver puts us on the schedule anyway.

When I called a few weeks ago to schedule a visit, Lori wasn’t home so I just talked with one of the caregivers. In church the next Sunday, Lori wouldn’t look at me. During the passing of the peace, I went to say “Peace” to her as I usually do, but she turned her head away from me. She may not communicate in speech, so she can’t really give me the silent treatment, but she certainly communicated that she was angry, or—as she would say—pissed off. 

I spoke to the back of her head, “Peace, Lori. I called and made an appointment for Pea and me to come visit you, but I guess the caregiver I talked with didn’t tell you. We’ll see you later this week.” Only then did Lori turn to face me and smile: I felt forgiven.

Lori has cerebral palsy, uses a wheelchair, communicates not through speech but through eye movements, laughter when she is amused (often by children or our ministers’ bloopers), and an intense wailing when she is in pain. Like Lori, I don’t drive, and Lori lives a half hour’s drive north of my home in central Seattle, so Pea picks me up and drives the two of us to meet Lori.

Thursday, Pea picked me up and we headed north. When we got to Lori’s home, a caregiver answered the door, like always, and we greeted the caregivers and one of her housemates who was in the front room. Lori was already in her room, and we knew the way, so we went on back.

Lori was in a new wheelchair, a bright red motorized chair, and the caregiver in the room was nervous about trying to use it, so we called Hilda, a caregiver who has a strong relationship with Lori. Hilda turned Lori around, and we saw that this wheelchair moved fast, like a motorcycle, so we decided that we would not be touching its controls. We noticed that Lori’s right hand was cut and scabbed from hitting passing objects as she had been whizzing about in her new wheelchair.

Lori had a fancy new laptop on her desk, too, and I wondered aloud if it were her birthday, but she moved her eyes into the “no” position, indicating that it was not. Her sister had given her the laptop—and maybe the wheelchair, too. As the youngest child of five, Lori has told us in the past that her siblings thought she was spoiled when they were growing up. Perhaps they’ve continued spoiling her in her adulthood.

Pam shared with Lori a video of the flash mob where her partner Lovie proposed to her. Because Lori and I both have disabilities, though they’re quite different, I shared my most recent blog entry about my left foot.

The first couple of times Pea and I visited, we performed in this way (actually, Pea played the guitar) in the group living room, and that’s pretty much where the visit ended, but the third visit Lori invited us to her room and shared her photos and paintings with us, and since that time we always meet in her room, which is more private than her living room, and we are learning how to hear from her about how she is and what she is thinking.

This time, we sought to learn more about the music she likes. She likes Christian music more than “other kinds of music”, and rock more than country. She doesn’t like either jazz or blues. Typical for dykes, she likes The Indigo Girls.

We made a few plans for getting to know Lori better the next times we gather. Lori said that Pea and I can visit her at work, where she reads to elementary school kids. (I see her with kids all the time at church, so I know she loves kids and connects with them, but I have little idea how she reads to them.) We’re also going to interview Lori’s caregiver Hilda, who has a special connection with Lori and can read her mind. Lori will be part of the interview. And Lori says that we can interview one of her sisters, the one who gave her the laptop. Again with her there. (No sharing dirty secrets.)

Eventually, the goal is to give a sermon together at church. Partly, the sermon will be about Lori's life, but the more we get to know each other, the more I think that we will also talk about friendship. 

I'm no Biblical scholar, but I know that Jesus said, "Whenever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." This loving presence is with us when we three gather. 

After a couple of hours, Pea and I said good-bye and headed down the wheelchair ramp to Pea’s car. Pea drove us to her home, where we said hello to sweet Sunshine, the family’s golden retriever, and had a quick snack and some time to catch up before Pea’s partner Lovie came home, and we all headed to a nearby Thai restaurant to meet my partner Ann.

After a leisurely dinner, Lovie and Pea went their way and Ann and I came home. I slept well, warm with the depth of friendships that day. I am still glowing.

People often ask me these days how I feel about turning fifty. I feel great, and lucky. I have a loving partner, a fabulous family, and solid, interesting, artsy and somewhat quirky friends. My life is full.

My Left Foot

Yesterday, I joined a group of writers at Gilda's Club, which is a place that supports people with cancer and those in their lives. I wanted to join them though there doesn't seem to be an agreement on whether or not my tumors were cancerous. (My neurosurgeon says yes; My radiologist says no; Life Insurance Companies say yes;  The World Health Organization says no; etc.) 

It's hard to have a rare condition and be in an uncategorized category because it's hard to find others to connect with who understand something of my story. I'm in an online support group that means the world to me, but I'd like to connect with people whose bones and skin I can connect, too. I'm thinking maybe I'll connect with these writers who have cancer, and even though I'm out about my unclear status, I feel a little like one of these things just doesn't belong in the group.

I've joined the group both because I want to connect with a community that may understand some part of my story, and because I may want to facilitate writing groups like this for people experiencing trauma or people who have experienced trauma.

I loved the experience. Just like it's lovely to practice yoga in community again, it's good to write in community again. I practice yoga on my own at home every day, just as I write on my own every day, and even though yoga and writing are essentially individual activities, there's an important aspect to having a community invite me in.

Plus, just like it's fun to take classes instead of teaching them, it's fun to be a member of a writing workshop rather than leading one. 

For our second assignment yesterday, our leader Gail invited us to write about a part of our body, and like a good teacher, she shared a couple of examples first. 

My left foot was feeling cold and uncomfortable, as it often is, so I decided to write about it:

A couple of years ago, my yoga therapist, Cyndi, seemed worried when she saw my left foot. “What happened?” she asked me.

“What do you mean?” I asked. My foot looked the same as always to me, though I knew that my ability to perceive color had diminished after radiation for my second brain tumor. I studied my foot  but saw only the foot I’d known for 47 years: a foot long and slender that was once a size 7AAA, but over time has become an easier to shop for 9B.

“It’s bruised,” she said. “Did you hurt it?”

I looked again. Over the years I had often been irritated with this foot because it was so inexplicably uncoordinated. In soccer, I dribbled almost exclusively with my adept right foot, alternatively pushing the ball from the inside arch and the foot's outside so that I could avoid using my left foot. When I ran, I worked to keep my balance because my left foot was forever trying to tip me over. I had thought I had a weak ankle, but it turns out I had had a brain tumor.

I continued to study my foot. It looked like the same ol’ foot to me, the foot that has always been inexplicably uncoordinated. “No. It’s fine.”

Cyndi persisted, “It’s purple!” she said, gasping, a little exasperated that I did not acknowledge the troubling fact that my foot was purple.

So I looked at it again. Perhaps it was a little purple. But no, I didn’t hurt it. Cyndi suggested that I ask my doctor about it, and we moved on. 

As I showered after the session, I looked at my foot again, water trickling down its purple hue. Yep, it’s purple. Or at least purplish. I worried that there was a new problem with my circulation: another thing to worry about, another slight irregularity that could turn out not to be so slight. 

So I asked Dr. McCandless, “Why is my left foot purple? And cold?” Dr. McCandless studied my left foot, the ankle bone, the tiny broken blood vessels spider webbing under my ankle bone, the arch of my pale foot, the little hairs on my toes, my violet nail polish.

“It’s fine,” she told me. “Just nerve damage from the surgery.” How interesting that surgery in my head made my left foot cold. 

Brain surgery and radiation made my foot turn purple. After surgery, my arm had been purply soft, like a bruised banana if bananas had blood. Dad had said my brain must look like that, too. I had wondered what else was purple.

Now I look at my left foot every morning. Each morning as I come back to life, I pull my left foot gently from under the down comforter, out from its warmth. I study it and massage its arch. I press into the ball. I weave my fingers between my toes. I speak to it kindly. 

I welcome my cold, purplish left foot back to the world for another day, hurt but alive, and I wonder what else in me is purple that I cannot even see. 

Luminous Beings are We

Last Sunday was an excellent day. First, our pastor Karla delivered an excellent sermon, and then Ann and I attended a film, Dear Comrade, about a socialist commune where our friends Karen and Donna lived and worked in the early 1970s. Both events called for a world where people live in community with and for one another. Both provided vision and hope.

When Karla started her sermon, titled "Choose Life," by talking about the political arguments for and against legal abortions, I was surprised by her choice of topics. After all, we are a progressive congregation and have, I suspect, settled into our belief that a woman should choose. On the other side of the argument are, I suspect we think, conservative views that the fetus's life should be prioritized. They've settled in, too. What's the use in bringing it up? I thought.

Karla recognized these entrenched positions and what seems like the unnecessariness of raising the controversial topic. She said, "The mainline church is very clear on its position, and its position is not to talk about it." She continued by defining the entrenched positions on both sides of the issue: "Both are obsesses with nation, state, and individual….In one, the Bible is The Constitution, and in the other The Constitution is the Bible."

As a feminist, Karla is pro-choice, and she said so, but this was an aside. Her sermon was not about one side or the other. It was about the third way. Karla noted that a woman who is pregnant and considering abortion does not need our political arguments. "She needs people who will not leave her alone." She needs compassion. She needs love. Karla said, "Life isn't about making mistakes. It's about what we do with those mistakes. It's not about regrets. It's about what those regrets turn into." 

Karla asked us, "What kind of church would we be if we were a church that could talk about abortion?" 

I thought, "or race, or taxes, or the prison system." This was Karla's point. What kind of church would we be if we could talk about difficult social issues and keep at the forefront our love for one another?

Our church has been talking about our evolving vision for a year, I think. As long as Ann and I have been there, we have identified as a Reconciling Church, a church where GLBTQ persons are embraced. In 1985, our church was one of the first in the nation to take this stand. At the time, it was considered radical. 

Our mission to reach out to people who are oppressed because of their sexual orientation continues to be an important one, but as more churches, particularly in this area, have become inclusive of GLBTQ people, as a congregation we have felt the need to expand or redefine our mission. 

We have talked about working to be more open to those who aren't as included as the GLs and Qs in the group: the Ts people who identify as trans). We have talked about becoming an anti-racist church. We have talked about battling homelessness, discrimination against those who have migrated to this country without legal documents, and the prison industrial complex.

We have wondered what direction our church will take. Karla's sermon, however, lifts us from our mission to our vision. She didn't use these words, but I will. Can we be a church that embraces all people with love without judging one another?

She added some details to this vision. Can we see one another and our relationships in these ways?: 1) "Individuals are flawed and make mistakes." 2) Independence is a myth. Dependence and deciding who or what to depend on are the reality." 3) "We're all disabled, but some disabilities are easier to see than others." 

As a person with obvious disabilities, this statement felt inclusive to me. I looked to Lori, my friend who has cerebral palsy and cannot talk but reacts in pain when she feels it so that we all know something of her pain. Lori seemed quiet and easy. I took this to mean that perhaps she, too, felt respected and included by Karla's statement. 

Karla called me to a more sophisticated vision of who we can be by challenging me--and us--to begin with a way of being rather than beginning with acts or ideas of doing. 

Acts of doing will come, too, of course, but Karla called us to begin with our hearts and for our hands to follow. I am humbled to be called in this way.

After church, Ann and I went to see the film Dear Comrade, a film that included our friends Karen and Donna. The film is the director's reflection on a group's time (nine months, I think) as part of a commune during the early 1970s. 

The commune was an experiment in communal living: what would it mean to live in a society where people depend on one another, raise children together, and earn equal wages that support their living needs and do not lead to consumption and stratification. What would it mean to live in a place where decision-making is not by vote but by consensus, so that even minority voices are honored in the process?

It meant many long and irritating meetings, and it meant that sometimes in consensus the group made decisions that were compromises and weren't really good decisions. It meant that the commune eventually became a ghost town of tumbleweeds and--ironically--a golf course in the desert. 

Being part of this experiment, however, was also living in a creative space where lives were a kind of emerging art: who could we be? The film's director, Madie, reflects in this film about what being a part of this artistic experiment meant and means. 

During her time in the commune, she visited a guru to ask for enlightenment. He said that he would meditate on her question, and months later returned with a drawing of his vision: the image of a clown in the lotus position. 

What did this mean? Perhaps the clown in a posture of meditation challenged the idea of enlightenment. In the voiceover, Madie said, "Enlightenment, like other unrealistic ideals, is best achieved if you pretend."

The image stays with me. I would like to be enlightened, and have said so. I like it when people call me wise. I would like to be wise. I would like to say things like Yoda: “When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not.” (Return of the Jedi)

But perhaps Dear Comrade and Karla's sermon draw me to a different goal. Perhaps any place I reach in my mind, any vision of myself that is created from my mind, is clownish if I start in my mind.

Perhaps such wisdom begins in my heart, not in my mind. Probably.

As Yoda and Karla and Madie might say to me:

All your life have you looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never your mind on where you are. Hmm? What you were doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh….You are reckless….You must unlearn what you have learned….

Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes.You will know [the good side from the bad]... when you are calm, at peace, passive….

Much you still have to learn, my old padawan. 

May the force be with us all. 

City Travels

I am at the Rainier Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) in South Seattle. A friend who has been on welfare and used food stamps recently drove me here to observe this welfare office for my class on Poverty and Inequality. I have never been in a DSHS office before, and its not what I expected. Much like my experiences is poor rural areas in technologically developing countries, I expected to find misery here, but there’s just regular old humanity—only maybe a bit more interesting.

If my friend had not given me a ride, I could have taken a bus to a nearby bus stop, which is in this block, but I appreciate the convenience and especially the company. When I’m in lands foreign to me, I like to travel with a companion. My friend was able to park in one of the spaces reserved for people with disabilities, so getting into the door (and out of the rain) was easy this morning. There is a fairly large parking lot for maybe 60 cars, and it is two-thirds full. My friend says that some days, particularly at the beginning of the month, it’s overfull, but today parking is easy. As far as I can tell, there aren’t other social services in this compound, and the nearest hospital is in another neighborhood, so this building’s convenience for clients is about its location in a neighborhood where many people use its services rather than in its connection to other services. There’s a MacDonald’s close-by, as well as a Baskin-Robbins and a gas station mini-mart, so there’s fast food available, but so far as I can tell there’s nothing healthy. The parking lot and the office seem safe at this time of day. Perhaps I would feel differently at night, but the office closes at 5:00 pm, so lighting is probably not usually an issue.

The clock over the receptionist tells me its 9:35. It’s a round clock with hands, not a digital one, and I know from teaching many high school students living in poverty, many of them immigrants to the U.S., that some of them can’t read time this way. The place feels much like a driver’s license office to me: there are three rows of nine chairs each for waiting and working on forms, probably forty clients, and a soft murmur of people working on forms in groups of two or three. The people who are here seem comfortable with each other and with the place: comfortable, but not chatty. There is no coffee or vending machine or play area that might tempt a person—adult or child—to stay. This is a place to get business done.

Though the office doesn’t seem unfriendly, the main goal seems to be efficiency rather than friendliness. Clients can’t help but stand in the line to sign in for services, which always extends about seven people deep from the desk to the front door. The desk is also marked with a bright green sign, so that if you were to push past the line, the sign would tell you what the line is for (as long as you read in English or Spanish). Here people sign in and talk with one of two receptionists about what they need today. One receptionist is a white man, and the other is an African-American woman. The conversations are generally quiet, so I can’t overhear them, unless someone can’t read something, and the African-American woman tells that person in a loud voice what the document says. She sounds a little impatient, perhaps because she seems to repeat the same things so many times. She is generally professional and efficient, though when an older Asian man who doesn’t speak much English steps up to check in with the white man, she greets him affectionately: “Hi, my doctor! How are you?” and they both laugh warmly before he takes his seat. Restrooms are near the front desk. They are clean and orderly and both the men’s and women’s rest rooms have changing stations. (My friend, a fellow, checked the men’s room for me.)

The room’s signs are another mark of efficiency: bright green signs label each section in English and Spanish. There are phones around the room with labels about the needs that can be met on the phone: childcare services, health care, customer service, and unemployment benefits. They, too, have signs in English and Spanish. The only signs that do not give directions are patriotic signs with images of the American flag or the statue of liberty saying things like, “Vote!” These patriotic signs are only in English. After clients sign in, they sit in one of the rows of chairs to wait to be called, as patients wait at a doctor’s office. It is the emphasis on efficiency and order that remind me of a driver’s licensing office. The long wait reminds me of a doctor’s office.

In contrast to the driver’s licensing and doctor’s offices, however, few people speak English. Most people seem to be older immigrants from Asia (maybe Vietnam or Cambodia) or immigrants from East Africa (I hear Amharic and smell the tang of Ethiopian spices.) Two women wear head covering. At the back tables, small groups cluster with translators as they work on forms together. There are just a few people speaking Spanish. One Spanish-speaking woman is with her son, the only child I see. In the hour that I am here, the clients who do not seem to be immigrants are mostly African-American, though I do see one woman who looks white, and my fellow and I are white.

After checking in, clients get help from interpreters in filling out the forms if they need it. Then they return their forms and wait in the seating area to be called. Clients who need EBT cards (food stamps) are called to one of five seats with partitions between them to provide privacy. The social worker sits on the other side of the counter by a computer. Twice, I hear a social worker call for a translator. Twice while I am there, someone comes from a door to small offices behind the counter area to interview people for welfare.

People here seem calm, and though movement is clearly slow, there is no sense of hurry. My fellow tells me that when he has come here with welfare applications, he has already completed the forms and the whole process takes about two hours, most of it in waiting. Clients applying for EBT cards need about an hour to an hour and a half, though the meeting at the counter takes only 15-20 minutes. My fellow says that at the beginning of the month the wait is longer because clients who apply for EBT cards after the fifth of the month will have to wait until the next month for help with food.

Most people who are working with translators seem to be working on “The Application for Cash or Food Assistance.” The application is available in the lobby and is also available online. It’s six pages of questions and is available in many languages, though from the help tables, I gather that applicants who have migrated from other countries still need a lot of help.

The application warns applicants, “We use SSNs [Social Security numbers] to check identity, verify eligibility, prevent fraud, and collect claims. We exchange information with other agencies to manage our programs and follow the law. We may also give this information to law enforcement agencies trying to catch fleeing felons.” Thus, parents who have immigrated without documents or who are in trouble with the law would be discouraged from applying, even if their children are citizens and need help. Additionally, the application reads, “If applying for cash assistance, all adults (or authorized representatives) in the household must sign,” so those with others in their homes who do not have documents or who are in legal trouble would probably need to lie.

The African-American woman who checks people in notices that my fellow is still in the waiting area and comes over to see if he needs something. She has gone out of her way, and he says to me, “That was sweet!” I think, “Yes, that was sweet,” and I wonder, perhaps too cynically, if she would have offered this help to someone who does not speak English.

Now that I seldom travel out of the country because I’m concerned that my disabilities after brain tumors and their treatments will cause problems, I travel to see lands I’ve never seen in my own city.

I’ve often wondered how we might create a more just society in the U.S., and maybe it begins by seeing one another’s spaces. Or, more accurately, maybe it begins with those of us who live with much privilege seeing the common spaces of those who do not live in privilege. For me, in this country as well as in my travels abroad, glimpsing snippets of lives of people who are different than I am is not depressing, as I have often anticipated it would be. The lives are ordinary lives, inspiring in their ordinariness, and these glimpses remind me that we are not so different, but that our resources are different, and that our world could be different.

And one day it might be. On my hopeful days, I nod my head when I remember Martin Luther King, Jr.’s proclamation: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”