A Bouquet of Neighbors

Last night I dressed for the rally, took all my precautions, took out my bus pass, turned off my phone, and suddenly felt the air escaping from all my balloons. I sagged. I sat down. And I didn’t have the energy to go out. It was one thing too much, one more effort of the day too far.

Here it is Saturday, and I don’t usually blip on Saturdays, but as I was leaving the building to go to the bus stop, these women were coming toward me on the sidewalk, and of course I pulled my camera out. And they, who have known me as their neighbor for 17 years and have featured in my photos many times, although we don’t speak the same language…waved and smiled and were such a pleasure that I had to blip them.

Seeing them reminded me of a poem by Li-Young Lee, called “Self-Help for Fellow Refugees,” and here is a tiny piece of that poem:

Very likely, your ancestors decorated 
their bells of every shape and size
with elaborate calendars
and diagrams of distant star systems
but with no maps for scattered descendents.

In Behind My Eyes, by Li-Young Lee (Norton, 2008).