A Pilgrim’s Digression

After a rain-soaked weekend that extended over into Monday, the early morning air is chilly and damp enough to require a light jacket. Yet inside trains and buses and office buildings, the jacket becomes a clinging, sweaty straight jacket. Cool outside, stuffy and humid inside. How typical of an April day.

The bus is mucculent with humidity that steams the windows; the train reeks of warm staleness and fetid-smelling male cologne. Even when the train car delivers its passengers onto a platform, the over-bearing warmth of the underground station does not relieve the clamminess of the skin inside the clothing.

Yet at the top of the escalator, a cool, 58 degree breeze awaits.

A woman clopping confidently along in her black patent pumps stops, kicks off the shoe, and standing on one foot, bends over to pick up the shoe and shake a stone from the toe. She slips her foot back in, this urban princess, and strides on to her office.

Meanwhile, somewhere behind her, a cheaper shoe on another woman’s foot squeaks with every step.

On the grassy sward between the Library of Congress and 2nd Street, two Welsh Corgis bark and chase each other excitedly in circles, while the elderly wife of the Librarian claps for her beloved pups. Happily, age has not freed her from childishness.

The loud Examiner hawker that used to stand on the corner of 2nd and Pennsylvania has been replaced by a subdued woman who merely looks at the passersby entreatingly, instead of exhorting them to take a paper. She can go home, once her stack of free papers is given out, yet she seems unwilling to inconvenience people by thrusting a paper into their domain of personal space.

On the sidewalk outside a Bank of America, a young Hispanic male talks excitedly with a young woman of the same ethnicity. She is dressed in the uniform of the cleaning company hired to vacuum the cubicles and dust the shelves in government office buildings. He is dressed casually in jeans and a uniform polo, a delivery man.

They haven’t seen each other in awhile. To both of them, a future which may or may not come to pass is suddenly revealed. It could happen! They go on their separate ways with an exchanged promise to call as soon as possible. The beauty of youth is the ripeness of its possibilities. No future is closed off.

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, polling places are opening for an important election.

I walked my usual path to work this morning, my head down, thinking. At least once, I stood at an intersection several seconds after the “Walk” sign lit, confusing drivers in turning automobiles, who expected me to step off immediately. Afterwards, repentant of my thoughtless folly, I imagined them cursing me when I woke up and stepped off, just as they gave up on me and started to turn.

I was thinking to myself that perhaps there is some transient beauty in the record of trivial details. Without the written word, the pebble which hurts the woman’s foot would go unrecorded, unremarked upon. Even now it lies on the sidewalk, forgotten by the person it momentarily caused discomfort.  Or perhaps it has already fallen into the gutter, making its way on a stream of watery refuse towards whatever oblivion exists outside of human knowledge or perception.

Why not the barking Corgis? The sound of their joyful play has already faded, but I recorded it here, however imperfectly.

My grandparents sent my son a birthday card. It arrived Friday, a day after his birthday (he turned seven on Thursday). My grandpa wrote in it, “Happy birthday Little Buddy.”

All weekend, it worried me. There was something off about it. Finally, on the walk to work this morning, I figured it out. My grandpa signed the card. In all the years I have received cards from my grandparents–in all the years my son has received cards from my grandparents–my grandma has always been the one to sign the card.

That signature was like a dash of cold water in the morning. Grandma can’t see anymore. She can’t see to sign the card. She has always had macular degeneration, but lately it seems that her chemotherapy has hastened the loss of her eyesight. I don’t think I ever realized just how bad it had gotten.

There is also a hint of preparation for her death in that card. I remember her saying at Christmas that she had to make sure that Grandpa knew everyone’s birthday, so he could send them a card after she is gone. I can imagine her reminding Grandpa of Brendan’s birthday last week, asking him to write a little note in a card and mail it.

There is a darkness that awaits us all, in the end. The only hope is that some small part of us remains, whether in written form, or in physical artifacts. I’m not sure that most people really try to make an effort at preservation, beyond the keeping of photographs. However, as I found out when my maternal grandmother died and we went through her boxes of photos, photographs without metadata and context are worthless. What value do they have if no one knows anything about what or who is depicted?

So, I record a few details, in an ethereal medium probably not ideal for preservation purposes. It’s just about all I can do for the (to me) nameless who cross my path, as well as loved ones who have played a more significant role in my life. Maybe someone will do the same for me, one day.