There were a thousand reasons to cross the street. There always have been. As long as I can remember, I have seen this
woman walking around north Florence in a slow, hobbled gait. She has never been clean. She has (again, in
my conscious memory) always had a discernible, wiry beard sprouting from her
knobby chin; the chin which juts out below a checker-board smile of occasional teeth.
And now she’s forty feet ahead, slowly advancing on the sidewalk toward me.
Honestly, I thought she would have died by now. It was strange to be walking toward this specter
from my childhood on my morning walk in October 2013. I can clearly visualize, as if in one of
those sepia-toned flashbacks, talking about her with my mother when I was in
middle school. We were standing outside
the back of our flower shop looking towards the old Wilson’s grocery store near
the Seven Points intersection, circa 1991.
It was a summer day, one of those where the heat radiates off the faded
asphalt from 10am to midnight. The day looked yellow and wavy. We saw her
slowly, yet resolutely trudging out of Wilson’s with a big brown grocery
bag. She was dressed in long pants,
heavy knit shirt, coat—in fact, now that I think of it, I don’t know if I’ve
ever seen her without a coat—with her shoulder-length brown hair cascading in
greasy waves and swaying with her gait. I don’t know what I asked my mother;
something about cleanliness or smelliness I imagine. (I have always had an acute sense of smell,
and a heightened awareness of what does and does not smell pleasant.) My mom
told me, in a half-sympathetic-half-gossipy way “I heard the cashiers at Wilson’s
say that they try to slip soap and deodorant into her grocery bags, but she
always brings them back. She tells them she ‘doesn’t need them things.’” From
that moment, my impression was sealed.
Someone who not only smells bad, but flat refuses Christian charity from
little old biddies at a family-owned grocery who are only attempting to make
her smell GOOD, was just, well, deserving of the sneers and upturned noses of
the general public—including myself.
From then on every time I saw her I would think of her
defiance and her sad smelliness. One time she even came to our front door to
ask if we needed any yard work done, which I thought was audacious and
borderline comical. I mean, did she even OWN a lawnmower? I thought not. There was even a time when I
went so far as to make up a whole family tree for her in my head, involving her
being the unfortunate mother of a particularly harsh-faced and
similarly-unkempt boy in my eighth grade class who we all called “Goatboy.”
They were outcasts. And as in real life
(like in the claymation great “The Land of Misfit Toys”) all outcasts knew each
other and were probably related, and eventually plotted the demise of the
pretty clean people if their expectations of acceptance were not met. It made
total sense to 13-yr-old me, and I even believe I developed some sort of
warped, self-righteous sympathy for the whole situation.
But back to October.
With this intricate backdrop of psychological noise, here I was approaching
this woman on my morning walk. On Howell
Street, no less: the cutest and most walkable street this side of downtown. And
it just so happened that on this morning I was having a massive self-pity party…I
might as well have had black balloons, death angels, and a symphony of whining
violins hovering over my head. I don’t know about you, when or if you get into a self-pitying mood, but mine also
comes with a drippy, dramatic soundtrack, retelling all my woes in graphic and
accusatory detail, on replay in my head.
NOW I’ve got to greet someone. Me, the (here’s the replay part)
childless, jobless, overweight, freckle-faced debtor who is selfish and needy
and is doing the world no good, now must smile and ask the reeking hobbling
smelly woman “How are you?” Because that’s what Southern people do. And if she
had any morals or social intelligence at all, her answer would be “Fine” just like
mine would be and then we would part in reserved, shallow silence. It’s just
how things are done. But I didn’t feel
like it—I mean, at least she had
Goatboy to show for her fertile years! I felt bereft of worth, and I didn’t
even want to share my words.
But I did notice she was carrying a huge, bright mustard
yellow purse. It seemed out of place in her drab, dirty, trudging world—and it
was just the kind of thing to present a distraction. As women, even women as we
are, I figured we could talk about accessories. I thought “I’ll give this old
woman a compliment and make her day. Then I will have at least done the world
some good.” I was just gearing up for my pitiful, small-minded bit of
superficial praise when (as He does) God decided to railroad my plans.
“Good morning” I said.
“Good morning” she replied. “How are you?”
“Oh, I’m doing alright” I lied, “How about you?”
“I’m tired. Been
working all night and had to walk a long way back, but I’m nearly home.”
“Where do you work?” I asked, now genuinely interested.
“At a friend’s house over on Alabama Avenue. I sit with her
mother who needs ‘round the clock care, and she has to work and can’t hardly afford
any help. The other nurse was two hours
late, so I had to stay.”
“Oh.” I stammered “Well, it was good she had you there to
help.”
And here’s where my recollection gets fuzzy. By this point I was shaken a bit to be having
a full-on discussion with this legend, but even more surprised that she was the
carer and not the caree (or the thief, or beggar, or
leech, or any other despicable thing you can put in there that I had always
associated with similar outcasts.) I was also shocked to notice her eyes. I had
never been close enough to really look in her eyes before, and they were so
very blue and clear, though shrouded beneath her puffy, protruding
forehead. She was truly astonishing. So
I don’t remember what started this particular outpouring, but I think one of us
mentioned our church family. Then, she began to speak, and poured a healing,
stinging salt into my wounded perspective.
“I love my church family.
They helped me get off alcohol for good.
I had a brother die from it, and another brother’s in prison from it,
and I decided I just wasn’t going to throw away my life on it. I have my husband. He always has a mess
waiting for me when I get home. I have my job. I have my house—it’s not much,
but we own it—and I have my little poodle dog that I can love.”
“What’s your poodle’s name?”
“Snowball. She’s the
cutest little thing. And I have my church, and God blesses me everyday. I get
to go and work and pray. My name is Geneva. My church friend told me that my
name means “peace,” and I guess that suits me because I am that. I am
peacefull.”
At this point, I could barely speak. I did mention that I didn’t have a job, and
she promised to pray for me. We soon parted, and I spent the rest of that walk
sobbing and saying “Thank you” to God for bringing me this example. I prayed to
be more like Geneva. (And if that does not
mean “peace” no one better tell me, because in this instance fiction is better
than truth.) I prayed for Geneva and that she would find a ride to her job, and
she would be warm, and that her family could find Jesus. For weeks I prayed for
peace like Geneva.
Recently, though, the real tragedy struck me. Possibly one
reason I don’t have peace like Geneva is that I don’t really want peace like Geneva.
That kind of peace means caring so little about what others think of you
that you dress in what is available, not what’s in style. That means living in
a house you can afford, not a house you like. That means only buying the barest
of essentials (though, I must say, soap would likely be one of mine) and not
accepting things you can’t pay for even if others think you need them. Looking
back on that first memory of her, I wonder what she truly felt or said to the
Wilson’s cashiers. I realize now that what appeared to be Christian charity to
me at 13 could have, in reality, been a kind of judgmental hazing by nosy
busybodies in a town where everybody tries to get in your business. I believe
that Geneva, at least as I met her that day, makes God very happy. She’s got it
right. But to my eyes, too filled with cable T.V. and social engagements and
luxury, [and YES, my one-bedroom apartment IS luxury. Let me not forget it.] she
still looks dirty and backward. And while I feel sympathy, I have a long way to
go to earn the kind of peace that Geneva lives in. I am convinced that it is
not a prerequisite to be dirty or poor to have peace, but I do have to just
quit looking at the world for my standards. And if God answers my prayer for
peace, he might have to make me dirty or poor to get it through my head that
this physical world is only a projection. It’s just a flicker across the
screen, easily disrupted, over so soon. If my clothes must be dirty to make my
heart clean, then I pray God changes me gently to receive it.
11Not that I speak
from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. 12I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to
live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of
being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.
13I
can do all things through Him who strengthens me.…(Phillipians 4 NAS)
I pray you all meet your Genevas. Mine carries a bright
yellow purse.
