Spilled Beans

I'm walking along west Sixth Street on my way to get something to eat or to read. (I haven't decided which.) The sun is warming my back. A cool breeze is blowing thru my hair.

I'm walking quickly, because there isn't much time and there's still a long way to walk. But then I look down and come to a stop. At my feet there is a pile of beans -- a broken bag of pinto beans lying strewn about the sidewalk. I stand there in silence and look down at them, a once perfectly good bag of beans.

A woman walks up to me. I can see her in the corner of my eyes, but I'm still staring at those pinto beans.

The woman grunts, and I look up from the beans. She has a dirty, wrinkled face and squints in the sun. She is wearing ragged clothes and carrying a large bag under one arm. She grunts again and points to the beans and then motions to me with a questioning look in her eyes.

No, I say. Go ahead. I motion to her as she motioned to me.

So she reaches down and grabs at the bag, but most of the beans fall to the ground as she begins to stand. She hesitates briefly then stands the rest of the way up and turns and walks away.

...

I was standing there gazing at those beans, jotting down notes about the strangeness that struck me, the strangeness of the beans lying in the sun on that glorious day. I was scribbling something about the sun shining down from the blue sky overhead and my shadow stretching out into the street away from a broken bag of pinto beans.

It seemed a surreal moment. And I was self-absorbedly scribbling about it when the woman walked up.

And I am ashamed.

Here was this woman who was hungry enough to want to have those beans and decent enough to ask me if they were mine and yet proud enough not to scramble on the sidewalk as most of them fell back to the ground.

And here was me on my way to eat. Yet it didn't even occur to me to ask her to come with me, which I would do in a moment now if I could only find the rewind button.

No. I was scratching my notes, absorbed in my words, and oblivious to the misery of this woman's life.

I am so ashamed.

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On the way to Waterloo Ice House for lunch.
JournalCon 2003, Austin TX

9:41:05 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

Waterloo Lunch

I will sit here now under the cloudless blue sky. I will sit here with the birds singing in the trees and the breeze blowing at my back. I will sit here in the shade at this table and wait. I will sit here and wait for them to call out my name.

And then I will sit here and eat my cheeseburger and drink my iced tea in absolute bliss, because I am very hungry.

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Waterloo Ice House for lunch.
JournalCon 2003, Austin TX

8:21:13 AM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []