As Dan and I rode back yesterday from something disappointing, we decided to do some thrifting. We chatted back and forth to sort of press "reset" on the afternoon so it would be time enjoyed together instead of just crying like my heart sort of wanted to.
"I saw *Carrie the other day", Dan said interrupting the silence. "You did?! Good.", I replied as I sat in the comfy, stiff foam seat of the Mazda 5 Dan just bought for our family to replace the 1993 Buick Roadmaster Wagon Estate that we'd been driving for a year and a half. I became very mindful of some contrasts that were happening in that moment.
"That was such a weird time in my life", I said. I looked out the window feeling tears pool on my lower lids. I was glad to hear Carrie was still alive. I was glad the time in my life that caused our introduction was over now. It was over. "I hope I never forget that girl" I said, breaking the silence again. I wasn't talking about Carrie.
Carrie and I met in the battered women's shelter where I stayed for 10 weeks when I was at a point in my life where some starting over was definitely in order. I went from being a stay at home mother of three (and I'm sorry if you've already read past posts that explain this) to a woman alone in a homeless shelter with a car that held a bunch of my personal belongings that ultimately got hidden from me after I blew a tire on the interstate and had to leave it there. I was at the bottom. I was in a house that served as quite a great equalizer because, despite the details of our stories differing, our hearts - the stuff that made us who we were, were all so similar. The recipes (see blog name) were all different, but the dish that got served up from all our lives was ...we were all on level ground. It was nice in some ways.
I have written in the past about how we all sort of rallied around each other at times and how there was a sort of code in "the house". One of the things that was always accepted was if you shared a resource. I had a car (until I didn't) so I tried to share that resource. Everyone had something, but honestly, there were some who truly had less than others. Carrie was one of those. At one point, she had been an art student with gifts that still yielded truly beautiful pictures scribbled with crayons on cast off napkins or discarded notebook paper. She had even begun college. Standing quite tall for the average height of a woman, I could still see the remnants of a strong smile and a presence that could have been unmistakable when she walked into a room.
and then something changed for her.
Sometime during college, Carrie's medication for schitzophrenia either got too expensive or dosed incorrectly. Her life spiraled out of control. When I met her in the shelter, she was actually there under false pretenses, but efforts to go back to her very obviously abusive elderly mother was impossible as this woman called the police every time Carrie knocked at the door...or crawled through a window.
Gone was the statuesque artist with the strong jawline and commanding smile. Instead, we all met a woman hunched over - not from issues with her bone health or muscle strength - but from retisence to stand tall and be noticed. She could often be found carrying on full converstions with herself. Instead of sustaining what I felt sure must have been beauty at one point, her chin jutted out under stretched skin as thick lensed glasses obscured the flecks of white in her blue eyes. Her hair held soft curls that, while they must have cascaded over her shoulders at one time, served now only to create a crown of jagged fuzz. She rode her bike (and please note - any bike she saw that she liked then became "hers") everywhere she went so she kept any extra weight off. She was skinny and, after wardrobing herself with durable clothing items that fit her long frame, the used military camouflage often gave her an appearance of androgeny. This conglomeration of very distinctive characteristics made her very hard for a lot of people to successfully disect and understand.
Every once in a while, though, some of the sweet would shine through.
Everyone in the house drank coffee. A warm cup of sweet coffee, if you closed your eyes tight enough and gripped the mug just right, could make you feel like you weren't in something akin to a prison. You could just sip away and pretend that the other ladies in the house weren't fellow survivors of terrible things. You could pretend that it was your own back porch, and that you'd just invited all of your neighbors over before you all fell to your housework. For those of us that weren't doing drugs, it was our escape. So with all of us drinking coffee, we would sometimes find ourselves in short supply or we found ourselves out of coffee altogether. Well somehow, Carrie had scored a large cannister of Folgers classic roast. There were various ways that Carrie procured things, and, honestly, that was her business. Carrie would never hurt a soul. She was also willing to bike herself all the way across town to the staffing agency every single morning and work jobs that nobody else wanted picking up rubble from construction sites or similar very sweaty activities. She earned more money than some of the lazier characters that landed in our four dysfunctioned walls, so we all actually just felt sort of proud for her. After a day or two, one of the ladies that I'd grown closer to pointed out something to me. I immediately took a picture. The image is one that I treasure.
Carrie had found a permanent marker and scrawled across the bright red cannister "Carrie Shares". She had been mostly mistreated by her housemates, but she extended the olive branch of the coveted grounds for anyone who wanted....to share.
A number of weeks went by, and I was able to get an apartment. The night we moved my stuff out of the house into MY house, Carrie was there to help.
As we stood in the living room of my 600 square foot apartment, all of our eyes welled up with tears and I felt so absolutely, undeservingly lucky. This was my dwelling. I had a reliable job that was going to pay for all my bills there, and my name would be on every envelope that got delivered. Just me. No roommates except for the weekends my kids came home. They were all doing just as much as me, and I was able to jump ahead so it hit me.
"This door..." I walked over to it, I think "...this door is ALWAYS open for any of you. I don't care what time of day or night. You know how to get here now. If you need somewhere to go, come to this door." We all stood in a huddle and hugged. We were going to make it. We were going to all make it past the trials of this awful life we'd survived, right? I wanted us to, and I wanted my little space to help us all.
I think it was a matter of a couple of months went by, and I came home one day to find a note scrawled on my carport floor in sidewalk chalk. Fear gripped me. I could not immediately bring myself to read what it said. I decided after a few seconds to face whatever message was waiting for me and read the words. The sentance was jumbled and didn't totally make sense, but it was from Carrie. There was another time where there was a scrap of paper with a note similar to this one. Either way, I got ahold of Carrie and she found a hot shower and clean towels, food for her belly and a couch to sleep on...at my house. Over the next few weeks, Carrie would sort of come in and out always trying to be respectful of when my kids came home. She was there one day when Sally was with me. Carrie seemed so uncomfortable like she was intruding or almost afraid that Sally would be afraid of her. She wasn't. Sally was not afraid of Carrie.
Then Carrie would disappear.
I tried to keep tabs on her because, despite being in Florida, our winters get pretty cold. That ocean breeze can slice against your skin when it's hovering in the 30's and 40's. We actually got snow that year. Anyway, Carrie had told me about several of her "spots" where she and her fellow homeless friends would bed down. After not hearing from her for too many days in a row, I had this really strong need to go find her. Something in my soul just kept saying "You are supposed to go get her tonight", so, in my orthopoedic loafers and Estee Lauder uniform, I drove to the park she'd mentioned to me and got out of my car. There was a birthday party finishing under one end of the pavilion while a very obviously homeless man sat at the other eating a sandwich as if he was sitting in his own living room. It made my heart have a little giggle because he was making "home" wherever he could. I asked him if he'd seen Carrie. He pointed through the tall cattails to the gazebo they obscured from sight. I walked the sidewalk path that led straight up to the steps. There were 3 or 4 other people laid out on sleeping bags and pallets, and there was Carrie. I remember having this sense as I approached that I was walking up the steps of the porch to a proper home, and I could see in because they'd pulled back their curtains. I felt the need to make sure to show my respect, so I said hello to Carrie and said hello to her...roommates. They all introduced themselves to me except for the girl who couldn't wake up. Carrie even shook her head about that girl, but we both shrugged because we all have "stuff" just the same as that girl. I told Carrie that she was coming to my house tonight. She tried to hide excitement as she gathered up her things. This was not because of any pridefulness. She just didn't want to become an imposition.
Over the next month, she drifted in and out of my house. Sometimes she would leave me a note scrawled in sidewalk chalk graciously thanking me, and sometimes she would leave without a trace. Eventually she left for the last time, and I never saw her again. I never knew where she went...until yesterday when Dan told me about having seen her.
I know this took forever to read but this whole story played through my mind in the short time it took for Dan to tell me that he'd seen her to me remembering the "me" of then - the "me" that didn't feel like I was helping the less fortunate. I was helping "me" in another body. I got lucky, and I know that to this day, and I do NOT EVER want to waste that.
So Dan and I drove down the street. We went to a couple stores where I found some books for Natalie, and then we came home. Audrey was so clingy, so I asked Dan if he minded if I went alone to the thrift store in back of our house (our neighborhood is a strange mix of residences and businesses). Of course he said yes.
Normally I never look at the clothes, but yesterday I thought "You know what? What if there's some good treasure in there?" So, as I talked on the phone to my sweet friend, I slid shirts down the rack until I found 6 that were worth it to me to try on. They all fit, but I remembered that this store has sales every Sunday, so I hid my shirts all together so I could find them and then asked the cashier about the sale. She confirmed for me that some items would be reduced the following day so I went back home.
This afternoon, too lazy to change out of my ill-fitting, paint spattered laundry day best, I told Dan I wanted to go back for my things. I quickly found the place on the rack where I'd hung them up yesterday, but only 3 of them were there today. Again, despite my normal disregard for looking throught crowded racks of used clothing smelling heavily of mothballs, I decided I'd continue my search for some replacements. I tried them on and felt satisfied that I'd happened upon more wearable clothing than I'd found at a thrift store in months, so I took them to the register. I double checked with the cashier to make sure the items I'd found were on sale because my whole personal purpose in the orginal exercise was to see how cheap I could get these things. It was a game for me, sort of. He admitted to me that only one of the items of my 6 was a sale item so I was like "Well...do this and this then. It's okay." He was very apologetic, but I go peruse there all the time, so I really did not want him to feel bad at all. He was like "Okay, well do you want me to take these other things off?" I replied "Yeah, just take those off" and then an older woman with a rounder figure and a dark pixi haircut interrupted and said "No...no" as she looked at the cashier "No. You ring up everything and I'll pay for the difference of whatever she was going to put back". I was awestruck. My brow furrowed, and I asked her "Are you serious? Thank you!" but I felt so conflicted. I felt worried that I had defrauded her in some way. What if she thought I was "as poor as I looked"? I mean, I was just too lazy to change out of my ugly clothes, but what if she thought that was all I had? What if she thought buying everything was beyond my resources instead of just being beyond the reach of the rules of the little game I played while thrift shopping? I felt an impulse to say something to her, but this rapid fire exchange of thoughts shot through my brain until I heard a voice in my head say "No, Sarah. Do not tell her no. You both need this. You should not tell her no. Be gracious. Accept this. You need this and she needs this." As the casheir rang things up, the woman then changed her mind and decided to buy the $7 worth of things that I was originally going to buy. I looked again at her and just hugged her. She just kept talking about how God tells us to take care of each other and we just make it because of how He loves us. I kept nodding my head as she talked. I wondered "Does she know that I know God? That I have felt the grip of His hand hoist me up out of the angry, stormy water of life? Am I showing God as much as she is right now? I WANT TO! I hope that I am!"
I stood and talked with her a few minutes, and then we parted ways. She spent $25 on me - a total stranger on things that she didn't even inspect to make sure they were worth her money. Just willingly handed it to my heart. I felt so humbled - not humiated - humbled just like you always feel when something wonderful is bestowed to you through no merit of yourself. You just get given something really beautiful that you don't necessarily deserve but for the love that is offered to you by the heart of another.
I walked out of the store, and then it hit me. I literally audibly said "Ohhhhhkay" to God because in that moment as I stood at the register refusing the things I'd picked out, I HAD looked like "her". I was....still....her. I am.....still....her.
The circumstances of my life are different now. I'm no longer homeless. I am no longer in hiding. I'm married again to a very obviously wonderful man, and, though there have been more moments of truly abject poverty after the time I spent at the shelter, I'm not there now.
But I don't want to forget "her"! I don't ever want to not be the girl who opened her door to any person who needs my four walls. I don't want to ever not be the ears that would always listen and the heart that would always love. I don't ever want to not be the woman who didn't wince at the soul who's body had a lot of dirt on it because I knew what it was like to be a soul like that too. I will always be her, but I don't want to forget that. I shudder at the thought of ever feeling too comforted by the trapping of fine things that my ears grow deaf or my eyes grow blind to the other "me"s walking around out there and now I have a sweater and some shirts and a pair of jeans that, every time I put them on will surround me with the warmth of someone who saw "her" and saw beauty and had beauty within themselves that just spilled out the top of their own souls.
So now, though, I've got this bank of $25, right? I didn't necessarily need these things, so now my eyes are on the hunt. I'm looking for someone...I'm looking for me...and I'm looking....at you.
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