Mouth Sour, Heart Sick

I was on my way to a great restaurant/art gallery/concert venue/artist collective with some friends a couple of weeks ago. On the way, we passed through one of the most populated junctions in a shady part of town. While transferring trains, we ascended the stairs past bloodied paper towels, rubber gloves, and needles. I’d never seen heroin paraphernalia before. I hardly knew what I had seen, just a blur of loneliness. The next day, I saw an older woman babbling and laughing to herself in the metro. She proceeded to spit half-chewed pecans out of her mouth and put them back into her pocket. She then pulled out another crust piece of pecan tart from her shabby coat. She was starving for many things. I felt my eyes watering beneath the florescent lights. When I got out at the next stop, I almost started to run. My mouth went sour. I wanted to vomit, I wanted to scream. I asked why. I felt powerless. In population statistics, they don’t take account of those dead among the living. There is no peace, even in a place that hasn’t seen war since Hitler died. God, hold their hearts in Your hand. 

Running Like Children

I resumed my tutoring jobs this semester. One of the families I work for is French, and the adorable and perfect daughters are 7 and 10 years old. I went to pick them up from their talented, artistic, French children lessons before taking them home to tutor English. I walk into the courtyard at the neighborhood activity center and see the oldest, who is bilingual in English. I greeted her with “bises,” as is custom (the first time I met her, she stood there oddly with her head tilted up in anticipation...little did I know that kids are supposed to greet adults with cheek kisses, too). She told me that she and her sister were playing a game of “cache-cache” (hide-and-go-seek) while they were waiting for me. I started walking around the planters with bushes in the center of the complex, calling her name. I saw the little one’s tiny form, and watched her hesitate as she recognized who was calling her in the dark. She then proceeded to call out my name and perform a running jump full-force into my arms, an act of acrobatic skill which she sealed by attacking my cheeks with kisses. I held her tightly. I can’t get this moment out of my mind. It’s hard to understand why adults don’t respond this way to others, when it is evidently part of our nature. We are inhibited, cold, jaded. If we could only be like children, running into each others arms with reckless abandon.