“Of course, my dear.” As he presented his hands to me – resting them on a book, waving them in the air, etc – he described the work he’d done with those hands over the years. Keith is his name and he was subbing for a security guard at a local church. We’d only known each other for less than an hour though when he first saw me his first words were, “Have we met before?” While I’m horrible with names I’m pretty good with faces and his aged face did not look familiar. But he did feel awfully comfortable to be around. And so after hearing him speak for a few minutes with his beautifully accented voice I said, “Sir, when were you born?” The people around me may have been appalled I asked that question, but he looked at me and laughed. “1933, my dear.” Then he took out his I.D. card with his birth date to prove it.
For the short while that we were together he described growing up in Barbados, then moving to England as a young man where he worked for Rover and his various adventures as a stellar mechanic. He described his first wife and her untimely death that left him with three young children under the age of 10. He made a decision to focus on the children and not remarry until they were grown. And when they were grown he did remarry. There was no question asked that did not produce beautiful, sometimes heartwrenching, stories of family, friends and work. I finally said, “Sir, you should record these stories.” He chuckled and said, “I’ve lived these experiences. Why do I need to record them?”
And so the morning began with sounds. Laying in bed listening to snow slide from the roof. Over breakfast listening to Steve tell stories of his night. My brothers’ voices, one via voice mail, him singing a made up song about getting up and getting started with a cup of coffee. His words inspired me to pour some beans into a white cup and photograph a single image and hope it came out well.
I continued to take random shots about the kitchen, of lemons in bowls and of rosemary. I don’t think I’m supposed to let indoor herbs bloom but I couldn’t help myself. No sounds there, just lovely periwinkle silence.
During the midst of all this, something happened. Nothing serious but one of those incidents that can color a day, darken it … if you allow. I told myself to let the incident go. To help me do so, I pulled from my bag a list of desired tasks. One of them was to look up composer Peteris Vasks. I’d only learned of him yesterday at an organ recital. The organist had played one of his pieces, Te Deum. During my research I came across this piece, Dona Nobis Pacem.
A beautiful, calming piece.
As it played on repeat in the background, I wandered around taking other photos, indoors of items on tables
and through windows of ice melting beautifully.
What that music inspired exactly I can’t say. It did encourage me, remind me even, to be present, to appreciate the beauty before me that I could see, that I could hear, and that I could imagine. We all need reminders on occasion. 😉
Growing up in Virginia, my parents made clear quite often that “times are tight.” Many a fellow classmate wore more expensive clothes but mine were just as clean and it didn’t matter that they were purchased via layaway. And my brothers and I still share stories of how well my mother could stretch a can of Campbells soup. But it wasn’t until I was accepted into college, completing financial aid forms and trying to figure out how my family’s income fit on various grids … that’s when one day I looked across the table at my parents and said, “Did you know we’re classified as poor?” That I did not feel poor despite my family having little money says a lot about my parents and the neighborhood in which I walked.
It is a very different neighborhood in which the little girl Dasani lives. It is a Brooklyn neighborhood in transition. Thanks to the New York Times series, Invisible Child, readers can journey with her through that changing world. You the reader can walk with her, run, kick, and dance. You can even hear her voice and those of the people around her because it is a multimedia presentation with short videos at the end of each of the five parts. It is a series provoking a lot of conversation, dialogue, debate … and hopefully, most importantly, some good actions. It can sometimes be tough to read and to watch but I hope people do.
