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Lighten Up
Seeing is believing
by Stephanie Piper
It’s Monday, so naturally it’s raining, a cold, piercing December rain that settles in my bones. It’s raining, and it’s Monday, and I’ve circled the block three times looking for a parking space. The meters are cordoned off for the city’s Christmas decorating crew. It’s not even 8 a.m., but I’m already channeling Ebenezer Scrooge.
And oh, great, there they are, a rag-tag clutch of homeless people in the doorway of my building, smoking, muttering, blocking my way. I see them from across the street, and my ire begins to rise. I do, after all, have to get to work. I am carrying boxes and bags and a large umbrella. I will have to shoulder through this crowd. They will stare. It will be uncomfortable. But as I approach, key in hand, an unshaven man grins at me. Here she is, he says, the one I’ve been waiting for. Let me carry those packages. Let me help you. He ushers me in, and I close the door behind me. Another week begins. Against the odds, I’m still here.
It’s seven months since I left my job in academe to work at a shelter for the poor and homeless. How do you like it there, my old colleagues ask me, the note of bewilderment still sounding in their voices. I nod and smile. It’s going well, I say. It’s very different.
Now there’s a masterpiece of understatement. What I want to say is, I was sleepwalking and now I’m awake. Everything was beige and now it’s Technicolor. What I want to say is, some days it’s just a job in a shabby office where the plumbing leaks. Some days, it’s shadows. And some days, it is a place of blinding light.
The light is merciless. It shines into the hidden corners and forces me to examine everything I ever believed about human nature. It shines on the rich who make gifts and on the poor who receive them and on all of us in between, struggling to keep our heads up and our minds clear and our smiles in place.
In this light, motives move into sharp focus. It is impossible to conceal generosity that expects some reward, or hard luck that has been replayed a dozen times in a dozen places. Through the thin walls of my office, I hear the stories. The saints are in disguise. So are the sinners.
Now, at this season, the play of light and shadow deepens. I’m standing on the bridge, fumbling for change for the meter and wishing myself back to a smooth asphalt parking lot when suddenly, here is a man in a torn overcoat handing me a quarter.
I moan about fatigue and here is Joe, who has spent the past six months living in parking garages and was beaten and robbed last week. He has staples in his scalp and his few remaining possessions in a battered carryall bag and a smile of such sweetness that when he greets me on this rainy December morning, my weariness falls away.
Here is the woman who works a night shift and then comes, sleepless, to volunteer at the Holiday Store. Here are the church ladies who bring pot roast and apple brown betty, and here are the crack addicts who want to call home, because it’s almost Christmas and maybe this year, the family will let them come.
The light and shadows deepen. Some days, the line between them blurs. I take the quarter on the bridge. I seize the free smile, the open door, the offer of help with my burdens. I get what I need.
I work in a place where no one ever has to ask this question: When did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or naked? The poor we have always with us. We see their faces in the doorway, and the waiting room, and the meal line. And in the blinding light, we see them in the mirror.
December 23, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 52
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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