There are a thousand small moments that collect, over time,
into the strange cobbled together patchwork that makes up our lives. Layers of
jewel toned memories are blended with dull grey regrets, blinding bright
flashes of regrettable anger, or the soft black sorrows of neglect.
I am fifty-four. I tell you this not to boast or complain
(although, truth be told, I want to kiss my mother almost daily for blessing me
with some hidden genetic code which, at twenty-five, had me lamenting the fact
that people thought I was still in high school, but now has them often pegging
me easily for ten years younger) The reason I tell you this to show how minor
incidents, recorded in some moth eaten corner of our minds, can stick with us
for years, and inform a major pillar of our personal mission statement as an
adult.
The incident I speak of is the dull grey regret of an eleven-year-old
girl who was too hesitant to act on the idea of a good deed that sprouted in
her mind, and who as a (shudder) middle aged woman, still to this day remembers
her inaction and regrets it.
Forty-three years haven’t changed that feeling.
I grew up in
upstate NY, in a town of about 6,000 people. It was and still is, pretty, leafy
and oh, so pedestrian to the kids growing up there. Straddling the mid-point
between two much larger cities, it was a nebulous, middle of nowhere
nothingness. A place at even aged eleven, I despised and longed to be free of.
When I go back now on the odd occasion, the entire place always seems coated in
a faint film of grime and decay.
In this town, we lived in an extraordinary, beautiful house.
It was easily 2500 square feet, built in the 1850’s and just stunning in it’s
beautiful, wood turned open plan doorways, ornate stair case and beautiful
hearth. But my favorite place in the entire house was the front porch. Wrapping
around the house in a deep L-shape, it faced Rt 14 on one side, and our local
doctor’s office on the other.
As a kid, it never occurred to me to be grateful for the
beautiful Upstate NY summers. From early May they were sticky with humidity,
hot and sometimes so rainy that we were trapped indoors for days. After frying
you alive in August, they often dragged out until the end of September, and
there were a few occasions where it was still warm enough to trick or treat in
our t-shirt sleeves. I live in the Northwest of England now, and although the
seasons follow the same calendar as NY, there’s not nearly the extremes here.
Very little snow falls, and summers are disappointingly mild, more like a wet,
clinging NY springtime.
The combination of a brutal NY August, and my lovely front
porch are the launching point for this story.
The North-western English, I am sad to report, don’t drink
much lemonade as the Americans know it. Here, if you say the term lemonade,
they give you fizzy lemon soda similar to 7-Up. So, at the start of every
English summer, if we are lucky to have one, I treat my children to pitchers
and pitchers of American style lemonade and remember my eleven-year-old self.
The day in question was panning out to be one of those
scorchers that are so hot, that it actually hurts a little to breathe. The sun
had already fried any energy from me, and I’d retreated, as I often did, to the
shade of the porch with a good book and a pitcher of cool lemonade. Years
earlier, my mother had brought home an enormous glider seat. It weighed more
than me, the metal was pitted, the dark green paint faded, but the cushions
were deep, overstuffed and pillowy. My brother and I would often take turns
over school holidays to sleep on the swing, the lullaby of its creaking springs
mixing with the traffic out on the highway to send us off to sleep.
Next door to us, two houses had been torn down and a
doctor’s office had been erected out of pre-fab units, its parking lot blending
behind the building to connect with an old hospital on the opposite side of the
block from us. As I said the town was small, and as far as I knew at aged
eleven, it was probably the only doctor’s office there.
Out into this sweltry, sweaty afternoon came a short,
elderly negro woman, stooped, swollen feet and ankles shoved into cheap plastic
shoes. Loud blouse, baggy, billowy skirts. She stood on the small access porch
of the doctor’s office, with a narrow awning to protect her from the sun,
waiting for someone to pick her up. There were no chairs or benches. It was
easily in the 90’s outside. I was lay in the shade rocking back and forth on
the glider. Cold drink in abundance. Comfort on tap.
And I saw her.
She waited.
And waited.
I drank.
I read.
I saw her.
As the minutes dragged, so did she. Her stoop became a
little more pronounced. She shuffled back and to on her swollen feet, dancing
around her discomfort. And eleven-year-old me saw all this. Forty-three years
later, I still wish I had acted on that impulse that came into my mind-the one
that said-I bet she is really hot. I bet she would appreciate a cool drink
while she waits. I have lemonade. I could bring her a drink. I should bring her a drink.
I can’t claim that my inaction was down to any shyness, to be honest.
Everyone who knows me will tell you that there isn’t a shy bone in my body. I
was then, and still am, awkwardly loud. Inappropriate. A bit of an attention
seeker. I start out with the best of intentions and still default to hog the
limelight and conversation, act less than ladylike.
I don’t know why I didn’t step up when the thought came to
me. But I let her stand out there for nearly a half an hour, then when her ride
arrived, and she was in the cool comfort of an air-conditioned Cadillac, I sat
and berated myself for not doing it.
Forty-three years, people.
Standing about fifty yards away, I don’t know if she even
noticed me on the porch. But that isn’t the point. I noticed her and did
nothing, when it would have been almost effortless for me to ease her
discomfort a little bit.
But, as much as I still think on that moment now, I am happy
to say that that small incident has helped me to make changes in my behaviour
as an adult. I don’t step back when I see a need, I don’t wait for someone else
to resolve an issue if I can be of help.
I have become a doer. An annoyance. A bee in your bonnet,
because if I can be a doer, then I usually expect that you too can be a doer,
and I usually call you out on it. I hang out with other doers, other bees in
your bonnet types. And I get great satisfaction when we can help others. I
don’t do as much as some people I know, but I do as much as I’m able to, I
don’t sit idly looking on.
I share the lemonade.
Be a doer, people. Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the
knees that give way. Definitely do it when it is easy for you to do so. Force
yourself to do it when it’s not easy, the stretch will grow and progress you as
a decent human in this difficult world.
Share your lemonade.
