Yesterday afternoon, scurrying around the corner of Wilshire and 4th Street in Santa Monica, through a demonstration for Iranian women’s rights, I time travelled and bumped into a woman from a Dickens novel.
How does one ever communicate a being’s essence into words?
This women, light skinned Afro American, bright red hair that frizzled out into a six inch halo around her face, bright orange smeary lipstcik, layers and layers of skirts with lace and ribbons and dirt and polka dots, deep dark brown eyes sitting in pools of brilliant white, and a dazzling half toothless smile, with one hand on her heart and the other extended for help.
We bumped.
“Oh!” said I.
“I’m sorry, lady” said she.
‘No! I bumped into you!” Then “I am so sorry, I don’t have any cash.”
“You don’t have any cash?”
“No, I’m so sorry.”
“How much do you need?”
I froze….my inner voice saying ‘What?’
She dug around in her skirt.
“No! No! I don’t need any, I wanted to give some to you!”
“You do?”
“Yes, but I don’t have any.”
I double checked, feeling around in my purse. “But I do have this”. I pulled out a tiny perfume cream pot and put it in her hand.
“Now you will smell like a flower garden.”
“I will?” She opened the pot and sniffed and tenderly dabbled some behind her ears.
“It’s perfect for you! You already look like a flower garden, and now you can smell like one.”
This, most adorable woman, whose knee-jerk instinct was to help me, asked if she could hug me and we hugged each other.