The initial Vuillard/Titian combo was kind of boring, so I livened it up with some Max Ernst on the curtains, and a Madonna (in the circle) from a religious tract I found on the street. It still wasn't enough, so I threw in some Bette Davis eyes (thanks Yasmin-I told you I'd use her one day.) I rather feel I improved on the originals.
My mother's been having an interesting week. I blogged about the hug she got from a stranger when she was down a few days ago, and now it seems the universe wanted the same of her.
When was got on the train going several towns south to visit friends, as she often does on Saturdays, there was only one other man in the car. She imagines that this sense they were alone together created a certain intimacy, which was not necessarily the dynamic one might expect because my mother is an 82-year old white French woman and the man was a 30-year old young black man. My mother is not one for small talk with strangers, she's rather the type to do the crossword puzzle on the train. But something evidentally told her to make an exception. What started the conversation my mother can't remember, but they started talking.
In the next 20 minutes, the young man had told her he had just had a fight with a latin guy who looked at him the wrong way, and felt bad about it. He'd gone to the same high school my mother taught at, but had been expelled. From there, from BOCES, from the vocational school he's ended up in--always expelled. He was angry he said, and it always turned into violence. He had screwed up everything he tried. He lived on a couch at his mother's, and sold salvaged secondhand clothes at flea markets. I would bet he had some issues with substances, even if my mother and he didn't discuss them.
Perhaps because she grew up in France, perhaps because she taught a lot of kids from tough backgrounds as a teacher, but perhaps just because she is who she is, my mother managed to see only that this young man was hurting. She said that they ended up hand in hand on the train, talking quietly, as she offerred the best advice she could muster. "The next time you are angry, take a breath, and think to yourself: 'Kindness...Kindness...'"
She can't remember if they hugged when she got off the train--she told me what she did remember as soon as she got home for fear of forgetting any of it. They didn't exchange numbers or even names, but what they did exchange is certainly much more substantial if impossible to measure. It certainly was a creater tonic on my mother's spirit than any anti-depressant (though she's back on them.)
MCO 2008
wow- what a beautiful post....
Thank you, I love that song, "She's Got Bette Davis Eyes," and of course I thought of the song while perusing your entry, and as soon as I'm done commenting, I'm checking YouTube in hopes of finding the video and having a sing-a-long. It's all about connections. I like to think that the young man took away something lasting from the connection between him and your mother. I suspect that connectiing with anohter person was a rare experience for him and perhaps at some point he will be able to point back and say, "I met this woman on a train and she touched my soul, and it has made all the difference in my life."