Jewel

It was a summer day in 1971, and I stood on a sidewalk just outside of a grocery store called Jewel, in a suburb of Chicago. I remember that single word–– JEWEL––in orange letters. I remember the heat and glare of the concrete street, and a sense of static and bewilderment. It was a time of great uncertainty in my young life. I had dropped out of college and followed my boyfriend to Chicago, where he was enrolled in medical school. I knew that following my boyfriend to an unfamiliar city where I had no role or purpose was not a solution to the inscrutabilities of my life, but I hoped it would serve as a wobbly sort of footbridge, although I did not know where it led, and I did not like the view so far.

But I liked to walk, even back then, and on this particular day my walking had led me to this stark stretch of street whose primary feature was the generic-looking supermarket with that oxymoronic name of Jewel. For some reason, I stopped and stood there so long and so still that fifty-three years later, I can remember the moment with clarity. Only now do I realize how closely I resembled a bird who flies into a windowpane and falls to the ground. I was not dead, but stunned, immobilized, my gaze glazed over, my motions suspended, my thinking on hold. Everything was deserted, no one passed. An excruciating lonesomeness came over me, and a feeling of being utterly lost. Sunlight glinted on the hot cement, the air was infused with vague smells of garbage, gasoline and asphalt, the sign said Jewel, and I waited.

All these decades later, I woke up in the middle of last night, and that strange, incongruous image came back to me in vivid detail. This happens sometimes: random visitations from my past. But when I reflected upon this sad little cameo, I concluded that its sharpness and endurance have significance. This memory, and the knowledge of all that came after, is proof that motion can follow paralysis, failures need not be irrevocable, and outcomes are not always predictable.

In fact, the course of events can be utterly implausible, as I have often said, and the Jewel moment shimmers as a powerful contrast to the life I know today.  Also, what’s in a word? What is a sign? Those plain-spoken orange letters must have fixed themselves in my unconscious.

While I was in bed reliving it in my head, seeing my young self stalled on a sidewalk in the long ago, I heard in real time, through an open window, what sounded like two great horned owls. I had never before noticed the soft, rhythmic hooting of their song, back and forth, as though in duet, or a call and response. It was like eavesdropping on a secret conversation, something understated and lovely. And then the coyotes made their auditory entrance. They squabbled at their town hall meeting, and partied in the night, yelping and howling, indignation and celebration in equal parts. Morning was coming, the sky a milky opal.

I got up early for a walk. I stopped to scoop up fallen fruit and toss it over the fence, a few once yellow lemons were soft and dusted with green-gray penicillin, and several oranges had been half-devoured by ravens. The turtles weren’t out yet. They like to sun themselves on the rocks, and the sun was still hidden. I checked the little oak trees that we planted two years earlier, touching them with the tenderness of a mother, and I walked up the canyon to the sandstone rock formation that has become my church. Fog swirled above the hills, and the mountains were shadows. I said a silent prayer, a rather long and comprehensive one with a lot of earnest asking and a good deal of thanks. I got up clumsily and laughed at myself.

As I walked back towards home, the clouds began to part, and the ocean sparkled like a jewel.

Addendum: A few weeks ago, I was honored to be a guest on a local TV show hosted by David Starkey. We talked about things that I think are important, things like writing, connecting, learning, gathering stories, forming community, and...well, the wondrous implausibility of everything. Since random memories, little miracles, and unlikely outcomes figure so deeply into the conversation David and I had and in this particular post, I thought I’d share the video here. (Also, we talked a bit about “blogs” and why I keep doing this one!)