Holy People

walking storybooks

I am amazed to realize I’ve been writing these little essays now for 3 years! I welcome all the new readers. Today, I’m posting a re-worked oldie. Market Basket remains a steady presence in life. Man does not live by bread alone, but it helps a lot.

I don’t go to church. I go to the grocery store. Market Basket is one of the many places where I feel the pathos of humanity, people making their way in the world…where the lady rolls slowly down the baking aisle in her motorized wheelchair, the burly dad with a nose ring looks for canned fruit with his pre-teen son, the lady tells her daughter she’s going to make fish chowder, the old man pours over the stale bread rack and the young mother digs for the nicest bunch of chard.

The handsome young man in the camel hair coat is blind. He is perhaps 25, holds his long cane in an elegant upright position with one hand, like a shepherd watching over his flock. He keeps the other hand in contact with the cart. The older woman who accompanies him, leaves the young man and the cart to gather needed items. They are so good to one another, these two – all kindness and gentleness. They move through the store with a slow dignity, picking and choosing.

Grocery store divinity. Every day. People taking care of life, feeding themselves, their families.

I whisk up and down the aisles, thinking of them all, steering my cart around other shoppers, employees stocking shelves, little children crouched in front of candy displays. From the outside, I appear to be looking for a certain brand of tea but I am really thinking about what it would be like to be blind, or old, or physically limited. I seem to be musing over my choice of sausage, but I am lost in thought about the thrill of towering cumulus clouds, sunrises at Joppa, the magic of snow falling in the light of the streetlamp on the walk home from the latest movie at The Screening Room. The cashier says he wonders why he volunteered to work an extra two hours.

The old lady with twisted arthritic hands, wearing a pink sequined hat is buying a big bag of apples and two 5 lb. bags of sugar. You making apple pie? I ask. Yes, I was going to make mince pie, but they don’t sell the boxed mince anymore. The stuff in the bottle is too sweet.

I grew up Catholic, with Original Sin, confession, absolution, holy days of obligation. Every religion has its attempts at describing the indescribable, but in the end, life is a mystery. My husband gave me the gift of musing that we are all part of a universal soul. I like that. Each one of us is a thin slice off the universe - every slice is part of the mystery puzzle. We all belong to divine unknowingness. We are all lost and we are all found. If nothing else, we’re all in the same boat. We’re all at Market Basket, choosing the nicest looking apples or the best looking fish.

The fish man talks about the power of being creative, says doing creative work makes you alive. He’s a musician, went to college for his playing bass. Now he plays the piano - classical and jazz. Didn’t study it, just picked it up. He’s always struggled with jazz but in the last few years, something has happened. he let go, wasn’t trying any more. He’s entered new places.

Follow me to the produce section where a two year old in little red glasses (what is it about little kids in glasses?) wiggles with excitement in the grocery cart.

The vegetable guy - a leprechaun of a banana man. I tell him he looks like my brother-in-law’s brother Jimmy. Brings back all the old stories about Jimmy’s journey through one scheme after another, always swearing that this one will be the best ever; selling swimming pools to the Saudis, a fleet of trucks to clean out storm drains, usually draining only his own bank account.

Katerina is at the check out, scanning my cereal, bananas, chicken, tonic water and on and on. As I slide my credit card into the machine I see Katerina’s fingernails She has put a bright red sold sticker on each nail of her left hand She looks like Carol Channing or Dolly Parton. Nice fingernails! I like the stickiness, she answers. She takes the red circles on and off, on and off. I like the feel of them, she tells me. The stickiness helps me with my anxiety.

Another day, the cashier is Maite. Beautiful name. I’m a lover of languages I say…is that…Spanish? yes. I say. Tengo qué praticar mi español, I say. Muy bonita. Gracias, says Maite, with a grand smile. The lady bagging joins in the conversation, sharing her hopes for the New Year - la paz, el amor y prosperidad por todos. She sends me off, blessing me in the name of Jesus Christ.

Bagging groceries today is Antonietta, an older Italian woman. She works while I try out some of my rusty Italian. She’s broke. Lost all her money in an online scam.

The guy behind me was frustrated with the long line. You can meditate I told him. I do that, he said. After the divorce, I lost everything. Everything. A million and a half dollars. I moved to the beach. He wore a tight fitting t-shirt and had a lightning tattoo on his arm.

We bump along in our lives. We marry or don’t marry, we have children or don’t, we question our choices, we rejoice in our victories, we savor the peace or look for more adventure. We are self-satisfied or troubled at any given moment on any given day in any given year. Life is full of change. But one thing never changes. We have to eat to survive.

The big kid wearing an employee orange vest moves from cashier to cashier saying hi to everyone, telling them their birthdays because he remembers them all. He hasn’t had to learn the sad lesson that we need to be worried what people will think of us. He is exhuberant. He asks the kid bagging my groceries what his birthday is, what year he was born. 1972? I wasn’t born yet. He starts to bag my groceries, looks at me. I’m 67, I offer, dropping my peaches into a bag. Born in 1950, he answers without skipping a beat. Righto! When’s your birthday? he wants to know. June 16, I tell him. Do you know Phil Mickelson? he asks, and before I can answer, he continues. He’s June 16, 1970. He’s 47 - twenty years younger than you. Wow, I say. That’s pretty good! What’s your name, he asks. Kate, I tell him, then ask what’s yours? He gets distracted and greets someone at the next checkout counter. Hi Nancy! When’s your birthday? My checkout kid tells me with a smile that this guy will remember all these names and birthdays. I ask Birthday Man when his birthday is. October 15, 1974… I’m 43. Bye, Kate, he hollers after me, as I’m leaving.

We are all sacred storybooks.