In the queue

A woman carrying a large, clear plastic garbage bag full of recycled cans passed in front of the car as I drove home from school drop off. She wore a red puffer jacket, more like burgundy in color, and skinny jeans. Her face was obscured by the sack that was nearly her size, slung over her shoulder, and a beany pulled low, but I could tell she was non-white, though unsure of her origin. She was tiny, almost child-sized, with long legs ending in her white sneakers, and she hustled across the street aimed at another blue recycling can left out for pick up, and its contents. I watched her in the rearview mirror darting back and forth between cars and kids slow-walking to school, the bell soon to ring, no one moving with a sense of urgency.

Photo by Elbert Lora on Unsplash

I was half listening to the radio, waiting for the top of the hour for the news, and watching her, studying the faces of the drivers. Kid or adult, I’d review. That drive isn’t worth the practice for my V because it truly is just around the corner, but it could be worth it for the maneuvering alone. A residential street turned one way thoroughfare just for drop off forces many of us to take the first left and K-turn back from whence we came. It’s a mess but easier than endless tardies. I know what works for us; I choose my battles and this is not one of them.

When I turned my car around, I searched for the woman, but she was already gone. Sitting in the line of traffic changing radio stations, my thoughts returned to her. Some people are expected to carry more than their share, to do it in a scramble, to receive no reward but the five cents on the dollar for that can’s collection. How did she get by, I wondered. Did she have a family to feed? Was she worried about being so conspicuous? Had anyone else clocked her that morning as they raced their children to school before the first bell?

It was not common to see someone collecting cans, sorting them at the berm, not as it had been for the years that I lived in Manhattan. When we lived in Barbados, we’d take our own collections to the recycling center with the rest of the folks on the island. Here, the trucks rolled around sometime around 6 am and took our assortments of cans and tins and bottles one week and paper and cardboard the next. I’m not even sure of the value of each recycled can which makes me ashamed that I am so casual about what I discard.

We’ve become quite comfortable with removing ourselves from lifecycles, no longer getting our hands dirty or carrying much on our backs. Our creature comforts buffer us from what is hard and challenges us physically, mentally, and emotionally. Many of us no longer have the attention span to sit through a feature film or read a book, follow the narrative or the thread. We all live in our ‘soft era’ despite presuming we have it hard.

We may. Have it harder than some and also easier than others; so much of the world is living in poverty, through war and famine and climate disaster, environmental racism and infrastructural failure, servitude and the remnant of colonization and imperialism. We don’t see them when we go on vacation or read about places we’d like to discover. It takes work to feel ourselves connected to that which we don’t want to claim, the degrees to which we are just out of poverty or are the cause or impetus of someone else’s.

Ours is a community that continues to congratulate itself on its diversity but gets up in arms over who belongs during Halloweens and Fourths of July where the excitement and example of the town’s largesse draw folks from all around, indistinguishable from some of us, who are all but demanded of their papers to prove they belong.

I have begun again to feel less like I belong anywhere. I would not say that it is numbness that has crept over me rather feeling so intensely that it all aches all the time. My empathy causes me to flinch at the possibility of all kinds of pain- physical, emotional, shame, torment, ostracization, isolation, any form of suffering or hardship. I wish we could all have what we need to live and to live well enough to spend this life loving whomever it is we choose to love. Sometimes I think I am too much, have believed it indulgent to even have the time to consider it all; surely those that truly suffer don’t have the time to spare thinking about it.

But what does it mean to ignore or worse, never even realize there is a world of suffering people and that all dust kicked up blows around the globe with the trade winds, to hyperfocus on the minutiae of our own lives and experiences, our day to day, our calendars, only on our own families and communities and cultures? I fear we have lost the plot and have chosen to hide in the cozy comfort of our little sanctuaries awaiting a fate that will either kill us, others, or cause immeasurable suffering from which we may collectively never recover.

I speak to my brother a few times a week, reminded of the times we asked questions of the world when we were growing up, particularly when we found ourselves one summer, both living in Boston. I had just broken up with a boyfriend and could not see straight or past my teared eyelashes, and he was spending the summer between semesters working and finding his way, living at the home of a friend if I recall correctly.

Working at a hardware store, he once allowed a customer to take a handful of nuts and bolts rather than pay for them when he realized he’d forgotten to ring them up after handing over a receipt. I’d told him to be careful he didn’t get fired and we both shrugged our shoulders and wondered what the big deal was, just a few nuts and bolts.

I walked the city in the sweltering heat grieving, stunned by the sudden loss, allowing my love for anything to drain. Everyone promised that it would fade, that life would lift me up again, that this was the ebb and flow of life and that as I got older those pains would ease, become more bearable.

There is still snow on the ground, but not everywhere and when I take the turn to get into the traffic queue, I hear the crunch of my tires going over the corner. Every time, though I know it is snow, I double and triple check that there is no one standing there. Every time, I gently press my foot on the brake and ease to move up until there is a steady flow.

It has not, indeed, become easier as I have become older. My heart breaks every single day because I have gotten older and had the chance to dream for more for my children and watched compassion and hope and empathy bleed out of our bodies. Even when we resist becoming part of the machine, we find there are still buttons on us that can be pressed to keep us in line, and those that leave us agitated but not quite enraged enough to step out of line.