An Extraordinary Woman

I've been meaning to write every day for the past two weeks (or however long it's been since my last post). There is so much to write about: my boss is leaving, throwing life at work into yet another tailspin of transition and uncertainty (but what's new about that?); concurrently, I'm trying to figure out what God wants me to do with my life; we gave our cat away; Richard and I had an amazing conversation the night before he left for Asia and somehow he is home already and I haven't even fully processed that night; I read a deeply moving book on vacation that continues to haunt me with its insights about women and voice and dissociation of self...

But here's where I'll start: Last night, I met an extraordinary woman. It began with an email from a woman at my church, asking if I could drive a person undergoing cancer treatment to the Saturday evening service. This person, Lorraine, apparently lived just a few minutes from me. I was scheduled to sing at church all weekend so I said I'd be happy to take her if she didn't mind arriving more than an hour early. I left my cell phone number in an email and didn't hear anything. Then just moments before I needed to leave my house for the service yesterday, I checked the voice messages on my home phone and found that Lorraine had called and really hoped I would call her back because she really wanted to go to church. I called her and, 10 minutes later, was picking her up in front of a condominium high-rise. She had told me on the phone: "I'll be the one with the chemo haircut, waving my arms." She had also told me that she was back from the dead.

I had a sense when I received the first email about her that there was something ordained in our meeting. Not a spooky, overwhelming sense, just a quiet understanding: this request was not one I would or could ignore.

Lorraine got in the car. A heavy-set woman in her early 40's (though it's hard to say), she had blonde stubble on her head hidden by a white Orioles baseball cap. "I know you, I've seen you," she said to me. Presumably, she had seen me sing at church. She complimented my perfume, then smelled her shirt and said she hadn't put enough deoderant on. I told her not to worry, my perfume was enough to cover both of us; she asked if I had any more with me; I didn't.

I wanted to know Lorraine's story: how she came to Baltimore, what kind of cancer she had, why she had been through a living hell for the past 7 months ("Have you read the story of Job? That's my story. Literally.") and how just two weeks ago emerged from it with a new passion for life. She was like Lazarus, she said, and she was as disoriented as she imagined Lazarus must have been when Jesus brought him back from the dead. "Just wait, you'll notice how people at church see the difference in me; they'll be shocked. 'You're back!' they'll say." But she told me the story was too long. She would tell me someday if I wanted to hear it, but it would take longer than our 20-minute drive.

So I attempted small-talk with Lorraine, a woman who has come back to life and has not talked much in the past 7 months so she has a lot to say. Some of the people in her life thought she was manic, but she didn't agree and even if it was true she didn't care; her psychiatrist and counselor and doctors told her to enjoy it while it lasted. She was happy to be alive. She said she couldn't drive herself because she loved listening to worship music at full volume and driving really fast, so she was a danger to others on the road. Lorraine is a physician. She asked me if I knew what the gift of knowledge was -- it seemed like a trick question so I said no. She said it had to do with medical intuition and, for her, it meant she knew which of her patients had cancer and was able to help them detect it early enough to have positive outcomes. Somehow, this related to her oncologist, I think because he also has this gift (though it was hard to follow everything she said); I asked Lorraine the name of her oncologist and it turns out she sees the same doctor Richard has been seeing since being treated for colon cancer five or six years ago. What a strange coincidence, I thought.

The drive went pretty quickly. We hugged inside the church before I went into the auditorium for rehearsal; we agreed to meet by the information desk after the service. I entered the green room feeling slightly disoriented and trying to make sense of the stream-of-consciousness conversation I'd just engaged in.

When the service started an hour later and the worship team took the stage, I saw Lorraine standing in the second row, talking to people around her. I smiled at her but couldn't see her eyes because of the lights on stage. The worship was rich (although the producer later told us backstage that the sound was "horrendous" because the "balance" was off; something to do with the bass driving the set, the drumming being too tentative, and the lead instrument not taking an assertive enough lead. I didn't really care.).

The service ended after the sermon and I stood by the information desk as we'd agreed. Fifteen minutes passed, then 30. The flow of people exiting the auditorium slowed to a trickle. I entered the auditorium and looked towards the front -- Lorraine was there, sitting with another woman and a teenage boy. Lorraine was talking almost non-stop. I sat down next to her, trying to be patient, knowing that Richard was probably arriving at home right about now and waiting for me; we'd not seen each other for almost two weeks. My subtle attempts to end the conversation and move us in the direction of the door were unsuccessful, so after another 15 minutes I said we should go. Just 15 minutes after that, we were back in the car.

Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows I'm not the most patient of people, so the whole experience was truly testing me. Strangely, I didn't feel very anxious or rushed, and I truly was eager to learn more about Lorraine and, perhaps, to learn more about myself through Lorraine. It was true that she seemed quite manic, not all there, a little disjointed, but I firmly believe there's only a very fine line between madness and prophecy and perhaps it is not up to us to judge which is which. Something inside of me wanted to break out in tears and confess every sin I could think of to this woman who had known me for just 2 hours. She asked me if I knew what a micvah was (sometimes she said "mitzvah" -- I think she meant mitzvah, though perhaps not), and I said I thought I knew but (again it felt like a trick question) she could tell me. She said, "Are you a good person? Are you generous with your gifts?" I said probably not, I probably wasn't a very good person and I probably wasn't as generous as I could be. I mean, if she has the gift of knowledge, surely she could have figured this out for herself. So she didn't tell me what mitzvah/micvah meant until later in the car-ride (had she forgotten she was being told not to tell me?). In basic terms, it's a blessing that you are blessed to give someone else. Something you pass along, recognizing all things come from God and are given to us to be given away. (Caveat: this is cheap theology and I'm writing it after two beers and I'm not terribly concerned about the accuracy of my statements anymore, just trying to get through the story.) Lorraine told me I was blessed just to be able to know this, just to have met her -- this alone was a blessing. And she was right. She said she was sure I would become the person God made me to be. I could weep. But for now, I should be as generous as I could be, especially with homeless people. I thought immediately of the man I pass each morning on my walk to work. What am I to do for him?

There is so much more to say -- and so much more I want to learn from Lorraine, whether she turns out to be a prophet or sage or just a very wacky woman with a lot of hard-to-string-together-thoughts. I look forward to the journey. God, please let our paths cross again.

Summer Weddings and What I Think of the Golden Gate Bridge

We’ve spent the last week-and-a-half trying to create a vacation out of to two weddings -- one in Minnesota and one in southern California...So we were provided two occasions to witness the exchanging of vows, the expression of faithfulness and commitment, the hope and joy of beginning a new life together. Unfortunately, on the whole, Richard and I agree that the past 10 days have not been our finest. I experienced much of the trip as a stark reminder of the seemingly inevitable distance that exists between people, even people who have been made one through marriage. It can feel as though we are worlds apart even when we’re right next to each other. The irony is that tomorrow, Richard will get on an airplane headed for the Philippines. I wonder if the physical distance will be easier for us to take than the emotional.

The weekend before last, we were in the thriving metropolis of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, birthplace of Bob Dylan and home to tourist magnets like a paper factory and iron mine. We were there to attend the wedding of Richard’s niece, a delicate 22-year-old with a sensitive heart and a flare for the dramatic. It was fascinating and at times painful to watch this beautiful girl as she prepared to leave home and move into the half-completed house being rehabbed by her now-husband. So much uncertainty, so much disorder, so much to try to get under control. She threw herself between extremes of effusiveness and emotional shutdown. I felt a strong protective urging towards her but knew I was not (and am not) going to be the one to save her or bring her balance, should she need either. I do hope we continue to see her regularly and grow closer to her and her husband.

After the weekend in MN, we flew to California to spend a few days vacationing in San Francisco, visit my sister and nephew in San Diego, and attend a wedding in Pasadena. For the first leg, I had reserved a room at a bed-and-breakfast at the top of a hill just 10 minutes from downtown San Francisco. At least, it was referred to as a “bed-and-breakfast” online; in actuality, it was the home of a practicing progressive Jewish couple who rented out the spare bedroom to unsuspecting tourists in search of a romantic but not-too-pricey getaway. The house was beautiful and the couple very kind, but private this B&B was not. It was more like staying at your uncle’s house. We found ourselves tiptoeing from our room to the bathroom down the hall to avoid the embarrassment of being seen in our sleep-wear.

Our time in San Francisco was brief. The first day, I woke up very early with a nasty headache that only vacated my body four or five hours later when I finally gave in and took my migraine injection (which Richard likens to nuclear war). So by 10:30 we were on our way to a café. By 11:30 we were exploring downtown. By 1:30pm we agreed we had seen enough of Chinatown, Union Square and the nearby neighborhoods and were ready for bigger and better things. So we made our way down winding streets and up steep hills to the Golden Gate Bridge. Granted, I’d seen this bridge before, but I wasn’t all that impressed.

This would be a good time to confess that I am a bad tourist. I get antsy on tours, I hate being bombarded with information I’ll never retain, I feel like a failure when bored after 45 minutes at a museum, and I can’t read a map. I’ve been meaning to start writing a travel-book series called “The Half-Ass Tourist.” I don’t say this proudly, just in the spirit of self-revelation.

More on the trip and other exciting revelations later…This post has become too long.