My friend Marijean helped me get this Substack up and running as a website to feature my bakes, events, dinners, and writing. You might have noticed that not as much writing has been shared. Once again, the food has overtaken my comings and goings, but that doesn’t mean the writing has disappeared. It’s sort of like salt and other seasonings, the final touch that elevates every other endeavor.
I want to share a small piece that sums up the spirit of this holiday season to me. It speaks of a moment I observed when we visited Rome.
May all your Christmases, or whatever you celebrate, be bright.
She has a crooked back bent under sundry unseen burdens, wispy and thin hair tied back in a navy blue silk scarf, not expensive silk, but bargain silk, her hands a roadmap of creases, each nook and cranny a story, every line a sentence, palms open, fingers curled, up toward the heavens, left folded over the right as if it were heavier.
She wears a simple dress, cut at the knee, sheer pantyhose, worn and faded black leather shoes that had probably carried her for miles, laces loose, ankles swollen, spilling out.
Over the dress, a black sweater, frayed, held together by threads and hope.
A prominent Romanesque nose, olive skin once smooth, dark and deeply-set eyes.
She smiles, baring more gaps than teeth.
All she wants is whatever someone is willing to give.
Phrases are spilling from her mouth, another language from my own, speaking in tongues with no interpretation. The cadence is meditative, constant, a mystical murmur, transfixing, repetition upon repetition. Standing outside of the tour exit of the Colosseum in Rome, the grand behemoth casting a shadow over her, this place of battle and blood and beasts, echoes of ancient cries hanging in the air, she remains in this posture of openness, her pleas a symphony of staccato supplication.
Tourists disregard her pleas, walking by her as if she were a hologram, there but not really, because if she were then they might be called to an account.
Yet, she persists in her mother tongue, her pleas piercing the ears of those willing to hear and bear some witness of her existence.
A woman cascades down the exit steps with a boy, maybe her son, both excitedly discussing what they had just witnessed inside, the yore of gladiators and executions and recreations of battle.
She is clad in the sort of athleisure wear that reads expensive, neon pink Nikes, clashing comfort and fashion.
Her hair is blond, pulled up in a hasty bun, wisps framing her face, lips glossed revealing brilliantly white and aligned teeth.
Her movements are confident and full of animation, her conversation with her son taking up her entire body when she regards the woman who remains pleading without ceasing.
Without pause or consideration she reaches into her pocket with a smooth and daintily manicured hand and fills it with a mix of bills and coins. She stands in front of the pleading woman, taking the crinkled and arthritic hand into her own, holding it, filling it with tangibility.
Smiles spread contagiously over both faces, smoothing wrinkles on one, creating them on the other.
The manicured woman asks the threadbarren one if she can hug her, but she doesn’t understand, so the manicure demonstrates a charade of a hug, holding her arms in the air in front of her, open-ended, squeezing someone in her imagination, her eyes plaintive for permission.
The woman in need obliges the one with means, vigorously nodding her beautiful head and widening her stance as to receive affection, touch, recognition.
Bearing witness.
The two clasp, athleisure arms wrapping around the small frame before her, their bodies touching, two broken pieces of a single human being.
Holding and being held.
The Roman’s crooked arms and hands slide up the lycra-smooth back of the American, and as one, the two sway in a motion of mutuality.
All the while, her mouth continues to proclaim some goodness that lies beyond comprehension, to sing the praise of her witness being borne in the body of another.
Athleisure and neon Nikes, headscarf and thin sweater and sheer hose and worn shoes, blond hair and gray hair, smooth and wrinkled, pale and olive, pleading and mumbling, holding, holding, holding.
A new thing.
For a moment.
They let go of one another and become what they once were, before.
The American ambles away, accompanying her son.
The Roman resumes her requests and reliance.
The American is weeping as she walks away.
I’m tempted to explain away this beauty, to find some sort of parable, some meaning, application.
Where is God?
Isn’t she God, the face of need, lying in a ditch while the Holy Haves are too busy to stop, regard, or bear her?
Isn’t she God, the face of provision, possessed by the spirit of the Samaritan deemed “good,” ceasing intentions to bear witness?
Isn’t the embrace God, the holy dance between the two?
What if none of this is God?
What if James Baldwin is right, that a human being can only be saved by another human being?
What if this is just a moment of unbridled love?
What do I not notice in this beautiful world, this painful world, if I am convinced I believe I already know?
What if that moment, singular and granular, explains every last unanswered question in my unsettled soul?
What if that were enough?
Very thoughtful piece, Rachel. It didn’t go where I thought it was going, and that was good, as you wrote a story that was at once simple and complicated. In other words, it was like life.
A friend shared this with me. I am deeply moved by your description, by your bearing witness, by your quoting of James Baldwin and by the questions you ask. Thank you for sharing this deeply human story. It well expresses the intentions of this season of Christmas or Hanukkah or Yule or any other light and joy seeking holidays of this time of year -and indeed this time in history. We need to be the light. Even with nothing tangible to give we can offer compassion and the art of witnessing. Thank you. May you be healthy, safe, joyful and seen in this season.