Sarah's Circle
And so she sat there at the wooden table sifting through the classified section of a Chicago newspaper in the Starbucks at Lawrence and Broadway on a Saturday night. Her sweater draped across shoulders like a shawl, covering another knitted, striped top. Her leather jacket hung across the seat in front of her. She wore a look on her face that touched me. It was a blank look, maybe weary. She rocked back and forth when she paused from marking up the spaces. She never drank from the coffee cup that sat a few inches away from her nor did her eyes wander to the red can of soda. Her lips curled every so often, as did her eyebrows. She wore jewelry that appeared to be similar to the other women in the café. At first it never dawned on me to give a good once over from head to toe because her tone emitted so much emotion. Her milk chocolate Hershey’s complexion gave off the scent of turmoil. A look that I have seen sink into my mother’s eyes, one that has rested with my aunts after a long day of getting high off of crack cocaine. I can imagine this look of trouble coating the almond eyes of past African-American women who were drug into slavery. I can sense the pain from this particular woman of generations long before her. Even from a distance her soul feels heavy. She rocks back and forth again and then stares into the distance before getting up and going to the bathroom.
I have always been able to sense the pain of others. I guess it is because of my long journey at 5010. I can remember being in certain social situations and immediately drifting to the people whose pain radiated like a scented candle. This feeling prompts conversation for confirmation. This ability to inherently tap into disparity also fuels my desire for human-interest stories. This desire to understand the events that lead up to a particular moment piques my curiosity. I want to know the why, when, where, what happened next, and the most important, how did that make you feel.
She arrives back at her seat. And suddenly without conversation, my feelings were confirmed. She sat with that same look as before, reached down to a bag and fumbled with something—a spoon that she placed next to the bundle of papers. But there was nothing to eat from. My heart plummeted to my stomach with feelings of sadness after realizing something after all the observing and writing about this woman solely because of her facial expression. I wrote just for the sake of it, an exercise I do from time to time. A jazzy tune comes across the speakers and for a moment I stare at her as she pulls an orange from her bag. And her yawning makes me even more sympathetic. So, I give her the once over and notice a few white bags at her feet. I couldn’t make the items, but I knew. I felt it. My eyes traced back up to her face. And I realized the reasoning for the facial expressions.