Woman on Bridgeway
Woman on Bridgeway
I had given myself into the easy purpose of an afternoon walk.
The rhythm of my footsteps (labored, when climbing, and cautious on those steep Sausalito descents), soon awakened a familiar intimacy with my “machine self”. I became aware of the flow of blood, the movement of hinged bones, the strain-and-relax of corded muscles – and the fact I was hungry.
By then, I was upon the tourist sprawl of Downtown Sausalito – where the nearness of lapping Bay water, eager commerce and a clear-day view of San Francisco so spectacular it borders on the vulgar, all come together to create an irresistible Loitering Point along the touristic circuit.
Like a tide upon a tide, the ferry boats bring them in from all over the world, to wash along the boulder-fringed avenue. They pour into the shops and galleries, they eat and gawk in numbers and they pace dumbly in the spell of beauty.
I permitted myself to be carried along by one particular human eddy into the dark, greasy interior of an unfamiliar pizzeria. “Pizza by the Slice” sounded right – low commitment. So, I ordered a cheese slice — it was an odd and squat-shaped triangle that made me think too much about “to fold or not to fold”. I folded and carried it outside, sat down to eat on a rough plank bench with the Bay to my back. I noticed her.
She was black and gaunt and had the look of a life-travailed black woman all too common in New York. She had headphones on under her hat and she was being more than a little too loud for Marin County. She was angry and hurt, and had, perhaps, crossed the line irretrievably into insanity. She was shouting at no one, into the non-space about 15 feet above her head, from where the habits of her eyes suggested all that was wrong in the world loomed down on her.
She spoke of pain at the hands of men. She stomped her feet. She cried out against cruelty and her eyes filled with tears. Her voice broke.
She ran across the street, in a burst of sudden purpose, to where a homeless man was pushing his life along in a cart.
“That’s the low in spirit.” She shouted.
“That’s what I’m talking about. All they need is a hand up, a little push. That’s all…”
writing | california | sausalito