Maybe Signs Matter
So, this actually happened:
Last Saturday, I was vacuuming the house when I noticed a woman standing outside the French doors leading into our front courtyard. We had just gotten back in town after a week away, and I was still in what I call the “travel half-life,” the days after return when you are trying to get your routines and practices back. That morning I had a rehearsal to get to by 11am. It was 10:40. Translation: I shouldn’t have been still vacuuming. I should have been getting into my car and driving to this rehearsal. No matter who was at my door, I didn’t have time for a stop and chat.
No doubt my face reflected this annoyance as I turned off the vacuum and went to the door. I had a passing thought, “I bet this is an election canvassing thing,” even though our neighborhood has good track record for voting (and we all vote the same way). She was older, nicely dressed. She certainly wasn’t a threat, just a minor irritation in a busy day.
“Yes?” I said when I went to the door. The big French doors were open but we could talk easily through the screen doors. The woman responded, “I’m sorry to bother you, but where did you get your sign?”
I knew what sign she meant. In the fall of 2020—during a different and yet all-too-familiar election season—my neighbor made me a sign that read “Make Lying Wrong Again.” When she gave it to me she said, “Amy, no matter what happens, I think you need this sign. After all, you are a teacher.”
I agreed completely. No matter what happened in what was a disheartening few months prior to November, I needed that sign. I live on a busy street. A lot of people would see this sign, and not just locals. A tourist trolley goes by my house several times a day, which means that folks visiting from Mississippi and South Carolina might see my sign. Maybe some Texans and Georgians too. It could only be a good thing that students had to walk by a sign reading “Make Lying Wrong Again” on the way to their piano lesson. I was all about this sign.
After the 2020 election, I put the sign in the garage, just in case. Several weeks ago, seeing all the Harris/Walz signs decorating my block, I decided it was time to get out the sign again and add my voice to the conversation. We all have to do our part.
“Where did you get your sign?” asked this woman. She was clearly distraught. “I need that sign.” She started crying and telling me a convoluted story about she and her friends getting bullied off a pickleball court that morning in Rio Rancho by a group of guys wearing MAGA hats.
“That sign isn’t even political. It’s just how you should live,” she continued, tears running down her face. “I am 73 years old and a moderate Methodist and I think we don’t have the right to tell other people what to believe and THESE PEOPLE are making me feel like I’m not even Christian. It’s not right. I need that sign.”
I nodded sympathetically and started to try to respond, but she was too distraught to even listen. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m so upset about what happened this morning that I got in my car and decided to drive over here and go to Ihatov bakery and get a loaf of bread and a good cup of coffee, and I was driving down your street and I saw your sign.”
If she has driven all the way over from Rio Rancho to go to Ihatov, she must be desperate. Rio Rancho is a neighboring city a half-hour away. Once again, I tried to respond, but she didn’t really want an answer, she just wanted to be heard. I was struck, not for the first time, how many people have no one to talk to, or no safe place to express themselves. If we need to learn anything from all of this madness, it is that we need to be listening much harder than we are doing. Answers are easy, really (You too can get that sign from the internet, friends, just Google it.), being willing just to listen, much harder.
All the while this was happening I was thinking a number of things:
Wow.
I have to get to a rehearsal.
Should I go get the key and open this door and let this woman in?
Wow.
I too love Ihatov, but I never before viewed it as the Holy Land. It must not be a metaphor: bread and coffee must really be manna from heaven.
How do I interrupt her long enough to 1) answer her question and 2) end this encounter so I can get to a rehearsal?
Wow.
After about 5 minutes of crying and talking, the woman left, assumedly to get her bread and coffee. I immediately regretted many things, but top of the list was that fact that I didn’t at least get her name and email address. After all, I live in a beautiful blue bubble of happiness. I know many wonderful people and musical events that I could invite her to and let her be among her people.
Instead of doing this small thing, I went to a rehearsal.
#manyregretsbutclearlysignsmatter