On Another's Sorrow
As we drove through the mountains on our way to Limon, I thought about how it always took me around three days to get past the resistance I felt when returning to this verdant country. That's the amount of time I needed to ease back into the fierce caring the people brought out in me. As we passed through Cartago, I noticed how the town's partially ornate cathedral looked a bit like a half-eaten bonbon against the backdrop of dank clouds. People made arduous pilgrimages to the holy site and I felt I was on a crusade of my own as I braced myself for the impact of stopping in Germania to say hello to all of the friends we had made there two years earlier.
I had brought the woman who took my tennis shoes and scrubbed them clean a new pair of bright pink ones. She came rushing out of her concrete-block house in the pouring rain with those same tennis shoes on—no strings in them, the tongue flopping about and the crushed heel that she had flattened with her foot clip-clopping in the mud. The look of gratitude I received from her obliterated the protection I'd subconsciously put in place and once again I stood on Costa Rican soil choking back tears, speechless in the face of such gratitude for so little.
The episode dogged me as I tried to settle in to the normal mission-field routine, which wasn't exactly normal thanks to a strange soundtrack of military helicopters that buzzed above Limón so incessantly it felt as if we were under a state of siege. Gus explained that heavy rains had caused the mountain to gush water and the Sixola River had swept away about 300 people near the Panamanian border. The choppers were looking for survivors, and I wondered if John the Baptist was among the unfortunate victims.
Gus and I were sitting on the porch of the center listening to the blades pulsate in the air, which was once again pregnant with moisture, when he spotted a girl with ebony legs sashaying down the street. What caught his attention were her shoes—she wore a pair of white pumps that achieved a chiaroscuro effect against her dark skin. The visual trickery made it seem as if there was a pair of glowing heels walking down the street completely detached from human control!
She was one of the teens I had seen hanging around the streets in groups. I wondered what they dreamed about surrounded by peeling paint and rusting tin as they were. I wondered how their world would be shaped by the television that leaked into their living rooms aided by the antennas that left their sinewy imprints against the sky. They were all so enamored with the snippets of what Americans considered the "real world." If they only knew that their world was so much more authentic than what they saw on the scraps of television programming that made it into their crackling, black-and-white stream of programming.
Gus' giggling grew quiet and I heard rather than saw him lean back in his rickety chair that squeaked each time he shifted his short frame from my spot on the cement porch against the brick wall. I was trying to absorb as much heat as I could from the sun-warmed wall as I watched a skinny palm swaying, its graceful neck bent like a swan's from the wind's agitation. Suddenly my reverie was halted by that "real world" when someone in the house across the street turned up the volume on the Miami Sound Machine and Gloria Estefan's husky voice oozed into the sultry air as she sang the opening lines of "Prisoner of Love." "I've gotta run away from you/ if I wanna save myself," she sang, the drums pulsing in the rhythmic beat that had made her so popular.
Given the lyrics, this was definitely one of the most ironic moments I'd experienced in the mission field, but I had little time to think about it because the sky scowled yet again and spat its liquid to earth. I scurried for cover like an insect fearing being washed away, watching from inside our room as the giant palms billowed, the wind whisking through their fronds like it would have the serrated banners tied to the fences that ringed used car lots.
The street was a sea of color—bright umbrellas floating along in an endless array of hues and patterns. There were those who had no protection from the deluge. As they slogged along, water dripping from their hair into their eyes, they swiped good-naturedly at the liquid, obviously welcoming the torrent even though they were soaked to the bone because it trumped the afternoon heat they would normally have been navigating through. Mothers held their babies to their chests, many of them wrapped in towels. The ones who had umbrellas shielded their children, letting the water drip down their backs as they struggled to hold bags, babies and umbrellas all at once.
When a stronger wave of water was urged along by a driving wind, everyone simultaneoulys tried to duck under anything they could find, including the makeshift metal canopies of stores and restaurants—the lucky ones snagging a tiny patch of shelter. Their eyes showed no impatience, only resignation; and many of them struck up conversations with others who shared the spontaneous protection; laughing and smiling as they saw the moment for what it was—a chance to visit or simply to do nothing.
I spotted Eggland Smith, the bell-ringer at St. Mark's, who reminded me of an organ grinder's monkey—his jerky movements always exacerbated in perpetual motion. He was talking to an elderly woman who had inadvertently become his captive audience as curtains of water pouring from the corrugated tin framed them. He was jumping from one spot to another, illustrating his words with flailing arms—a dicey situation given the tiny dry spot they occupied. I'd never seen such a persistently mobile and expressive face as his, and the fact that not even a dousing in a rainstorm could dampen his spirits was no surprise.
I retreated to the bed, away from the lightening flashing alarmingly bright through the window—the sizzle of its electricity setting my teeth on edge. The book on poetic forms had inspired me to delve into what I thought of as my poetic ancestry, though I realized that was quite arrogant of me given my fledgling status and the mess my poetry was in. I'd picked up William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience," and decided it would be a good companion to weather the storm. Much to my surprise, my dilemma was being reflected back to me even from the mid 18th-century:
On Another's Sorrow
Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
And not seek for kind relief?
Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow's share?
…
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