Category: Thoughts

Finding Shelter

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Here is a work story. I’m blessed to be able to meet all kinds of people in my job as a traveling leasing specialist… but some of these people I take especially to heart. Here is one such woman.
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She came in out of the snow with a whirl of flakes falling to the rug around her. She was reed-thin in her long cream-colored sweater dress, suede booties, and heavy coat. Her straight black hair was braided under a white stocking cap; she wore Native American jewelry. Everything she wore looked like proudly, beautifully preserved thrift store finds. Nothing about the way she dressed or carried herself was the same as the people I’d seen through the day. Her eyes were aquamarine and penetrating. Around me, I imagined I felt something shift, felt myself tilting into some new, imaginary and magical world.

“Hello, I’m Lori,” she said, smiling sweetly and extending a thin, elegant hand. As I sat down and began talking to her about what kind of apartment she was looking for, she began unfolding her story: a series of bad decisions and worse luck culminating in a terrible living situation with no real lease agreement… But her young son was finally coming to stay with her that weekend. She needed an apartment so he could visit her safely. She was going to do whatever it took to have him with her.

It was my job to listen, I was trained to listen, but I also heard her story on a fundamentally human level because I, too, am someone who needs a roof over my head at night. We all do. Suddenly it wasn’t just another job: this was a mission to fill a basic human need for housing.

Re-telling me about her checkered past, Lori shook her head doubtfully over her application (“I just hope I can get approved,” she said) but finished it with resolve and vanished back out into the snow. The next few days she and I both, along with our office, all struggled toward the same goal: getting Lori approved.

Through all the obstacles, she persisted. Always kind, always thrift-fabulously dressed, she called worked on issues and called and visited us and called us again until she got the answers she was looking for. And then, by the most brilliant of miracles, Lori moved in Saturday.

She did it! We did it!

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone show such beautiful charm, sweet tenacity and fierce desperation all rolled into one. If I’d done nothing but help move Lori into an apartment, I would be satisfied with my tour of Indianapolis. Helping her was, well, worth having this whole job.

The Art of Asking

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The sun hadn’t been up for long when I wandered into Hobby Lobby today. I wasn’t there on a particular mission; I’d just never really examined the insides of a Hobby Lobby before. Being a consummate shopping princess, I believe in knowing sources from which all things may be obtained. (Just in case, say, my life depends on a scavenger hunt someday.)

I was loitering in aisle 18 when a lady pushed a buggy up beside me and addressed me. “Do you like to do arts and crafts?” She had brown hair, short and curly. Her shopping cart was full of small A-frame chalkboards.

“Sometimes,” I answered truthfully. “What are you looking for?”

She rolled her eyes. “You can never find anyone to help you in this place! I just want some erasable pen I can use on these signs.”

I had no idea. “Have you tried over in artist supplies?” I asked, and could tell by the dazed look the threw in the direction I was pointing: she had no idea either. “I’ll show you,” I said, and so we started walking together.

“I’m new here,” I said, and that started loose a flood of conversation. Had I been here? Had I been there? By the time we’d reached the calligraphy pens and paintbrushes, we were laughing like there was no age difference, no agenda, and no hurry in the world.

Finally, she found what she needed. It was past time for me to run my next errand. “It was so nice meeting you. I’m Bethany,” I said, extending a hand.

“I’m Susan,” she said. “Oh, and while you’re in town, make sure you shop at Kroger. I own fifty of them, located all over the state.”

Really?

I had to stop for a moment and respect the vast amount of energy this woman had. Also, and more importantly, I had to respect that she was someone who would ask a stranger for help finding something in Hobby Lobby.

It wasn’t that she was inept or incompetent: she knew that when you aren’t getting anywhere, you stop and talk to someone. Even a perfect stranger will do. Sometimes you get more helpful strangers… sometimes less. But you always make a new acquaintance, and usually you help the other person feel involved and essential.

Leaders aren’t always the ones helping other people. They’re also the ones asking. It’s an art of getting things done AND drawing people in… It’s the art of asking questions of strangers.

Let’s Talk about Something Ordinary

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Anyone can go to the Marietta square or old historic Roswell and appreciate the charm of those places.  I explored several places and could have shared them; however, during my brief stint in Atlanta’s suburbs, I wanted my blog post to focus on an ordinary experience: grocery shopping.

Living in my own apartment for the first time, I enjoyed doing my own budgeting and meal planning.  I quickly learned to enjoy Publix over all other grocery stores in my area – not because their prices were necessarily the best (great buy-one-get-one sales, though), but because you could expect smiles at the cash registers and conversations in the aisles.  When a hundred dollars was stolen from me at my local Publix, the store manager took the time to go back through security footage and find exactly who stole from me – and then he paid for my groceries.  I’ll never forget that kind bald man.

So, as a loyal customer, I went into a Publix in Sandy Springs at lunchtime.  Picking up a box of fabric softener sheets, it suddenly dawned on me: I was in the middle of an amazing experience.

Fabric Softener - Publix

I looked down the row of aisles neatly stocked.  Every kind of food you could want is on those shelves – enough of it to feed a regimen.  Some of those foods originated thousands of miles from Sandy Springs, and yet, through an efficient logistical chain, have all made their way here.  The aisles have enough space to maneuver comfortably; displays are located to catch the eye.  All of this space is wonderfully well-planned.

Aisles - Publix

Glossy apples, perfectly spherical dimpled oranges, ripe strawberries in clear plastic packaging…  Lettuce and spinach dewy in bins along the walls, watered by the gentle misting spray.  This produce section is so attractive and brightly colored – by FOOD!  By lovely fruits and vegetables that grew from the earth.

Produce - Publix

And the floral section!  Lovely fresh flowers of all descriptions, a whole bank of them.  They’re elegant.  They beg to be taken home to brighten your dining room.

Flowers - Publix Flowers 2 - Publix  Flowers 3 - Publix

Near the door is a lady at a stand, demonstrating a new recipe.  A little ways off, the deli sends out a delicious aroma: sub sandwiches, fried chicken wings, onion rings, chicken tenders.  All kinds of people from road workers to businessmen eat here at the small café

Demo stand - Publix  Deli - Publix

I go to an open kiosk where I can scan my groceries myself, bag them, pay, and go.  It takes about a minute and a half.  As I leave, I catch an employee’s eye and she says, “Have a great day.”  I smile back and say, “You too!” and leave the store feeling that our brief exchange has put a little more civility in the world.

Admittedly, this stuff is a little bizarre to write.  No, Publix isn’t paying me to write any of this (a shame too).  But going to the grocery store is something we all do and we all relate to.  Appreciate it. Appreciate the ordinary things. When you stop and think about it, they hold so much to love.

Endings, Beginnings

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My apartment stood empty and quiet, the rooms reduced to vast expanses of off-white carpet and blank beige walls.  My car was packed to overflowing. The keys were on the counter.  When I locked the door and pulled it shut behind me, I’d be leaving this apartment in Gainesville, Georgia for the last time.

I’d nestled in this little haven for a year and a half.  Friends and had visited me here.  I’d put out a kitchen fire, made a tent fort from my furniture and spare sheets, set out fragrant roses in vases and burned candles in the evening.  After yearning for my own place since age fourteen, this apartment had been a dream come true, and I decorated and nested to my heart’s content here.  It was mine.  It was home.

And Gainesville, this big town an hour north of Atlanta, Georgia?  It was here I first lived independently as a princess, away from my parents and the shelter of a small college environment.  I learned how to drive on these streets.  I learned independence and self-discipline.  I learned the value of volunteer work and the futility of empty ambition.  I felt like a woman around age eighteen, but there’s a difference in being a woman and being an independent woman.  I found my feet as an adult in Gainesville, and from here I can find the confidence to be dauntless and venture into the great Beyond.

Comfort is a certain indicator of change coming.  Only a few weeks ago, at this hour in the morning, I was in the kitchen making myself tea and toast as the sun rose and thinking, “I like this life.”  No plans to change a thing.  Looking back now, I should have known change was in the wind.  And deliciously so.

The past few weeks, the stars have aligned for me to move to Atlanta, the city to the south long singing siren songs to me.  That’s not all – starting in about two weeks, I’ll be using Atlanta as my home base to travel to big cities and small ones all over America.

As I shut the door of my apartment behind me for the last time, I found myself smiling.  I’ve made so many memories here… but bigger adventures await.  It’s time to put on toe shoes and dance on the edge of life’s precipice.  Now more than ever, it’s time to be the dauntless princess.

I’m writing this blog to share this life with you: a crazy wonderful chronicle of success, failure, love, looking for the beautiful in the commonplace.

Thank you for reading.  Let’s live 2015 to its fullest.

~The Dauntless Princess~