m review — social commentary & satire — my sacred place
My Sacred Place
by Troy May
My launching pad is platform Two at Beaverton Transit Center. My entry point is the middle car, during the rush hour migration. Upon trajectory, I cease my spiraling and land in a linear serpentine world of white noise. We tunnel.
We, who before boarding were strangers. We, who after arriving will disappear in destinations otherworldly, are for a moment, bound to bump breaths and nod glazed greetings. I want to fill in all the blank stares and rewrite those five minutes before boarding, for that one person who is crying one tear at a time.
Here, in my seat, or over there, if I choose to stand for the woman with weary eyes and shiny boots, I can instigate the momentum from monologue to dialogue. This brief bonding on the way to or home from, has become my daily Eucharist wherein I partake in the breaking of bread with my neighbors.
I imagine that when driving the freeway one becomes conversant with bumper stickers and vanity plates, but in this place the talk's all about tattoos and body piercing. Summer offers a luscious landscape of undulating shoulders, unclad bellies, and bulging biceps hosting designer ink. Inked: Celtic crosses, Greek gods and goddesses, dragons winding up and down thighs as butterflies flutter on the bluff of the ankle. When surplus cash rolls in I have selected for my upper back — between my wings — The Tree of Life as diagramed in the Kabbalah.
Piercing has kept the creative pace. I spot silver and gold popping up under noses and over chins. My Max-mates accessorize eyebrows and elbows, as well as belly buttons. Tongues are impaled with oddly attractive baubles giving the idiom "tongue twisters" a trendy spin.
Ear lobes are redefined with the ear plug. The reversed intent of pierced earrings, the ear plug stretches the hole in the earlobe that would normally support the hook for hanging; instead the earplug sits in the hole which becomes larger over time, as does the ear plug!
Cognizant of the ancient practices of tattooing and body piercing, I am awed by the richness of ancient cultures juxtaposed to the styles of the street generations so palpable here on the Max. Indigenous peoples have modeled similar styles for thousands of years, but somehow the backdrop of aluminum seats surrounded by a sky of advertisements is a bit surreal. Surrealism is a state of mind that can stand you on your head.
This reminds me of the evening I was returning home on the Max from a weekend of work. To my delight I sat down beside a young woman with a baby. I began to ask her questions about her little one. "How old is your baby, what's her name?" Simple questions that make new mothers gush when answering. Oh, her baby was two months, and they were on their way to Hillsboro to visit Grandma, for the first time! I, a grandma wannabe, was reveling until the tightly swaddled blanket slipped from the baby's face.
Were those false eyelashes? I tried not to be obvious in my shock. Wild thoughts were whipping my blissful happy thoughts off the docile clothesline, like so many dirty diapers! Was this woman delusional or dangerously lonely? Could there be a real baby somewhere that got confused for a baby doll? All these questions screamed within me for the time it takes for a bubble to surface from a puddle pooled by a drooling young woman with a drool–less baby.
I was shaking from some terror triggered by the combination of a crazy mom and a baby who wasn't really there. When I was taken away from my mother at the age of eight, we had no contact until I turned eighteen, wherein she told me that I never existed. My mother explained that when I was born, she became me. This allowed her to replay her role as a tormented little girl, yet she also was her mother, the crazy bitch. I was nowhere in the script. This was the surly side of surreal.
As the stench of street life smacked me out of my melancholy I realized this young woman was homeless. The baby doll was a prop used for soliciting some cash or food. She never asked me for any change but on reassessing the situation the stroller was filthy, there was not a bottle or teething ring in sight, and it was summer. Any baby would be sweltering in a wool blanket.
Here we were, brought together in this moment, in my sacred place, the Max. It was time to break bread. I reached into my overnight bag and offered the piece of pie that I was bringing home to my daughter, my very real daughter of twenty–six years. The pie was swallowed without chewing. I took this to mean the woman was hungry, so I gathered up all my leftovers intended for weekend meals and threw in a small bottle of Purelle, "for the baby," I smiled.
When my stop was announced, I said goodbye. Feeling frivolously melodramatic, I wanted God to infuse me with a miracle for this young woman or at least some wise words that would seed in her barren womb and blossom. But goodbye was goodbye.
The recent tragedy in London, England on July 7th, 2005, has threatened the core of my sacred place. I feel a surging sense of trepidation for my fellow Max and Trimet passengers as we are propelled through dangerous times. The blood on the walls in London, as well as in Iraq, is the blood of my brothers and sisters!
I am furious with those leaders who insist we not be intimidated by these attacks. They lead us into a disassociated sense of humanity, proclaiming "These acts of terror will not change the way we live our lives." Something has to change or this terrorism will not stop. I have become afraid, afraid of my own government's policy of not listening.
My sacred place has become suspect. Now, we must fight for every sacred moment. Fear accelerates, faces blur, as the backpack left alone in the third seat to the right is confiscated... when do we stop... to break bread?
Troy May of Oregon
Troy is an advocate for the poor as well as a third year Religious Studies student. She delights in paradox and eavesdrops on the Max and other public places, for the organic drama, that life out of context, imparts.
