Broken Umbrellas

This morning's wind and rain reminded me of a day when I lived on Maujer St. in Williamsburg years ago, when walking around the neighborhood after a storm I observed wind twisted umbrellas, one after another, in the grisly contortions the weather had bashed them into. This morning I was sheltering under a broken umbrella, because mine is broken and I am still attached to it, even though a few of the ribs flap down, collapsing half of it.

At work James Nachtwey's Inferno was left open to a page showing an impossibly thin Somalian man lying dying on the ground, one of a battery of images of the starving and the dead. It was an odd thing to find at work, pretty hard to recover from seeing. I left the book open to a page showing a broken umbrella lying on the sandy earth, an umbrella in much better shape than the people in the surrounding pictures. So odd though, there are people in horrible conditions who find things to laugh at and be merry about, and there are people in fairly decent conditions who find endless things to complain about bitterly and resent.

Leaving work I noticed a woman on the elevator who was wearing an unusual ring in the shape of a hand and tiger print pants. I lost track of her as soon as I left the building but when I sat down on the F train was surprised to see her sitting right in front of me. I had a feeling she was going to get off at my stop and so she did, so I pointed out that we'd both come from the same office and ridden the same train. She had the inclination to ask me which street I live on and strangely, we live on the same street, just across from each other. Her name is Mary.

By that time the sun had come out and I was able to tuck away my dangerous umbrella, my mind on the Buddhist entity Sitātapatrā, the white parasol goddess. She is described as having 1,000 faces, arms and legs, and a white umbrella that symbolizes a protection that it's a little hard to believe in after looking at Natchwey's book.

1,000 faces. That's a lot of faces. I'm so lucky, in almost every situation I've found myself in I've been protected from any serious trouble by tremendously good-hearted people, as if Sitapatra with her 1,000 faces had come to life through their kindness and concerned awareness. Walking jewels. It is not taken for granted.