People in business suits walked swiftly into their respective office buildings, steam from old water boilers poured out of buildings, and tall buildings began to appear on both sides of the street. Almost instantly, there was no more sunshine to warm my face and my 600-fill-power down jacket didn't feel so powerful.
My hands, that had been gripping my backpack straps, felt numb. With no gloves, I placed them in my coat. It's thin, polyester shell pockets were little comfort. I became acutely aware that heeled boots cannot be both trendy and practical.
I decided to change direction and walked out of my way to get to the streetcar stop. It would be waiting for me, I thought. It knows the struggle I have been through, with my poor choice of winter wear and high arching, not-fit-for-walking boots. It's doors will slide open, cordially inviting me into the warmth of it's reliable, efficient city transit. I hurried across the street to read the arrival display. I stared at the screen. "Arriving in 9 minutes" it said. What happened next was not from the wind. The liquid that seeped from my eye was a real tear.I stood in silence, jealous of the woman to the right of me in her long, puffy winter coat, gloves, scarf and hat. I looked again at the screen. "Arriving in 8 minutes" it said. I will surely perish. To the left of me was a tall, thin old man. He wore a baseball cap on his head and lightweight jacket. His jeans, even with a belt, were too large for his waist and much too short for his legs. His tennis shoe laces were threaded so tightly, you could not see the tongue of his shoe. They were double, maybe triple knotted. I wondered if he wished he had a puffy winter coat, gloves and scarf, too.
I quickly stepped on and found a seat. I relaxed, feeling the tug of the streetcar moving. I rode for several minutes before I caught a few words of conversation between a woman and the thin old man at the streetcar stop. I turned my whole body in my seat, closer to them, listening more intently. She began to get a clear plastic container out of her bag. "It's shea butter." she said to him, digging her two fingers through the dense substance. "Hold your hands out." The man slowly outstretched his aged, delicate and very boney hands toward her. She began to massage the sweet smelling butter into his knuckles, palms and fingertips. And he let her. "Now rub some onto your forehead and cheeks." He did exactly what he was told, sliding the tips of his fingers across his forehead wrinkles, down his nose, and onto his cheeks. "Now ain't that nice? It just melts into your skin." she said. The old man kept lifting his hands to his nose to smell the butter. "Well, ain't that somethin'. That real nice." he said, again and again.
Eventually, the woman caught me observing their interactions. She looked at me with a smile and said "He said it's his first time riding the streetcar. He's a little scared but you doing ok, ain't you?" "Yeah, yeah. I'm doin' alright." he said.
It was at this time that I realized the woman wasn't really concerned with the old man's ashy skin. She wasn't trying to encourage him to go out and buy a container of shea butter. She wasn't trying to get him to stop using Vaseline on his face in the winter. She was doing more than soothing his skin. She was soothing his mind. To her, it didn't matter that this man was a stranger. It didn't matter that we are in pandemic times. What mattered to her was moving in closer, not further away. I watched as she used whatever she had on hand, in her bag, to take the old man's mind off this swift, foreign method of transit.
What mattered to her was that she was a human to another human who was struggling.
As I pushed the red button for my stop, I was glad that I wore heeled boots and a thin coat, happy I waited those 9 minutes.
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