the surprising sound of love
In the elevator, I can feel it, the waves of stay-out-of-my-way coming off of the one woman who happens to be riding when we roll in with all our too much, not, I do not mean, the suitcases rolling in with each of us like little sidecars or the backpacks slung over our shoulders.
Really, I mean Autism, Adam, with his head wagging back and forth to some silent chorus rolling through his mind, and his echolalia, the mimic of some instrumental sound arising deep in his throat and sliding over his tongue. Of course, Adam moves nearest the spot where this woman has pressed herself corner-shaped into the deep back of the elevator, and she shoots forward, away away away—just getting away from him.
And I mean epilepsy, although she’d have no way to know that even in the elevator Kevin and I carefully watch Riley and Josh, with our awareness rather than our eyes, waiting for the seizing shoe to drop–maybe, we never know–with a shaking thud. They both though, quietly tired, only stand still and wait with the rest of us, taking up the space I can feel her wishing empty.
I see her body like a rigid scream, head down, eyes memorizing the shape of her shoes, the hair of her messy bun jabbing the air like a handful of exclamation marks. I see her lifting her eyes only briefly to see if Adam has moved, if he’s staying away, to see how many floors remain until we will all disembark and go on our way. We are on the way to the airport, to jostle slowly through security like a bunch of nervous penguins, and she, I’m guessing because of the brown tweed skirt, the silky blouse, must be on her way to work.
To be fair, this is a Tuesday morning, and Tuesday is always the day everyone chooses when referring to something dull, and I have absolutely no idea where she’s coming from or where she’s going, no window into the thoughts darting around in her mind. Maybe her body expresses the distance of urbanity, or she’s claustrophobic or intensely introverted. Maybe she’s suffered some trauma, and anxiety now grips her body when she’s trapped, even temporarily, with strangers. Maybe she’s a germaphobe, or maybe she just hasn’t yet had her first cup of coffee. The fact is, I know nothing about this woman other than what I sense imperfectly.
Jesus said, love your enemies, but let’s face it, it’s hard to know even how to behave around a stranger projecting a missile defense system, much less a person determined to make or to be an enemy.
She does not want to engage, that much seems clear, and so, I will us invisible, which feels like my typical response when facing this kind of aggressive forcefield, like a moat full of snapping alligators–draw bridge decidedly up, surrounding another person. I want to disappear, or at least become as benign and inanimate and quiet—oh my, could Adam actually be getting louder right now?–as the Ficus tree with silk leaves gathering dust in the lobby of the building, as the bowl of pleasantly unobtrusive dog biscuits I noticed sitting out there beside a beige sign airily offering its plastic hospitality to pets, possibly, who might—we’re not really even watching—just happen to have entered the building with you. There were, I also noticed, no people ever inhabiting the lobby in any way, no one seemingly employed by the building at all, no one breathing or taking up space or offering any joint attention, which left me wondering if the electric fireplace, with its unwarm suggestion of warmth, ever even turns off.
Anyway, I copy the woman’s stance, looking down at my white running shoes, which could–I’m noticing–stand to be cleaned, while we all wait what feels like an age for the elevator to make its slow descent, and Adam obliviously and completely unselfconsciously continues his silent dance, head swinging like a pendulum, suddenly slowing and jerking to a stop on one far side, falling down and up again to the other side with gathered momentum, his throat and tongue sounding a duh duh duh I couldn’t reproduce if I tried. If I stopped him, if I asked, “Hey, what are you listening to, what song is in your mind,” he would only stop and blink and give me the polite look that means, I love you but I don’t understand what you’re saying, and anyway, I wasn’t looking for you to notice me and start asking questions. And when I turned my attention back to my shoes, he would only go back to radio Adam, now playing a world of his own.
This would be, I’m also thinking (because I have an excellent imagination), when the elevator would get stuck, halting somewhere halfway between floors, whirring down to the nothing sound of metal cables groaning mildly, all of us suddenly glancing at one another, all question marks, even the woman who so clearly had hoped to ride the elevator down alone. This would be when a thing like that would happen, when this poor woman would end up stuck on an elevator with our too much becoming even louder, even Adam halting his dance to declare that we really should be getting on to the airport, and Kevin and me adopting as much calm as possible to avoid any added stress that can, under the wrong conditions, trigger seizures.
But of course, that doesn’t happen.
Finally, the elevator settles at the bottom of the shaft, doors opening slowly on the hallway leading to the lobby with its Ficus tree and everlasting fake fire and dusty dog biscuits in a bowl. There is a pause, just a beat, while the five of us wait to see if the woman would like to exit the elevator first, but she defers, no doubt preferring potentially to follow us rather than to have us following her on the way out of the building.
“I hope you have a wonderful day,” Riley says, openly looking now toward the woman, who has pressed herself, albeit subtly, against the side wall of the elevator.
Riley has a very weak radar for relational walls, and so, only her genuine kindness, her simple love for other people, her know-no-strangers enthusiasm comes through in her lilting tone, her honest smile, as she delivers this comment. I see you and you’re so valuable, her body, her voice, her expression says, the actual words only articulating an authentic blessing.
She has done this all weekend, all over the city, in ballparks and nature parks and on the street, night and day, at intersections, in restaurants, and even in public bathrooms, with people of every age and description, and she has schooled us all, showing us repeatedly that genuine love and kindness and humility see not barriers but people, and that all people, even the ones with prickles well on display, are worthy of acknowledgement.
I watch as the woman receives the blessing, watch her pull her eyes up to meet Riley’s open face, watch with wonder—again—as she softens instantly, surprised, I think, to find her own protective facades falling.
“Well, I hope you do too,” she says at last, stridently, her lips beginning the slightest wary rise toward a smile.
And I don’t know, but I can’t help thinking, as we drag our sidecar suitcases down the little hallway to the back exit of the building, that this must have been the way it was when bruised and broken and needy people encountered Jesus back in the day, when they suddenly heard and saw and felt above all the alarming volume of danger, the actual surprising sound of love.
