Still Teaching Me to Pray

I write at a kitchen table.  But there are times I leave the table and go out into the world.

It was one of those glances, the kind of thing that happens in the twinkling of an eye or two, but then lingers.  Daylight was finally surrendering to dusk and I was headed to the gas station. As I drove down the street, I looked over and she was standing at her kitchen window, working hard at something in the sink with a wax on/wax off motion.  Let's say her name is Victoria. About the time I noticed her, she looked up and noticed me.  She stood out against the lengthening shadows in her white; Victoria was washing dishes in her bra.  This was all of about four seconds.

You might think a forty-two year old man seeing one of his neighbors in her bra about dusk would elicit arousal; that's fair, I am a man like other men and don't pretend to be otherwise. You could think this a scene out of some Victoria's Secret catalog, but this time you'd be wrong. In that spot of time, I felt tenderness to the point of tears.  What I saw in those three or so seconds was framed exhaustion, a woman bone-tired, weary-eyed.  I don't know this lady real well; only as a neighbor.  I do know she has a husband, two kids in grade school and one on her hip not a year old, a dog to wrangle, I'm sure all kinds of laundry and homework to do, and evidently some dishes requiring a fair amount of elbow grease to clean.  As far as I know, there are no flashing runway lights in her house, she doesn't have big angel wings sprouting from her back, no high heels or pouty lips.  No, based on what little I know, I'm guessing this Victoria doesn't have too many secrets these days because there's not many moments to herself and when she does find one she's so worn out she can't think straight.  One of her secrets was that somedays around dusk she says shucks, I'm just gonna wash dishes in my bra.  But I know that one now.

What I witnessed that evening was a woman knee-deep in the things of this earth; a lady that works at her marriage and makes sure the children are fed and taxied hither and yon and labors so that everybody's clothes are washed-then-folded and remembers to feed the dog.  And the dishes?  Well, sometimes the stains are too stubborn for the dishwasher, so she pulls out the sponge and strips down to her bra and sets to work. In a very real sense, women like her, like Victoria, keep this old world spinning and turning; without them...I'm not sure I want to think about that.  Still, I wonder if she sometimes thinks Dear God, is this it?  It's not that she's ungrateful, it's just that she's so blooming tired.  Maybe she does wish for some of those glossy catalog wings, not so she could strut a runway, but so she could fly, fly away and take a break or a load off or a nap and dream like she did when she was a little girl, back before dishes stained with dusk. 

I saw Victoria that evening and now I see her differently.  As I am learning to pray for the little boy, Icarus, who jumps so high on his trampoline not far from me, I now also am learning to pray for Victoria-of-the-one-less-secret who lives close by.  I don't know if anyone else on the planet is praying for these people, remembering them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  I'm trying.

I write at a kitchen table.  But there are times I leave the table and go out into the world.