Yet Another Woman at the Well

Here's another waking dream. (This and the "hidden treasure" meditation were actually from exercises I wrote from a lovely book called Opening to God by Carolyn Stahl Bohler. I highly recommend it for getting yourself right into the story.)

I am sitting in my parents’ living room, on the frayed, gold couch that has been here since I was in high school. They’re in Phoenix for the winter, and my husband is out buying groceries. I have just made some coffee and am sitting down with my novel. I can’t stop looking out the bay window, the one update they’ve made to this room. There is truly nothing to look at. Same dull street I couldn’t wait to leave. Dirty snow. Bitter Minnesota winter day. Absolutely quiet.

So I jump when I hear a knock at the door. I bend my neck and see through the bay window a youngish black man standing on the porch. He wears a thin coat, blue work pants. He blows on his hands and knocks again. There is no good reason to open that door. Rapists and robbers, rapists and robbers, I think. I would be nuts to open that door. I go to the door and peer out the top of the three stacked windows. There was a mistake – he looks right back at me. Rapists and robbers. And there’s something odd about his face. He is clearly cold, needing something, but his face is serene, like he has everything he needs. It’s a kind face. Nice, my people would call him. And he looks familiar, somehow. Or feels familiar, more like. Rapists and …

I open the door. He says the obvious – “It’s cold out here – could I come in and warm up?” He adds, “Hate to bother you, Ma’am,” though I know he’s being polite. It’s like he knows he’s asking for something anybody with a whole warm house to herself could give. Rapists and robbers. I let him in. He looks at my coffee cup and says, “Got any coffee?” It’s obvious I do, a whole pot, you can smell it brewing. Where are my manners? My people always offer coffee, even when it’s not made.

I ask him to sit at our kitchen table, embarrassed that it’s fake wood, dented where my brother threw a heavy can of pears. Low-rent ‘70s, everything here. And I look at him – clearly he doesn’t care.

“Why are you here?” I blurt out. I’m thinking, I mean I can’t stop thinking about this being a black guy. This town has changed since I’ve lived here, but he must know the deal. “We don’t usually, that is…”

“Look,” he says. “It was cold, I just told you. And if you knew who was asking, you’d ask me for shelter. You would find warmth that never left you. I saw you reading in your window. I thought you looked lonely.”

Okay, there it is, sex. I am so disappointed. At least we’re on familiar ground, though. I know how to handle this.

“I know you can barely stand to be here,” he continues. “I know you and your father spent years not speaking, and this house scares you to death. I know how hard it’s been since your mother died. Rotten thing for an 11-year-old girl. And it’s still your house. Your dreams all happen here, don’t they?”

I stare at him. “How do you…” But there doesn’t seem to be any point in asking how or why he knows this. He suddenly seems like a bonanza of information. I wonder what else he knows. I go for broke, ask the biggest question I have. “I want to serve God, and I don’t know how,” I say.
“You knew enough to open your door. Your manners need a little work, but you finally gave me some coffee. It’s pretty simple. If you were to offer me dinner and a bed for the night, I’d say you get an A+. You know how to do those things.”

“Why is it so hard, then?”

“You’re afraid. Everyone is. People who talk about serving God talk about sin, but that’s pretty simple, too. Sin is everything that keeps you from opening that door.”