Lunch with Zoe

by Carl Mazza

The world’s definitions are one thing and the life one actually lives is quite another. One cannot allow oneself, nor can one’s family, friends, or loversBto say nothing of one’s childrenBto live according to the world’s definitions: one must find a way, perpetually, to be stronger and better than that    -  James Baldwin

 

Sometimes

I want to forget it all

this curse called identity

I want to be far out

paint dreams in strange colors

write crazy poetry

only the chosen can understand

 

But it’s not so simple

I still drink tea

with both hands.

-       Nancy Hom

 

Abby and I needed to talk about new projects, so we got together for lunch at the Elkton diner.  Zoe, aged nine months, was invited too B as always!  I had thought the occasion would be a chance for us to sit quietly for a good hour and discuss some unfinished details. But Zoe quickly let it be known that we were, in fact, there at her invitation, and she proceeded to spread quite a different agenda on the table!

It went something like this: Abby and I would begin a conversation and Zoe would interrupt with the faintest half-word which would get our attention.  Having made initial eye contact, it was virtually impossible to disengage as Zoe=s face lit up with the broadest smile revealing several teeth, and a mouthful of bubbles.  Of course, there is nothing exceptional about a smile.  We see them all the time, half-frozen on faces everywhere.  But it is rare to see such an expression from the very depth of being.  Zoe smiles with everything she has B her entire body laughs, its language is unmistakable.

 

Lest we think we are the centers of attention, Zoe lets it be known that her interests are much broader than our mere table.  As each new person enters the restaurant Zoe responds with an outstretched arm as if reaching out to take hold of the unsuspecting passers-by.  She coordinates this with a happy gurgle and another huge smile.  It is an irresistible combination. 

Everyone who walks by, including groups of men on their lunch breaks, respond by reaching out to her B with a hand, a gesture, a smile, and in some cases, an entire focused conversation.  In the course of an hour I watched Zoe attract waitresses bringing her crackers, bus boys dangling their keys in front of her face, couples at other tables who spent most of their lunch winking and gesturing with Zoe rather than with each other.  By the end of our meal, it seemed that this nine-month-old had brought the whole non-smoking section of the diner together into one communion B she being the center.

Yet, I observed that Zoe had taken us even beyond herself as a focal point.  It is true, we all started by responding to her.  But as it continued we were actually  touching something within ourselves, and together celebrating something we all had in common with Zoe, and indeed among ourselves. 

The word shaman is an ancient name for a certain kind of religious practitioner.  Because the term is sometimes translated as medicine man or even witch doctor, we are may be tempted to dismiss the importance of such an office as primitive, even savage.  But the shaman, especially in American Indian traditions, refers to that person who has the gift within her/his personality to bring a community together, to create a spirit of unity and harmony when none might otherwise exist.  The shaman is one who rekindles our common bond, and draws us close to each other in powerful, sacred memory.  Ultimately, the shaman is a healer. A good preacher may accomplish aspects of this role through a sermon, and most of our religious rituals, ceremonies and observances have this as their ultimate meaning: to bring people close to the god-force among and within us, and remind us of that from which we together draw life and have our being.

Zoe reminds me that the gift of a shaman is resident in the human soul.  Perhaps as we get older, we also weary of exercising it, but we are still all bright spirits, and, with all our jaded acumen, we are irresistibly drawn to smile and be smiled upon.

Homeless people smile a lot, although there may not be much to smile about.  At mealtimes, the big dining room at Clairvaux Farm is usually filled with persons from newborn babies to men and women in their eighties, and all ages in between: A vast array of life experience, with the common tragedy of homelessness uniting all. It is not unusual to see an old man, his tough face recounting the story of years of life on the streets, joking playfully with a toddler, whose fresh glow reveals she is but dimly aware of the long loneliness and dreadful experience which surround her.  On the surface they may appear very different, but when they meet in that song of the soul, it is the same-ness, their very one-ness which suddenly becomes wholly clear.

We are truly far more than the sum of our individual life experience.  Indeed the barriers, prejudice and pain of life which have a way of coming so readily to the fore, can be dispelled by the shaman with a mere smile.  And we return, if but for a fleeting pause, to the place, or the One, from which we were all borne so long ago.