Lunch Conversations - Tumblr Posts
Praise be to Nanshe, Lady of Compassion and simple kindnesses. She is happenstance and a curious ear, old memories, a warm smile. She remembers where others forget. Today I saw the hand of a goddess in a harried law firm associate, an accquaintance from years past, whose path has led her to fortune and to a brief lunch in the house of Nisaba. I did not see her then, not yet, maybe a passing nod to beauty in a nice shirt. I saw kindness in an approach to the elderly, unexpected and friendly, while I busied myself over translations and transcriptions at my glass-and-light tablet. Headphones in my ears, lost to my own work.
“Nightbird Books,” I heard. “They have a writing club.”
The chatter between my ears and fingers and clattering keys and darting eyes stalled out and drifted, and I caught coffee eyes and the quick flash of a sickle-moon smile. My hands were already at my ears, plucking away the tech to face something more personal. “Forgive me for interrupting, but I heard you mention a writing club?”
I need people. I didn't think it as much, when I had a house to hide in, but it hurts sometimes. I nibble at the edge of the shadows and bank the aching fire in my eyes. This, perhaps, could be one more outstretched hand from the land of the living. Writing is my passion, after all.
She recognizes me, even so changed beyond my atypical dress. She acknowledges me, holds out a conversational bookmark, and by words I accept it as numbly as my hands would a physical scrap of paper in my curious surprise. I don’t recognize her, exactly. By the end of the conversation I’ll still only recall the ghost of someone at my geology table in college. By the end of this conversation, I will be driven to write prayers of gratitude for the woman that ghost became and might always have been.
She finishes her talk with the older couple, then circles around to my library coffeeshop table and plops her bag lunch nearby. I clear some tech and wires away. She sits down, greets me, asks if I recall which class we shared. Neither of us is really sure, but that’s little obstacle to friendly conversation. Some part of me is still stunned at the social contact. I talk over the internal radio static. She asks after my project, glowing off of my glasses, and I say that I’m yelling at Youtube and the finicky subtitle program. I’m transcribing some of my (pagan) Youtube videos so I can translate subtitles, and experimenting in English first. (If a project ever was under the eye of Nisaba, this must surely be). More socializing happens, a stranger at another table briefly joins in to discuss the auto-translate program on Facebook, and some part of my brain flickers weakly with the surprise. I like to think it went unnoticed.
We discuss Nightbird Books. It’s a beautiful little bookstore with a reading room in the back, where dwell a collection of jewel-bright little chirping fluffs in the boughs of a tall glassed-in tree. She tells me the time and typical days, brings up the occasional open mic poetry night, and at that point I’m utterly hooked. I’ve been on the search for an open mic poetry cafe for years in this town, and here a place is dropped in my lap? She tells me of the way they work, casual and open, teenage suicide poetry to the script of an entire movie on inky reams, and as if that weren’t enough the gods must decide to pour raw sunlight into this woman’s heart. At some point in this conversation with me, the hungry, the homeless, and admittedly the disaster lesbian firmly ignoring her beautiful coffee skin, she reaches into her lunch bag as easy as breathing to offer me a large packet of fries, the ones in the bag to boot, and barbecue sauce (which is the superior condiment bar none). She gives me the receipt too, and tells me with an impish little grin and casual drawling dismissiveness that I should call the number on it to complain that my fries are cold, to get myself some free extras. This is not a “fatten the poor child up” situation. This is just...
It is at this point that some invisible sharpie must underline the name of Nanshe on this beautiful near-stranger’s forehead a third time for good measure.
The rest of it slips through my mental fingers, but I do not forget a kindness done.
The metaphorical bell-pull has been tugged like a cheerful little toddler was at it. I hear it loud and clear, and I certainly won’t forget.
She realized shortly that her lunch break was nearly done, and I bid her farewell with my utterly pleased dumbstruck shock hopefully well-contained. I’ll be at that meeting, next Monday. Hopefully I’ll get her name.
Until then, praise be to Nanshe in the house of Nisaba. Praise be to the goddesses of small kindnesses and communication, of insight and writing clubs, of outstretched fries freely given and library coffee shops. Of half-remembered faces driven to easy smiles to old friends, and of free wifi.
I adore and extol the names of Nanshe and Nisaba, goddesses who dwelled side-by-side in ancient Lagash. I breathe the name of Nanshe, whose hand is on the homeless, and the name of Nisaba, whose hand is on the scribe. By their will is my crop watered, are my eyes made clear, do the birds sing sweetly amidst a storm of troubles. My Lady Nanshe, of welcoming arms- my lady Nisaba who is beloved by her servant, I weep for gratitude and awe of your mercy. I praise the goddesses of the library parking garage that saved me in the storm.
Nanshe who laughs in the flood, Nisaba who is colored like the starry heavens, it is sweet to call your names. I praise you in gratitude, and I pray for your kindness on the woman who came to me when I was in need. May her loved ones find like aid in times of trouble, may her enemies find only confusion. And may your gentle hands on the shoulders of the desperate ones hold them fast even as your sure-footed strides set the roots of the world to trembling.
Nanshe of the birds and the fish, Nisaba of the House of Wisdom whose body is the flecked barley, it is sweet to praise you. May your names resound on the lips of the black-headed ones forever and ever.
(Even if they recognize them not. My goddesses, the word only spreads. Your servant has been busy, and your values flourish with new life yet still.)