Recognition
I saw a pic of me–2016–and thought
“100% stranger”
I didn’t connect to that face as my
own, split second, my two eyes looking at my
two eyes,
big grin in a place I used to be,
photo in hand like:
who the heck is she?
I know her
so well
hardly
And I felt
more connected
two nights ago
to the elderly women shuffling the
crosswalk of the on-ramp
to the 10 West in LA; the car ahead didn’t see her
it was 11 p.m.,
slammed brakes, and she chin-lifted into headlights, stone-still,
no quiver, just strong-spine confidence like
“I AM walking here”
so the car ahead idled its apology,
and I saw myself in her, and she in me, the moment she
gathered up her life to take her
stand
because pedestrians have
the right of way
and a woman knows a woman
somehow–even across two lives, and four
decades
She felt so familiar–statuesque–like:
“I am NOT too old, I am
here, and someone cradled me when I was
new
born, and I’ll pause on this crosswalk,
free,
you swaddled in your car,
me unbound, unhoused,
whatever you think you see:
please respect
respect
respect me.”
Her laser-beam telepathy:
“Hey, Emily–two cars back–do you find more of yourself in me than in a photo of you from 2016?”
because all-of-a-flash-of-a-sudden
any
immediate
human should jolt the hell
of isolation
right out of our senses:
gob-
smacked,
DO YOU FEEL THAT
connection?
“Get out of your car, come talk to me,”
But she shuffled the crosswalk,
and I followed the sedan ahead,
onto a freeway, still
I had a
tether
to this woman,
recognition,
at that intersection
that was hardly
anything
at all but a split second
Infinite
After 7 years of documentary filmmaking in Nepal, Germany, Jordan, South Africa, Hawaii, and elsewhere, E. C. Timmer earned her Masters of Film Production and Directing from Chapman University. E. C. is a director, poet, writer, and actor, and remains curious, very curious. She gravitates toward that little nexus of documentary, narrative, poetry, and art.
@e.c.timmer
