Beyond Embarassment

Because of a lack of foresight, or maybe an error in judgment, my husband and I ended up carrying our daughter’s trunk, sewing machine suitcase, and autoharp, the last of her possessions, objects of endearment, from south Brooklyn to the tip of Manhattan on Memorial Day  weekend changing trains numerous times.

And because the trunk was heavy, full of her stuff, and because it had no handles, I wrapped it with clothesline cord, one of us on each end, going in and out of trains, up and down stairs, pausing to rest and then continue on.

We waited on platforms and pushed onto packed trains, bumping and bonking, and excusing and pardoning, and begging for some kind of logical end to what could only be described as illogical.

The schizophrenics stopped to consider us, interrupting their own internal conversations. Manhattanites dressed to the nines, going out on the town, pondered the tableaux before them: a middle-aged Dust-Bowl-looking couple, weary and worn out, sitting on a battered old trunk—perhaps about to play for their supper. Old women offered tentative smiles.

And I smiled back. Thus, is my life--performance art.