Jane

Posted on December 3, 2020 by Jan Wilberg

A few thoughts about seeing and judging and being frozen about what to do.

I don’t know why but all day I’ve been thinking about Jane. Two memories collide — the pungent, overpowering body odor wafting down the hallway that announced her arrival minutes before she appeared in my office and the matter of fact way she cinched up the tablecloth she would often wear as a skirt as she began to expound on some critical southside neighborhood issue. When she came to Resident Council meetings at the antipoverty agency where I worked, the other members would scoot down to the end of the long table and start lighting matches. It was awful to witness. She seemed not to notice, but she had to.

She sat with pride, in her tablecloth, in her halo of foul smell, representing her neighborhood because, you see, she was elected to be a Resident Council member. She was there to do her job and she almost never missed a…

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Category: Writing

2 Comments on “Jane”

Elizabeth
December 5, 2020

It is hard to know how she saw herself. I agree with the previous comment about the value of just being with her.

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beth
December 4, 2020

I feel confident that you would be ready now. so good that you were kind to Jane even when others struggled to be in her presence, you honored her as a person.

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