Opening Portals

When you watch a movie, there are the main characters, secondary and minor characters, and extras. It is much the same in life. We are the main characters in our lives; we have secondary and minor characters -- people who add color and flavor to our lives but don't really affect the action -- and extras -- the people who are in the background, entering and exiting, moving in and out of our scenes. We all perceive ourselves as the stars of our own particular sit-coms, and rarely give a thought to the fact that, at the same time, we are merely extras in someone else's story.

Sometimes, a window opens in the lives of one of our "extras," and we realize how much more there is to the lives of people we barely notice. One night, when I visited Walpan at dinner time, I began reading from "Stuart Little" to Nikki, Bruno, Richard and Joe. This is an interesting table to read to, as Nikki and Bruno only hear out of their left ears (and not that well at that), making sitting between them impossible. Just when I got to the part where Stuart lowers himself down the drain to find Mrs. Little's earring, Bruno, who might have thought that I had finished reading because perhaps he didn't hear me at all, mentioned that he used to know E.B. White. "I used to visit him, you know, and he would occasionally read me his poetry." "I didn't know he was a poet," I said. "Wasn't he though? Or was that the other chap with an "E" for a first name," asked Bruno. "Are you thinking of e e cummings?" I suggested. "Oh yes, that's the chap." Bruno added, "and you know who else is an amazing poet? Barbara, the cook." "e e cummings had a cook who was a poet?" I asked. "No my dear, the cook here," said Bruno, gesturing at the lady serving the food.

I had only met Barbara in passing. Usually, Olga served the food in the dining hall, but she left for Croatia at the end of June. Barbara, the cook, was indeeed in the dining room serving the food. Barbara is a beautiful, big boned, chocolate complexioned woman who has an accent that is a musical blend of England and the West Indies. After dinner, I told her that Bruno had mentioned that she is a poet. I asked her if I could read her poetry.

"I have hundreds of poems at home," Barbara said. "The words just come to me, and I have to write them down." Barbara eagerly brought up some loose papers that were in a ziploc bag. There were perhaps 25 poems in that bag, and they were all remarkable. They were amazingly evocative, with unexpected rhymes and vivid images. Julia had not come into dinner -- another fall -- and so I brought her dessert in to her and asked her if she would like to hear the poems. I read 6 or 7 out loud to her. "I will never look at Barbara the same way again," she said. "I always thought of her as just a cook, and never thought that she might have any other life beyond this place. But really, she is an artist, isn't she." I agreed.

If you stop to look at all the "extras" in your life: the people you pass who are in a hurry to make their train; or are impatiently waiting on the supermarket check out line; or laboring in your neighbor's yard, consider that they might have lives rich with details and color that you never imagine. One of them might be newly in love, or have a talent so far removed from the type of work they do that you would never imagine it. And it's useful to stop and imagine it. To really look. Because to them, you might just be "an extra" too.