Portrait of Beauty

There's a couple at my church named Jason and Jaime. They appear to be in their mid to late thirties. Jaime reminds me of every great art teacher I ever knew, with dyed frizzy red hair and crepe-y flowered skirts and leather boots and beaded dangling earrings and this kind of chatty, spunky personality. I can tell she's a free thinker, a lover of all that is beautiful, a giver. Jason is tall and hunched over, quiet, epileptic and sometimes, visibly intoxicated. During the service they sit in the back row of the balcony, their belongings strewn out next to them. Before Jaime's purse got stolen from behind her feet as sold Street Roots on the side of the sanctuary a few months ago, she would place her purse on the side of her too. When I usher, they always give a few dollars to the offering. When they are outside on the street selling newspapers, many of their belongings in tow, people come up to them and bring them wool socks or old coats or hand knitted chartreuse and turquoise hats. People hug them, they ask how they are, they know their name out there on the street. But inside, Jason and Jaime sit up in the balcony in the back row alone, isolated. Sometimes they don't even go upstairs at all but go down underneath the sanctuary to Fuller Hall where we have social hour after the service and they sit and drink hot coffee or tea and they get warm.
 
 About six months ago Jaime told me they had found a cheap place to live but expressed frustration about being unable to find a job. She was worried she didn't have much nice to wear to an interview and that she wouldn't find a job in time to pay the rent at the end of the month. For a housewarming present I got them a basket of laundry detergent and quarters, and iron and some hangers with the hopes that having clean and pressed clothes might give her that boost of confidence she needed. She thanked me profusely and did end up finding a job as a waitress but it didn't last long. I don't know much about her history other than that she has a few children who are not in her custody and she spends a lot of her time not selling newspapers shuffling around town with Jason trying to find him free or reduced health care and medication for his epilepsy. She has shared with me that she is bi-polar and I wonder if this, coupled with all the other struggles she is faced with, has made finding and keeping employment difficult. I can tell from her nature that she's nurturing, always hugging me hello and asking how I am when in the grand scheme of both of our lives, I have very little to worry about.

A few months ago I could tell that Jason and Jaime had lost the place they were renting and were back on the street as Jaime didn't have her makeup on as usual and she seemed exceptionally melancholy. Her spunk was gone and she seemed tired, downtrodden and Jason appeared intoxicated as he sold newspapers. Inside on the bulletin board I saw a small note on a ripped piece of scratch paper saying that they were looking for a donated used computer to help them with their job and home and health care hunt. It just so happened that I knew my dad's office was getting all new computers because my brother was getting a used laptop from him. I asked if there was any extra and my dad said they were going to sell them but that he would give one to me if I needed it. I told him that while my computer seems to catch one virus after the next, and has to be plugged in to work because the battery died about two years ago, that it wasn't for me that I was asking.

The Sunday before Christmas I asked Jaime if they had had any luck with the computer hunt and she said no. I told her that I had one for her and you could tell by her reaction she thought I was pulling her leg. I told her I would bring it the next week, the day after Christmas, but I fell through on my promise. Instead I went and got a tattoo with a good friend. I felt terrible all this past week that I had made a promise and not delivered and hoped when I saw them today, they wouldn't be upset or disappointed in me. To be completely honest, I did for a moment earlier in the week worry that in need of money, they might just sell the computer, but then I realized that it didn't really matter what they did with it, that that wasn't the point. As a giver of a gift, it's unfair for me to give it with strings or worries attached. All we can ever do is give what we are able and hope it is valued and valuable; to give with faith. When I saw Jaime today, computer in a bag under my arm, you could tell she was bursting with curiosity of if I was going to deliver on my promise. I pulled it out from under my arm and wished her a merry, belated Christmas and she just kept saying over and over, "I knew you would bring it, I knew you would! Jason didn't think you would but I just knew you would." I felt really embarrassed as I hadn't really done anything to give her this gift; I hadn't spent any money or shopped for anything, I had simply lucked into something that she needed and was getting undue credit. I brushed off her thanks and she went to tell Jason the good news. As I turned to leave, hoping that I had made her day at least a little bit more joyous, she came to give me a hug, tears in her eyes. She said that she was so grateful for me and for the gift I had given her. She held me and she looked me in the eyes and as tears streamed down her face she told me she just wanted to get a job and a home and get her life back together so badly so she could give back to other people too. And I believed her. She said for her, having no or very little resources or means, makes it impossible for her to give much to others and that this is what is most difficult for her about being homeless. Unsure of what was the right thing to say to offer her comfort, I told her that for me and I'm sure for others, that her presence in the world is simply enough. I said that her smile and her friendliness and her spunk are a gift in an of themselves and I meant it.

Isn't it funny sometimes how we can go through the world not really realizing the affect we may or may not have on other people? I know for example, that I will go to church each Sunday and she will be one of the first people I see. Unbeknownst to her, I am newly single and generally exceptionally lonely and starved for human contact and she is one of the few people who will hug me each week. Her smile and the joy that she generally radiates are a gift to me and I suppose sadly, in the tradition of my family, instead of me just telling her this, I have given her gifts. I feel like I've done very little for Jaime and other homeless people when you consider how great my wealth is and privilege are when compared to hers... and yet she was showering me with thanks and compliments that I didn't at all deserve. In reality, between the two of us, she's the survivor, she's the brave one.

This interaction got me thinking about the people who mean the most to me in the world and how they aren't those who have given me lavish gifts, but how they are those who have said or done small, thoughtful and genuine things for me... those who have recognized me for who I am and appreciated it. Those who have really seen me. I think in the end, this desire to truly be seen and appreciated for who we really are is what all of us want. This and to be able to feel like we are giving back or contributing something positive to the world just by being here. What a shame that so many people have to go through life either pretending to be someone they are not to be accepted or who because of their lack of privilege, are only seen for their "difference," their Otherness, rather than for who they really are. To most of the world Jaime probably appears just another Portland homeless woman selling newspapers on the street corner; someone who is dependent on the gifts of others for survival rather than someone who also gives to others despite her lack of material wealth. I saw part of Jamie's soul today and damn, it was beautiful. In the shedding of tears her heart was exposed, and her desire to care for and make other people happy shined brilliantly through as her life's calling. I hope that my small gift helps her to find her way back to stability just a little bit quicker or makes it a little bit easier and I hope that in my witnessing her presence as a gift enough, she felt for at least a moment, visible and needed. May we all go through our lives with the fortitude to lay our hearts bare for others to see as Jaime so courageously did today. May we give the gift of genuineness and love to others as our greatest offering and may we recognize, in all of those around us, that whatever the state of our lives, we are all in this moment and will be in all of those that follow, worthy. 

Namaste.