Portraits of Women - Part 1

 M 

Fall morning- weekday. Squeezing in a walk between meetings with half an eye on my phone for work messages. 

On my way back, met this elderly lady walking her three dogs - I have seen her before, always with her dogs. Stopped to pet her dogs, two sisters and a brother. Dogs wanted more attention, and we started talking. About the weather, her ten-year-old dogs coming from the same litter, her walking times. 

The conversation geared from love for her dogs, to some owners mistreating their pets and the general unkindness and cruelty in the larger world. A moment of empathy between two women. Floodgates opened.

Her thoughts went back - to the early years of her marriage and her verbally abusive, narcissistic husband. Forced pregnancies. His attempts to manipulate her, the children. Years after their divorce, 

him continuing to threaten her and disrupt her life. Showing up wherever she moved. 

Shared our common fear of the upcoming election and the complete anxiety that grabs us thinking about the possibility of a regime that violates basic women's rights. Narcissist men in power. 

My next meeting was missed, the phone ignored. But I gained a slice of life, a view into the other side.

K 

I have been wanting to write about my eighty five year old friend- ever dynamic, a powerhouse of knowledge, and a devoted wife and mother. I just didn’t know where to start.

I was out on my walk a few years back, K was out getting her mail. Her mailbox is on the street. We smiled, started talking, about her beautiful summer garden, her piling mail that she needed to sort through, her sewing projects, my son, her grandchildren. She sent me off with a note to take care of my husband who she often sees walking. I remembered my mother. 

That summer, I ran into her often. She invited me to see her garden. Whenever I stepped in, she was there - clipping dead leaves, cleaning weed, shaping bushes. moving from trees to plants to shrubs, giving each one the attention it needed. Then she would sense me watching her, turn back and say, ‘Oh Kakali! This is the first time I have been out today, I have so much work to do! ‘ 

She has never mispronounced my name, since she heard it the first time. It makes me feel closer to her.

I asked her about it. She reminisced about the years her husband worked with Indians in his engineering job. The respect she gained for Indians, their intellect and their culture. She often remembers the fragrant, flavorful Assam tea an Indian friend got her many years back and she didn’t have the heart to use up until recently. It connects me to her instantly, makes me feel comfortable.

She walks me through her garden, effortlessly introducing her rhododendrons with Latin names, all ten varieties! I marvel at her flawless memory, but she brushes it off. 

We stumble into some mushrooms in her yard, and she patiently goes over the species of Pacific Northwest mushrooms and how she sent a morel mushroom sample to University of Washington just to identify if it’s edible or not. I know I wouldn’t have done it, the diligence and hunger to know more even at eighty-five. 

We meet on and off. Her immaculate home with Japanese paintings, insistence on serving tea on fine china and homemade apple crumbles, with her trembling hands, impress me and make me want to be like her. In my heart I know I can’t ever be like her.

I tend to get worried if I haven’t heard from her in a few weeks. I check on her, and she says she missed me. I absolutely love the life advice and the tenderness she imparts, the wonderful glimpses into a 1970s Seattle when she brought up her young family. The pride in her eyes when talking about getting a degree at the University with small children and a house to run.

After Roe v Wade, we get talking. The ruling hurts, we commiserate. A practicing Catholic, a Hindu. At a visceral level we feel ashamed that women are losing control of their own bodies in the richest and most advanced nation in the world. 

It's a connection between two women from vastly different backgrounds, different generations and lives. But it’s a real one, one that I cherish.