BY JAN HAAG
SANZ
May 13, 2000
I met her on the bus to
Portland.
She was big and loud and beautiful
and full of life and
laughter and
young with red lips and injured.
She had spent her
settlement of
Three Hundred Thousand Dollars
in Six months
time.
I kid you not. I couldn't believe it either.
No one as
old as I can believe
such a thing because growing older
one grows
consequential, cautious,
conservative.
But I had to ask: "Did
you have fun?"
O Yes, she had had fun:
She bought cars and dinners
and good times
for all her friends,
wildly, wandered,
leased a
luxury apartment for a year,
and hadn't saved a dime.
"Then it was
worth it," said I.
"O, Yes"
But now, she was
fifteen hundred
dollars in debt
and on her way to a Job Corps job,
for a bit of
college credit,
because, belatedly, she realized she wanted
to
go to college;
she didn't want a dead-end job forever.
Not
forever.
She loved doing whatever she was doing,
but Not
remaining a mindless coffee-house attendant
was, at twenty-two, on her
long-term agenda.
She wrote. She kept a day by day,
minute by
minute journal.
I read a few lines. It was good.
With her good
cheer,
her talent, her generosity,
her delight in the sheerness of being alive
even with a
game leg, and a good many
scars, she'd have no problem.
"My big
breasts saved me," she said,
"from broken ribs, but there are scars,"
she laughed,
making crisscross gestures across her chest.
Her
contagious enthusiasm,
her total trust,
her pleasure in life may
have saved
me, too,
from a deadly despondency of
penny-pinching
and fear.
Thank you Sanz, you
Cuban-Chinese/Russian-Ukrainian,
heritage of the world,
huge ball
of caramel-cream beauty, flaming-red-copper hair
body-piercings and
tatoos, lots of tatoos!
hourglass of mortality,
for fetching
me from the slough of despond
just by being, just with the knowledge
of
your giant suitcases, one full of diary and CDs
the other packed
entirely with shoes
like... "Imelda Marcos" -- she took the
words
right out of my mouth --
the sheer extravaganza of being
alive!...
Is God interested in Voluntary Simplicity?
I didn't used
to be either.
Copyright © 2000 Jan Haag
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Jan Haag may be reached via e-mail: jhaag@u.washington.edu
BY JAN HAAG