enlightenment by a fat old hag

by Alan Steinborn

In Berlin, a city known for its wicked winters, in one of the harder districts of town named Neu Koeln--an area made of hard stone and cold steel where the colors are gray, gray and grayer; an area in which the common greeting people give each other on the street is a scowl--you can find some strange paradoxes.

For example, the street I lived on was called Hertzberg Strasse. That means heart of the town. I lived on that street for a while and I looked all over the place and I can tell you that I didn't find much heart on Hertzberg Str.

Then there is the street it adjoins--Sonnenallee, or 'sun alley'. And I can tell you with 100% certainty that in 1994 in February the only sun you would find around that alley was the name on the street signs!

Or at least that was so before the night I first met the old fat hag.

It was a particularly unforgiving night when I met her.

This night came after a day of tedious work after two consecutive nights of almost no sleep for all the wrong reasons.

There I was, in a completely different area of the city.

I was haggard and not in a game kind of mood for the walk in front of me.

The sky was falling daggers of ice. The daggers were flying in zigzags so there was no way to avoid them.

I dreamt about flagging a taxi that would simply whisk me away in a cream colored Mercedes right to my door step.

Alas, I had no money for a bus, much less a taxi, and the subway in which I could be a schwartz-fahrer (or black traveler, the Germans called us when we took a free ride on the sly) stopped miles from my flat on Hertzberg Str.

So that left me with no alternative but to walk through the ice daggers with my head and shoulders hunched in a purple ball of determined movement.

The routine was a familiar one; walk like a bullet, j-walk if need be, and ignore the reproachful glares of the law abiding German grandmas waiting for the light to turn green and standing still in stoic stillness like strange prune faced statues even though no cars were in sight. I didn't miss a beat and didn't even look over at them as I heard them shout through the wind: "Was fuer ein Beispiel ist dass fuer die Kinder" or "what kind of example is that for the children".

I would answer them silently...yes yes, grandma, I am teaching the kids terrible things. I am teaching them that lights don't kill people, but cars kill people, sharp ice makes the death that much more unpleasant and there is no use under the sun for me to act like a stoic statue of finely chiseled granite to prove I can withstand such misery. I am taking myself home and I will see your frozenness in the morning--probably stuck at that same corner waiting forever for the light to change!"

By and by, as I noticed that my extremities were numb and the rest of my body was beginning to freeze like a wet rag in the freezer, all those thoughts were replaced by one thought--an image really of me sitting next to the oven warming myself as I drank down a generous cup of coffee and munched on a serious slice of sunflower seed bread luxuriated with the cheapest cheese I could find.

That tasty image was carrying me direct and nothing else mattered.

Just get home and end this torture, was my mantra!

But things can change when you least expect it; even on Sonnenallee.

It happened only two blocks before I turned the corner onto Hertzberg str. to land at my flat only two doors down from the corner.

The night was dark and the street was abandoned.

As I passed a bus stop I noticed a huge hulking figure being held up by a crutch.

To this day, I don't know why, because it was against everything I wanted in that moment, but I stopped in my tracks and walked over to the hulking figure to get a look at it.

As cold and numb as I was, I was nonetheless overwhelmed by what I saw.

It was a woman

It was a huge woman--possibly a 400 pounder.

She was wearing old rags upon rags upon rags that made her look like a standing pile of rags at the salvation army.

She had an elephant foot, and that foot just had a bandage with no other covering.

Her calves were so big and undefined the skin looked like massive volumes of melted
wax spreading slowly onto the pavement.

She wore casts on both lower legs. Her entire being was a picture of disrepair, freezing cold and pain.

I just stood there, openly looking at this woman. I had forgotten my urgent mission to get home. I had forgotten the grandmas at the street corner.

In the presence of this woman, I had forgotten my manners.

This woman had captivated me. It certainly wasn't anything about her physical appearance, which was utterly repulsive.

No, she captivated me in a way that wasn't yet clear to me, but was about to become dramatically clear!

I was in a kind of trance, or maybe I was waking from one, and I asked her: "Wie Geht es Ihnen?" or "how are you?"

Naturally she replied as you or I most likely would reply to that question if we were in her dire circumstances. She told me of pain unimaginable; she told me of troubles staying warm in an unforgiving Berlin winter; she told me of poverty and loneliness; she told me she could almost not walk at all!

I surveyed closely and slowly her entire body from the bottom all the way up. I did this with no shyness. It was not my character to be so cavalier; certainly not with someone in her dire situation.

Something else was guiding me.

I discovered what was guiding me when my survey had made its way all the way up to her face and I looked for the first time in her eyes.

What I saw dazzled me into an awakening I can still feel to this day.

Her eyes were bright loving suns that expressed the greatest heart I have ever witnessed.

As I drank her essence in like the starving beggar I didn't know I was until that moment, I asked again:
"Ja. Aber Wie Geht es Ihnen?" "yes, but how are YOU?"

She smiled a smile that made me forget there was ever something in this world called cold and she answered:

"Mir? Mir geht's ganz gut! Kein Problem!" or "Me? Its great! No problem at all!"

Time stopped.

Her eyes welled in tears of joy and mine too became watery and just then the bus came.

I held out my hand to help her on the bus.

She smiled and grabbed my hand, boarded the bus and the bus took off leaving me standing there completely still, as I soaked in the last few rays of her radiance.

It was in this way that I discovered that even on Sonnenallee in February, you could warm yourself in the presence of a bright sun if you just know where to look; if you dare to look; if you let your seeing do the looking for you!

In this way I was enlightened.

I slowly walked the last two blocks so I could enjoy the particular skittering sound of pieces of ice hitting the pavement all around me, I drank no coffee upon coming home and I slept particularly well that night.

Please email me at alan@speaknow.biz and tell me about a time when your seemingly
essential story evaporated in the face of a here and now which captivated you and catapulted
you into realm of joy and surrender.

Yours in Presence,

Alan Steinborn

Alan Steinborn, All Rights Reserved, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007