While I was in SF this past weekend, I took a short little jog through Chinatown where I noticed a huge security presence at one of the hotels. Like HUGE. Motorcycles. Black cars. Guys in jackets and sunglasses. Not even when we lived in New York did I see something to match this.
Naturally, I was curious, so I stood around to see what happened next and much to my wondering eyes did appear the Dalai Lama. Hello, Dalai! So that was one brief encounter.
The second encounter was with a young man who stood next to me. He seemed pretty average--normal--in every way. But once he started talking to me, it became pretty clear that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. And all I could think was this man had been somebody's baby, somebody's little boy once. That was my second brief encounter.
And it has stayed with me longer than the first.
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2 comments:
This is beautiful, Ann. I have some students, this semester, who have made me feel this way. Never mind that they struggle to write; they struggle to live.
Oh geez, that might have been my nephew.
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