Unexpected Poetry

Richard and I made it to The Elms for our mini-retreat. I didn't get much of a chance to write, but I'm going to write this morning before the spa session and after. But I have a story for you:

My husband and I got into the Elms at about 2 PM yesterday. Our room wasn't ready, and it was cold, so we sat by the fireplace.

Two women had gotten the same idea -- one woman of about sixty who stood close to the fireplace to warm herself, and another woman who, at first glance, looked out-of-place amongst the Mission-styled details of the lobby. She was immensely obese, the type whose fat flows with gravity, with a mouthful of badly decayed teeth. I instantly chastised myself for my judgements, because if she was there in the lobby of the Elms, she deserved to be there just as much as I did.

The woman tried to engage the woman by the fireplace, who gave terse responses. Apparently, this woman persisted in her notion that the other didn't belong there. I couldn't stand the thought of the woman being shunned, so I drew her attention to me.

We talked about The Elms, of course; we both had been there before. I asked her what she did for a living, and she talked about the ups and downs of truck driving, where "your office is in the front and your house is in the back." I then asked, "What advice would you give someone about truck driving?"

She brought out her poetic sense, and told me about injuries that included two major hernias from lifting; unexpected moments of generosity from clients; and hypnotic beauty on the road -- frozen waterfalls, sunrise from the driver's side windows. I could see the scenarios in my mind, flowing out of the fog of an early morning.

When we parted, she told me to find a poetry anthology whose name I forgot -- luckily Richard wrote the name down, because she had contributed a poem to it.

Of course I found a fellow poet, and I almost missed her because of my own prejudices.