I have a draft of my thesis due tomorrow.
I'm feeling awfully stressed, trapped inside on another beautiful spring day, when I should have been playing capoeira in the park, or out with friends.
I decided to head to the corner store to grab some more things for lunch.
I arrived at 2:05, it closed at 2. Oh well. I stand there in the sun a moment, depressed about returning to stare at this computer again.
A small short very old woman, dressed in a soft brown suitcoat, and a knee-length green and blue plaid pencil skirt, with white Newbalances, summons me in Hungarian. Once again, one of the millon replies, I say nem madyarul. English, Deutsch?
She began to speak german, telling me its closed and the opening hours. I replied that I know this, but then I didnt have the words in german to explain that I was still hanging out in front door of the grocery store door for no reason.
What am I searching she asked?
Well, thats a loaded question.
After my pause, she started speaking in English.
Where am I from? America! she said. She lived there for 48 years.
I told her I only lived there for about 23 years. She asked me what I'm studying.
I said prostitution and human trafficking.
She looked disgusted, and very confused.
Why are you studying that? Why?
I said I want to help the women. Why not?
She said Oh! I thought you were studying how to be a prostitute, or teaching women how to prostitute. (Oh, the youth today...)
I laughed.
We ended up talking for an hour and a half out there in the sun, about many, many things that are quickly slipping away from my memory.
I'll just repeat a few here.
She was 90 years old, or almost. "My birthday is in 2 months, if I make it. You never know."
She said she left Hungary in 1946, when the Russians came. They were after her father. They took all his possessions, and he escaped with only a suitcase of what he once had. She was 16 or 17. She had never come back. Lived in Austria, and Germany, and the US, but her husband died 20 years ago in the New York subway. Left at 830 in the morning, and by 1030 the police called her and told her (How a 90 year old woman can remember all these things is amazing to me. I told her this. She told me she never smoked, and she prayed a lot.) She became alone in New York, and had some high school friends still in Hungary so she came back to live out her old age. She lived up a hill 40 stairs high, and said she liked better going up rather than down.
We chatted about many things, but of course mostly about countries, the ones we lived in, the ones we loved, and what we thought of all the others. Hungarians, Austrians, Swiss, Americans they are like this... they are like that...
I prefer to avoid speaking in this way. This conversation was exceptionally different as there was some sort of language barrier, but most profoundly an age barrier, with the result that we spoke from two completely different belief systems or paradigms.
When speaking of nationalities, I try to say for example, "Most Americans" or "Some Americans" but still some people get all huffy and say you can't generalize, and I agree you can't. You never can. But you have to be able to talk about things, if you couldnt generalize you could barely speak. I find myself repeating: "We both accept that generalizing is wrong, and we can't do it, and with this shared belief, let us continue our discussion..."
It seems the only way. I don't believe that all Americans hold even one shared characteristic, or even most, but there are patterns that we can speak of and discuss, with tolerance always on our shoulder.
Then she started to say things about Russia, as if it was some man or woman she once knew. Russians are terrible, they are horrible. Maybe there are some good ones. But it is a horrible country, full of horrible people. I understand perfectly that she has reasons to hate Russians, many people do. But are they reason enough?
I tried to present the opposing view, you cannot make such generalizations. Have you seen Russia on the map, can you even imagine its size? Do you know any Russians personally?
You are speaking of the Russian government, not the Russian people. You cannot speak about an entire nation this way. She didnt say it, but she thought I was naive and ignorant. She told me I was American, and we didnt know much about the world, in terms of history and geography. We are famous for that, we both agreed. She lived there, she knew. I couldn't really dispute her there. She said we didnt know, I didnt know what the Russians did to her, or the rest of the world, and that so many other people feel this way. I tried for awhile to gently try and show her why this is dangerous, and an unacceptable, irrational way of thinking about the world. I told her the government is not always acting out the will of the people, for many people I'm sure did not agree or even know about their actions then, and I know many who dislike their government today.
I could sense that she was getting a bit upset. And the last thing I wanted to do was make a 90 year old lady upset on a hot, sunny street. And what was the point? Was there any point in trying to change her mind now?
I really appreciate old people, and their experiences. I wish had more time to meet them, and talk with them here.
While working door to door, fundraising for an environmental NGO in Florida I had the opportunity to meet many elderly people who were hanging out at home when I came knocking. The conversations I had there in Florida, had many parallels to the one today. Some of the elderly I spoke with held views that I consider backwards, certainly outdated, and unacceptable, racist, sexist, you name it. They would shock me with their views. They think the young generations are messing things up, and doing things wrong, they find us shocking and unacceptable.
Well, so what? This is the question that pulsed as I walked away.
We have the power now, and the younger generations will always continue to get it.
The times they are a-changin.
In some dimension, my opposition to some of her thoughts made me 'see change', and truly believe that society is progressing, based on the fact that certain attitudes and generalizations such as these are commonly viewed as unacceptable. (Yet sadly many young people still hold them.)
But for me, for some reason, how she feels is still extremely important. I see value in it, it has this importance that I cant explain, that I need to know. I need to understand why she feels this way, to change the future.
She told me that she prayed a lot, for 1 and a half hours a day she calculated. That is why she lived so long. She told me that she prayed for countries: Hungary, Austria, Switzerland and the US especially. She told me that she prayed for her family, and herself. She told me that she prayed for the church. She told me that she prayed for the next Pope, that he would be white. Not because she has anything against other colors, like black, but they just think differently.
This time I didn't say anything. I just nodded. Just listen and learn. Seek to understand.
I told her to pray for the Russians, so that they could be better people. (lol.) She laughed, and said she does. But there are still good countries, and bad countries she said. Good and Bad. One has good people, one has bad people. You cant change that. Like the Serbs, she said, they are just bad and terrible people. The Swiss, they are good people. They let 10,000 Hungarians come in, and other refugees too. They are a small and nice 5 million. I told her that they were nearing 8 million. She absolutely refused to believe this. She told me maybe six, but this was not possible, it was closer to 3 or 5 million.
But anyways she said they were very nice, the Swiss, very good people, but a bit boring. I agreed, oh yes, very, very boring. (HAHA!)
Her husband is buried there, she will be buried there too. Then she remembered that you can only be buried there for 35 years, and then they dig you up and move you somewhere else. I said where do you go after? She said she doesnt know. She said she studied abroad in Lausanne in 1938....
Her name is Rowney. We exchanged numbers. She gave me her home number of course, and the hours of which she would be available to answer.
I told her I wanted to meet her again, and hear about her experiences. She says she eats at the cafe on the corner every single day between 2 and 3 pm.
I told her to call me if she ever needs anything, like milk.
She says she doesn't drink milk.
Okay, well if you need butter then, or anything. I live right down the street.
Hopefully I will see her soon, and the paradigms will clash again, though next time I will keep mine more to myself. I can't even imagine what she might come to say if I start to agree with her.
I think I will invite her to dinner. She cannot cook for her hands hurt.
I would like to invite some Russians as well...
