John and I have created tunnels for our indoor cats, high places to perch, and a plant room. A ladder in the plant room reaches a tangle of dry fat curly willow branches suspended a foot from the ceiling and sky lights. I step outside my plant room and leave the screen open a few feet (saying in a low growl, “You stay there!”) and as I slide the screen the cats move with it and sit behind it, a simple inch away from the opening.
It occurs to me as I live the Ten Commandments, it being a road map to joy, I sometimes sit behind a screen when I shouldn’t. I sit beside an open door to adventure as goodness prompts me through. It occurs to me the Race Problem is a screen door problem.
At thirteen, Don my younger brother, I and my parents moved to Los Angeles. Mom was undaunted by its bigness and needed to scope out her new home so we took a series of long city bus rides. The most memorable, and one in which Don and I stepped out from behind our screen was from our house in the Jewish area through white areas, Chicano and black areas to downtown LA. We strolled through stores then walked a mile to the Bradbury Building, where many movies are filmed using its interior courtyard and iron lattice railings skirting its numerous balconies. Then we walked back, exhausted by this time, to the down town area and took another long bus ride to Angel’s Flight and Farmer’s Market.
When we were done we had hours of bus rides and transfers between us and home and soon the bus filled with working people as they were returning home too. There was hardly standing room and they still packed themselves in with their bundles and lunch boxes.
Don and I were trained because we were young people to give our seats to first women then to old men. As soon as we saw the first woman, forced to stand, Don and I squirmed. Why didn’t one of the young kids around her stand up? What was wrong with them, we looked to my Mom but she just watched.
We were out of our element, we were the only light skinned persons on the bus and for miles around., The languages we heard were strange, the billboards outside advertised familiar products in exactly the same configuration but with black people hosting the products. To add to the oddness of our new home we knew that when we finally got off the bus at our street we would either have to count the houses from the corner or read the house numbers to find our home because every single house looked alike. We were totally out of our element and wondered, did the same old rules still apply?
It was easier to sit behind a screen of blandness than to step an inch into right. Finally Don could stand it no longer; he left my Mom’s side, moved down the aisle to a lady and insisted she take his seat. Then it was my turn and each time the hard working person we’d helped left the bus they helped us back. They insisting we return to the seat we’d once sat in. So we’d sit down a few minutes while we determined who the oldest woman was and did she trump a man, looking even older. Sometimes the person loudly shooed off others away to return “our” seat to us: embarrassing. We played musical bus seats for miles and miles.
Now let me tell you of a time I did not step out from behind my screen: well guess what? There’s nothing to tell! Living my life bland creates no memories! It occurs to me if more movies were filmed about the adventures in goodness instead of adventures in badness they’d be harder to make, yes, but would be remembered longer and inspire good.nancymauerman.com