making christmas.

The Incarnation of Anita Floyd

Two years ago I was asked to write a Christmas piece for an online magazine. This is what I wrote. Merry Christmas.

The Incarnation of Anita Floyd

Trying to write something about Christmas makes me feel kind of cynical. Honestly what do I have to add to a holiday already saturated with tradition, stories, rhymes, hymns, marketing, and consumerism? Perhaps I should do the Christian thing and make a "Jesus is the reason for the season" type argument. I could condemn the outrageous sum of money that Americans spend during the month of December and with a righteous finger I could point to lofty theological tenets surrounding the doctrine of the incarnation. But I don't care to be the broken record. So maybe I will speak of family and friends, mistletoe, love, Love Actually, and the joy of finally getting that Red Ryder 200-shot Carbine Action Air Rifle. These, too, are all good, but I guess I just don't feel very passionate about them right now and I don't want to pretend to have something profound to say about them so screw it – I am going to tell you about Anita Floyd.

I never knew Anita Floyd. She was a beggar that I passed every morning on my way to the office. Anita would literally sit, all day long, on the same bench on Sixth Avenue between Alder and Washington in downtown Portland. Her classic line, delivered with an old, nasally voice, was "Spare some change?" and with this she would raise a little cup and smile with thin lips through a weathered face. Every time I walked by, I would either ignore her or simply tell her that I was sorry and that I didn't have and cash on me. It was an awkward exchange- at least for me it was. Some days I would even pretend that I was calling someone on my phone just to avoid acknowledging her all together. I thought that maybe if she noticed I was busy than she wouldn't ask me to spare some change. She still asked. I am a horrible person.

One morning, about a month ago, in the middle of a long, stressful work week, Anita lowered her cup as I approached, met my eyes with hers, smiled, and simply said "Good morning". I grinned and replied with the same and continued on my way. But as I moved down the wet sidewalk I felt different. There was something incredibly endearing about this beggar woman smiling and wishing me, with sincerity, a good morning. I actually thought about it a lot that day and I realized that, even though this woman was a simple beggar, she was probably the most consistent thing in my life for there was not a work day that went by that I didn't see her. After this I began to take notice. Anita would often have company with her on her bench: a homeless man, a businesswoman, a street security guard. All would be engaged with her in some sort of conversation. Many seemed to be venting about something and I noticed that Anita's body would be slightly turned
towards theirs', offering them her full attention. Her head would bob with empathy and with this I thought her to be a great listener. I started to think that maybe this woman was Jesus or something. At least she had she had a sort of softness that was compelling.

Two weeks ago, I decided I wanted to get Anita a Christmas present. I took my paycheck down to the bank with full intent of looping around to buy a coffee card at the Starbucks across from her bench. But, for the first time in my six months of working on Sixth Avenue, Anita was not there. Instead, flowers lay were she would have sat. Flowers,
cards, and notes all addressed to Anita Floyd. My beggar had died. I nearly cried. I was immediately regretful for never sitting down with her and telling her my story or perhaps listening to hers and I knew right then that I had taken her for granted – simply assuming that she would always be there. I looked at the flowers and all the cards and realized that this woman was obviously very special to a lot of people. I walked back to work, feeling somber and trying to figure out who this woman was.

This past Wednesday there was a memorial service held for Anita at her bench. I couldn't get away from work to attend and for this I am once again regretful. I read the sign on her bench days prior to the service and it stated that the local newspaper would be in attendance. I thought it strange that this woman's life was deemed worthy of a public memorial and media attention. Again I thought was that there must have been something truly wonderful about her. What sort of beggar, upon death, draws so many to bring flowers and cards in their memory? What sort of beggar causes businessmen to stop in the middle of a busy day to talk? Anita – Anita the beggar. And with this I am more convinced, in writing this now, that Anita was much more than a beggar. Anita was Jesus.

Anita Floyd is Christmas to me. For Christmas, this consumer lusted celebration of the incarnation of Christ, has once again become real to me thanks to Anita and her consistent panhandling grace. Furthermore she has taught me that the event that occurred two thousand some years ago is not an isolated one, but, rather, the incarnation of God is happening all around us everyday. And I fear that I miss it more often than not - that it is not only the Sunday school story of a baby in a manger that I know so well, but the beggar on Sixth Avenue. Therefore let us start looking, like wise men at the star, for laughter amongst children, wisdom in the elderly, and grace in the homeless for we may find that the Good News is guised in such. For me, Anita is proof that God is incredibly creative in the way he reveals himself to us. She is also evidence that the Kingdom of Heaven is radically different and that the "least of these" are truly "the greatest of these".

I wish that Anita would be at her bench tomorrow when I pass it on my way to work. I know that she would probably smile and say, "Merry Christmas".

For the Willamette Weekly's article on Anita please visit: http://www.giveguide.wweek.com/wwire/?p=6490

The perfect Christmas gift

misplaced landscapes

Constant rain births moss so
green it whispers,
"lick me, I'm toxic" as it shrink-wraps
bricks and ent-like forests. Then-truth twists
with now-reality until the big-sky
wheat fields become the fairy tales, myth behind
the moss curtain of memory. Was it
wheat or was it hay?

Dream walking,
each step sinking
and pulling. Salt waves
crash into teasings until fingers test
the waters. They brush wind-blown hair from
face, leaving a trace to be found by
a tongue wetting salted
lips, "wake up! this is the taste of water now," shakes
from a dream of back-floating lake
sunsets, eyes open to the cooling dusk, sound
water-muffled like the inside of seashells, sea
monsters just fingertips and heart-races away
until slow breaths drown them around
mermaid hair.

Orange haze of streetlights rises above
red-tipped steeples and
yellow incandescent windows saying,
“we are home, stay out.” Stay
out longer, lying in silent
blanketed white, cold hinting
through backs of thick-wrapped limbs held
still by the winter
snow. Moon spotlight
on this quiet bug captured
under black sky, body sinking
somewhere else.

An Alphabet of Thing I Would Probably Never Miss

My elbows fit inside your elbows.

Do you remember when we visited you in Utrecht?
It was summer,
but the sky dumped rain for five days.
I was on holiday
and certainly not prepared for the cold.
You lent me your
blue
corduroy
jacket
and later, let me keep it as a gift.

We lived with you in
your Dutch town,
your Dutch flat
with your Dutch cats.

Now I am somewhere else.
It is raining again.
Your
blue
corduroy
jacket
clings to my shoulders.
It still carries the shape of your shoulders

but you are not here.

a little dust