He chose to be rich by making his wants few, and supplying them himself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, eulogizing Henry David Thoreau
I’m riding the N Judah outbound on a Saturday afternoon. A girl in her early twenties is quickly flipping through a series of postcards. She examines each card several times before she pulls one from the stack, smiles, and hands it to an older woman in front of her. The girl makes eye contact just long enough to complete the hand-off before diving back into her postcards and repeating the process.
As she works her way down the train car I can see that she’s passing out religious tracts. I’m surprised at how desperately I hope she hands one to me. I hope that maybe if she hands me the right card I will remember how I felt when I was her age. What it felt like to have answers, and what it felt like to be confident in those answers. What it felt like to be confident in anything. Maybe if she hands me the right card I will understand how it all stopped working. And just maybe she will hand me a card with the secret that suddenly makes it all start working again.
A teenage couple headed to the beach read their card and slip it into their tote bag. A dirty Haight St. panhandler stares at a card in the girl’s outstretched hand but refuses to take it from her, so she sets his card on the seat next to him. Someone who has to wear a suit and carry a briefcase on Saturday afternoons takes his card, reads it thoughtfully and hands it back to her. The train stops, and the girl hops off the train. I don’t get a card.
