Spring came early that year. Without warning the Hudson Valley where I live began to thaw and temperatures rose suddenly as if nature were in an excited hurry to move on. Along with the warming temperature came light rains, and low, thin clouds that diffused the sun behind them. Together with the sudden greening in shiny wet patches of leaves and grass, they gave the earth an incandescent appearance of being lit from within. A sudden, electric feeling of life was everywhere. But an early spring wasn't the only surprise that year would bring, nor as I was to discover, the most wonderful.
I was sitting on a bench at a playground built next to a nearby elementary school. It was one of those that local parents build together out of round edged, pressure treated lumber, with rocking ships and tire mountains and castle towers to look out of, all placed in a sea of wood chips and bordered with landscaping ties. My children were playing and I was alternately watching them and reading a little, blinking in a slant of sunlight like a drowsy cat. I barely noticed her when she sat down next to me, except to register that someone had broken the bubble of contented solitude I had formed around myself and becoming aware, from time to time, that she seemed to be looking in my direction. I'm not very good at small talk and so from the edges of my vision I tracked her lack of movement, as I tried to concentrate on the book in front of me. When I realized that I had read the same sentence for the third time, I looked over and nodded hello, hoping that she didn't want an extended conversation so that I could get back to daydreaming in the sun and pretending that no-one could see me.
Sitting next to me was a woman of about sixty years of age, with hair that was probably dirty blond once but now was graying though not completely, so that hints of her younger days remained woven throughout. Her eyes were a shade of blue-gray which were much brighter and clearer than that color would suggest, but it wasn't their color so much as the way that she looked at me when she said hello, as if she was just positively delighted to meet me. She began to make small talk, and it seemed so light yet so well paced and thoughtful that I soon found myself allowing my finger to slip out of it's place where it was marking the page in the book I was reading.
As we talked, she would ask a question, then as I answered become completely locked into what I was saying, getting very serious, nodding and smiling and never taking her eyes away, and I felt as if she were trying to see right down inside of me. Of course, I noted most all of this in retrospect. At the time I noticed none of it. In fact, at the time I noticed very little of anything at all. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
She asked me about the book I was reading which was one of those self-help books which had become so popular in the eighties. As the conversation progressed, she began to share with me her ideas about life and living and I was struck by how simple her speech was and with what fluid ease she could articulate her philosophy..
"What you have been studying is technique, not wisdom. How to be a better father or manager or how to relate to others.. all specific to a particular group of people or skill. Wisdom isn't like that, it cuts across every facet of living. It is as true in solitude as it is in the midst of the multitude. It works in the country or in the city. Wisdom is as necessary and as applicable to the farmer as to the doctor, to the artist as to the professional businessman, to the child as to the adult. Wisdom, is the center and beginning of everything and everybody. But in this age of uncertainty and investigation, when everything hinges on the scientific process, wisdom cries in the streets and no one hears. Instead they all
run after the newest technique. That makes for many technicians, but few wise men."
So began my introduction to the thought and central passion of a woman who became my teacher and my friend. In the short time that I knew her, she changed the way I thought about almost everything without ever introducing any concept that couldn't be grasped and applied by my children. I was very taken with her and as I packed up to leave, I told her that I would like very much to continue this conversation another time. We agreed to meet for coffee later that week, and I drove home that day wondering if she was the one.
