But Goldfinches

A cousin—was it the one in Pittsburgh or the one in Germany? I've never met either but enjoy hearing from them through social media—woke up to a gray day.  Her eyes must have lit up when she noticed two yellow birds—goldfinches—perched in her garden. She snapped a picture of them with her phone and posted it to Instagram. “A gloomy day but goldfinches,” she wrote. No exclamation point or emojis, no explanation of what this meant to her.

I've carried this image in my mind for a couple of weeks now, and equally the words “but goldfinches.”

Wednesday morning I was assigned to a job in Pasadena. The commute was shorter somehow than expected, and I arrived early. I parked my car in front of the office building then did some shopping on my phone. I ordered a yellow beaded necklace and earrings from Amazon to go with some shoes I have.

I got out of my car, went to the side passenger door to retrieve my computer and steno machine. The place where I always put my equipment was empty. I looked again then checked the very back and the front of the car to see whether I might have put the equipment in a different place. But no. I arrived to my job without any way to report the legal proceedings. I've done this before, but only in my worst dreams.

This was real, though, and not a dream. Hands shaking, I called the agency I work for and spoke with Jenn. We brainstormed and came up with a plan for her to grab a court reporting machine she used in school that was stored at her home and drive it to me. Her ETA would be 10:45 a.m., forty-five minutes past when the deposition was scheduled to begin.

I didn't want to go into the attorney's office. I didn't want to face the people whom I'd inconvenienced by my forgetfulness. The girls at the court reporting office tried to calm me via nice texts, assuring me all would be well, and encouraged me to go in. Something in me alerted me to this: I can be sorry and say so but not grovel. I don't know what in me shifted with that thought. But that thought, the idea to apologize, leave it there, and do my best and go forward with my day, helped usher me into the office building (along with the fact that I needed to use their restroom; that helped too).

I met the receptionist and asked to borrow a legal pad. Upon entering the conference room, I met opposing counsel and his clients, a couple from Iran who had moved to America in 1962, the year I was born. They were kind to me and told me about things they had forgotten, times things have gone wrong for them. The attorney who hired me came in and met me, and I let him know we were waiting for delivery of a steno machine. I read a book that was in my car and visited some more with the deponent and his wife. Such gracious people they were.

Jenn arrived with her steno machine, and we had to fiddle with the cord to get the equipment to charge. On a break I visited with the deponent's wife, letting her know I had recently visited Israel. She had also been there. I told her I missed eating falafel and various things I enjoyed about the Middle East, and she shared what she loves about living in America. And when the job finished, I chatted with her and her husband in the parking lot, about their health, jobs, life, children, grandchildren.

If I had taken my normal behavioral route of groveling when I inconvenience someone else, my eyes would have been so entirely fixed on my own inadequacy that I would have missed the kind and interesting interactions with the people around me.

But I didn't miss it. I didn't necessarily walk into the office with my head held high, but it wasn't slung low either. It was just medium, where I could see the people neither above, nor below, but across from me, people who assuredly also had been the recipients of grace, who were able to extend some to me.

When I was almost home from my hour-long drive, I glanced down at the seat next to me. On it rested the brand-new yellow legal pad I “borrowed” from the receptionist. I had neglected to return it. The yellow paper stood out against the gray seat on which it sat. The gray, glum seat cover, the cheery yellow paper.

A perfect picture of my gloomy day— 

but goldfinches.