Mecca

The days are growing longer, the sun is setting later, and today I had to speak with a parent about their concern for balancing their child's state-test preparatory tutoring needs with our music program at the school.  I also had to speak with the art teacher for a few moments about strategies for handing out corrections in our classrooms, which made my departure from the school occur at a particular time, I suppose as it does everyday.

But today, I crossed Malcolm X Boulevard with the walk light and took the next walk light to cross 118th to walk down to the bustling 116th vein through Harlem, deciding against the residential path I've been taking the past few days.  The sun must have been setting just then, on this cloudy day, at that pair of crossings, because behind the table of earrings and scarves that is as much a staple of that corner as any Starbucks, I happened to see its vendor prostrated upon the curb.  He had a cloth on the pavement, his back to his wares, his head downward towards the oncoming traffic mere meters away, bowing towards Mecca.

I remember being far away, and I see it, hear it everyday in New York.  I wonder if there is a life here, or anywhere, that is not removed, that is not living at some unfathomable distance.

Further along 116th, a boy in a Harlem martial arts uniform ran along the street, signaling to his friend to hurry to catch the bus that was waiting at the light.  I was struck with another feeling from high school, of seeing a groups of martial artists in Clifton in Cincinnati, Ohio and wanting to ask them where they met, if I could join.  I remember a similar feeling at seeing Buddhist monks in their robes.  I have since then become quite committed to a martial arts path, and often wondered from where this path began, where it arose.  It has always been a curious thing that I would be so interested in these uniformed and robed practitioners about which I knew nothing.

I wonder if the street vendor that I saw this evening has ever been to, ever seen Mecca.  What does he bow to, and why?

There is a place that none of us has been.  Sometimes I can hear its distance.  But this evening this man reminded me: it is possible to find that place of devotion, wherever we are.