Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Feb. 16, 2003: The Key to Change

The dark-eyed, dark-haired petite woman locked eyes with me across the throng of protesters filing slowly down Market Street, Philadelphia. A spark of recognition flashed across her face.

She zipped over to my side, gave me a warm smile and said hello.

Gesturing to her protest sign, she explained that she hadn't made it herself but had picked up one of the extras the protest organizers were distributing. It said: "Thou shalt not kill men, women and children." She had folded it down so that it only said: "Thou shalt not kill."

"That's enough," she said. "No qualification."

Turning it over to the back, she explained why she didn't want that side to show. The slogan on that side compared war with Iraq to hell. She explained she didn't want to display the word "hell" but that she might cut the word out and use it in her art.

I explained to her that I hadn't made my sign, either. I'd picked it out from the pile of extra signs because of its highly visual skull, which could rise above the crowds. It had a folk art look and reminded me of the Mexican Festival of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos. The square just beneath the skull read "IRAQ WAR = $200 BILLION."

The skull was mounted on a tall bamboo pole, and the wind was so strong that I had learned how to brace the sign so it wouldn't whip around and smack my fellow protesters. I'd been remarkably incident free.

The dark-haired woman had a vaguely European accent.

She told me that she could tell things about people by looking at them, and she asked my permission to try out her skill. I said okay.

"You like purple," she said.

My eyes must have grown wide: "You're right! How do you know?"

"People who like deep colors like green also like purple," she said. She was referring to my winter hat and my scarf, both a bright pine green. I would realize later that the top portion of my purple tie-dye was probably showing at the top of my coat.

She pondered some more: "You live alone," she said. "You don't have children but you are maternal. Your friends come to you more often than you go to them."

"All true," I told her.

"You have a dog or a cat," she said.

I looked down at my coat and pointed to a few stray dog hairs.

"Yes, but not from that," she said. "It's an impression I get from you." She paused. "You once held an administrative job."

"Well, sort of." I told her I'd once been assistant editor at a small town newspaper.

"What do you do now?" she asked. I told her I was a freelancer.

"You have a sister," she said. "But not a brother."

"Wrong. I have both."

"At least one of your parents is alive."

"Both of them are."

She was beginning to strike out, and she knew it. She tried again. "You like animals, but not stuffed animals, because they're not real." I nodded. The stuffed animals in my home are primarily my dog's.

"You also like turquoise and blue. Not so much red," she said.

I nodded.

"Are you amazed?" she asked.

"Yes," I told her. "That was pretty impressive."

Her face was thoughtful. "I can see things about people by looking at them," she said. "I would like to find a way to use it to make money, but I don't know how."

A thought crossed my mind: maybe I should offer something to her.

"Oh, no, no," she said. "I just wanted to talk to you." She told me more about her artwork and how she hopes that her art can help make a difference in a world torn by strife and suffering.

I was going to tell her I wanted to do the same thing, through my writing, but I thought the words instead of saying them.

With a gesture, she pointed around at the crowd walking with us. "Like these people are doing here."

She reached into her coat. "I want to show you something," she said. She pulled out a necklace. On a medium-weight silver chain hung a Star of David, with a skeleton key attached. "Do you like it?" she asked.

I asked her what the key symbolized.

"In my artwork, it means death. But this, I view it as change. I see it as the power to change. That's what I want to do, with my artwork and with seeing things about people. Help to work a change."

I suddenly realized why she'd come up to me. It was my folk art skull sign, for which I could not take credit. But maybe it was also the fact that I'd chosen it. I, too, viewed the skull sign as symbolizing change, as symbolizing the triumph of positive active in the face of tragedy.

She offered to let me see her artwork sometime, saying vaguely that she was going to be having a show. I gave her one of my cards.

"What is your name?" she asked me. I told her and asked hers.

"Hannah," she said. I told her it was one of my mother's favorite names, that it was the name she'd always wished she'd been given.

Hannah smiled. "Thank you for giving me your card," she said. "Maybe we'll talk later."

She zipped away, to pick up a key that another protester had just dropped and to press it into her hand.

Moral:
You don't have to call a true fortuneteller; she contacts you.

Copyright 2003 by Alyce Wilson

Previous writings about Iraq: Would-Be Pundit
Previous writings about the protest: Duct Tape Bush!

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