A is for Aisle 10 - by Nan Brooks

Game Day Tee Shirt

                              It’s funny, the moments that stay with us – those glimpses of conversations, pretty little minutes, as my Aunt Alice would say.  So it is with a moment in the supermarket at least two years ago.

               I play a game with myself in the grocery store. Well, actually I play with others who don’t know they are part of the game. About, oh ten years ago, I was in the grocery the evening before Thanksgiving, which was a testament to my foggy mental state at the time. I was very sick and my pain level was up to about eight. I had no business driving, let alone wandering in a supermarket unsupervised, but there I was. In an effort to cheer myself up and, to be clear, with no altruistic motives whatsoever, I decided to see how many people I could make smile. Extra points if I could make them laugh and a low chuckle would count. It has become a supermarket tradition and sometimes I expand my range of operations to a big-box store or the dentist’s waiting room.Turns out, mom was right: when I feel sorry for myself it helps to do something for someone else, even when I don’t intend it quite that way. Or, as I learned in acting class, the cure for self-consciousness is to focus on the other person.  My staggering up and down the aisles of crazed shoppers was a whole lot easier when I kept trying to make folks smile. It became fun, of all things.

               So, that was my goal in Aisle 10 the day I saw the lady’s tee shirt a few years ago.  The store was busy because it was the night before Thanksgiving again and I was trying to make a left turn down Aisle 10 in the midst of all the people lined up to check out.  A woman rushed past me, all business in her fancy suit and silk blouse. Behind her came an older woman, perhaps her mother or mother-in-law, trying to keep up.

She was slender and tall, her white hair was carefully coifed and she looked a tiny bit lost, as though she had just arrived in town and didn’t know her way around yet.  She wore a purple tee shirt with white letters: “Nevertheless she persisted.”  As she walked past I said, “Great tee shirt!” and we both kept going.

               Then I felt a gentle hand on my arm and heard a quiet high-pitched voice, “Do you know what it means?”  She sounded surprised and as though she were sharing a secret.

               “Ohhhh yes,” I said. “Isn’t she wonderful?” I was probably a little loud.

               The woman’s eyes twinkled and she stood a little taller, “She is!  I’m glad you think so, too.”

               That was it – the entire conversation. But there was something about the twinkle in her eyes, how she stood straighter with the knowledge that someone else recognized – what?  Maybe she knew I recognized her and her own persistence.  Maybe she was glad to find an Elizabeth Warren supporter in Texas. Maybe she just needed to smile in the supermarket.

               Ten years later and I still think of her. In some way, she has seen me through the last year or so, reminding me to persist.

               Encouragement on Aisle 10.