A Box of Pears

A few days ago, I was at a speaker meeting in which a woman named Lisa told her story. I didn’t expect to hear anything more than I usually hear, which is always helpful in some small way. I didn’t expect to be moved more so than I am usually moved. Lisa is half-Japanese. She grew up on Long Island. She is probably 20 years my senior. There’s nothing terribly similar about our lives, and nothing stands out to me now as the reason I was drawn to her immediately, but I was. Something about her face was familiar, kind. She started to tell her story, and I was captivated. I could identify, of course, with a lot of her childhood angst and discomfort, but it was more than that.