i sat on the concrete wall outside the door of the circus school and gathered
my belongings.  a woman and man walked up the steps, him several steps in 
front of her, turning his head and yelling at her over his shoulder.  he
carried a suitcase.  she carried a bible.  she yelled something back at him
and then saw me and stopped dead in her tracks.  he kept walking. "something is
happening, isn't it?  can you feel it?"  "yes," i said "something is happening."
"i knew it!  i knew it!" she said.  then lots of spouting from the koran, things
about love, about being servants to love, servants to the patriachy, trapped
by our own religions.  she was a practicing muslim, she told me.  not a muslim,
but a practicing muslim.  that's what she said.  her hair hung in front of her
eyes and she stood awkwardly with her legs apart.  the man yelled down the 
stairs at her.  their bus had arrived.  she waved her hand towards him as if
to shrug him away.  "they all want something from me," she said.  a hummingbird
flew into the tree above us.  she stopped speaking and stared, awed by the 
beauty of it, spellbound.  "that's her!  that's her spirit!  oh the hummingbird!
that's the spirit of my grandmother!  she's there!  i can feel her!  she was the
only one who ever loved me!  she loved me so much."  and i smiled at her gently
and kept listening.  she told me about being married for 13 years and then her
husband left her and it made her go insane.  they put her in the nut house, she
said.  they almost didn't let her out.  but her grandmother had truly loved her.
she interupted herself and looked me straight in the eyes and said "you're 
irish, aren't you?"  "yes," i said.  "i knew it.  we come from the same blood. 
we're all a bunch of potato eating famine starvers."  and then the man with the
suitcase yelled for her again.  "FOR THE LOVE OF MARY!" in a perfect irish
accent, "HOLD ONTO YER SELF I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!"  I took that opportunity to
grab my jacket and bag.  I stood up.  "Hey, take care of yourself," I said and
then I walked away.