Shakti on Thurman Street

Everything gets broken or gets lost. Worlds disappear. To photograph is to squeeze into little squares or rectangles moments salvaged from the clutter of life or from the chaos of one's family. There is no sound and there is no smell. The green juice is gone; but like the dried leaf, it's still something. It's a sign; you and they have been somewhere together.
--Sylvia Plachy.

Shakti, who is around eighty, had a Jewish mother and a Pakistani father. She discovered Buddhism in her youth as a dealer in Asian Antiquities and has stuck with it. She's a devotee of Kwan Yin. She explains to anyone who asks, that Kwan Yin is not a goddess but is rather a symbol of compassionate listening, and that being a devotee means you try to be more like that which you are devoted to. Shakti says she spends much of her life listening to the cries of the world, which has left her with "the great sadness."

"That doesn't mean I'm sad," she explains. "It means that I am mindful of suffering, mindful of the causes of suffering, and eager to relieve suffering any way I can. Mostly, however, it's an inside job. People need to let go of their desires and aversions, and until they learn to do that, about all you can do for them is listen."

Shakti is in my Tai Chi class, so we see each other most weeks, and after class we often walk down Thurman Street toward my home and her bus stop. Today I noticed that there was just a little soft, cloud-filtered sunshine lighting up her beautiful peachy skin, so I asked if I could take a picture. I thought about making a square crop, just her complex and fascinating face. But as I have been talking lately of Ursula LeGuin and her book on Thurman Street, I've cropped it so the street is also part of it.