Meeting Gerri

MEETING GERRI

I noticed her, pacing in front of the gas station.

A slightly-built older woman, her shoulder-length gray, straggly hair poked from underneath a brown and white knit beanie.

On this sunny, warm-ish morning she wore a thick red jacket with a fur-trimmed hood, topping dirty blue jeans. In her hand she held a plastic bag full of purchases that she’d made inside.

I lowered myself into my car and looked sidelong at her.  Homeless woman, I thought.

My phone chirped with a message from a client. I busied myself answering it before I finished the rest of my errands.

She kept looking at me.

Oh Lord, why is she doing that? I hope she doesn’t ask me for money. I don’t have any.

I finished my message, turned my car on, and put it in gear. I looked up. There she was, coming toward my partially rolled-down window.

Oh no. Please God. I don’t like this.

“Excuse me,” she said with a smile. Her teeth were brown. “Are you going up Lost Mountain Road?”

Relieved, I said, “No. I’m heading back into town, in the other direction.”

“Ok,” she cheerfully said. “Thank you.”

She wandered back to the front of the newspaper dispensers and stood with her back to me.

I sat there. Put my car in reverse. Started to pull out. Then stopped. A still, small voice that I’ve learned to trust held me in check. I pulled back into place.

I leaned my head out the window.

“Ma’am? Do you need a ride?”

She didn’t hear me.

I got out of my car and said it louder.

She whipped around with a beatific smile and said, “Yes!”

I returned her smile and said, “Hop in.”

I’m glad the windows were partially open. She smelled of horses, dogs, unwashed skin and sour breath.

“Where do you need to go?”

“Oh, just up the road a mile or so. Off of Slab Camp Road.”

My planned afternoon was hijacked.

Firstly, I rarely do this. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I gave a stranger a ride. In this day and age, I consider my safety. But I trusted The Voice.

It wasn’t a short jaunt. I think she really misjudged how far she’d come.

My journalism experience in interviewing came in handy as we conversed easily about a lot of things.

As we traveled past lowland meadows dotted with sunshine-colored daffodils and dandelions I learned that she likes to travel. She dreams of becoming a travel writer. Her name is Gerri. One of her favorite things to do is gather brochures from visitor’s centers in various places she’s been.

My trusty little red car climbed higher into the mountains. I learned that she camps by herself in a tent in the wild peaks of the Olympic Mountain Range between Sequim and Port Angeles. She can make a campfire from wet wood, and spends her days hiking trails around her base camp--when it’s not raining or hailing or sleeting.

I turned left onto Slab Camp Road, and she told me I didn’t need to take her all the way in to her camp. The roads are really potholed, she said. She could walk.

“How far?” I asked.

“About two miles,” Gerri said.

Well, I knew her mileage counter was way off, so I kept on. “Nah,” I said. “I’ve got an all-wheel drive. She’ll make it up.”

Upward we went over winding, packed-dirt, rutted and pot-holed roads. I learned that she got a ride into town this morning from fellow campers. But she’s looking for work when she has gas money to fuel her big, old model Ford SUV and has applied to rent homes in Sequim proper.

About 20 minutes later, we pulled into the end of the road where vehicles from other campers and day-trippers were parked.

“Can I give you my phone number?” she asked as she got out of my car with her plastic bag that had been nestled between her feet.  “Maybe someday when I’m in town we can meet for coffee.”

Her lined, weathered, un-made up face was so earnest as she peered down at me on the other side of her window. A tentative smile twitched at her lips.

My hesitation only lasted a fraction of a second. We swapped numbers.

I turned my car around to head back down the mountain. Dappled sunshine filtered through giant firs and cedars. I smiled.

I pondered.

I nearly didn’t go to the gas station first. It was not my first stop. But I was distracted by my insistently chirping phone that morning and missed the turn where I should have gone.

My steps appear to have been ordered for me today.

I would have missed out on the blessing of being a blessing.

I hope she calls.

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you took me in…” Matthew 26: 35