Lavender, Indigo, and Brown
How Providence Came to Me
Lavender, Indigo, and Brown
By Jane Marilyn Howard
February 5, 2021
June 5
It was the little purple poodle with the sculpted poufs that really caught my eye. Correction: lavender. The lady said FooFoo insists she’s lavender, not purple, and then laughed.
She complimented me on my running shoes when she sat down on the bench next to me. She said she admires runners. I told her I’m really just a jogger. I apologized when a drop of sweat fell on FooFoo, who appeared to want me to lean over and pet her. She said, “You’re a runner. And you’re not sweating, you’re just glistening.”
June 23
FooFoo and the lady were in the park again today. They came and sat next to me on my bench. Well, the lady sat on the bench and FooFoo sat on the ground next to her, looking up at me with her tongue hanging out. She – the lady - commented on the “cool and mysterious little black book” I was writing in. She asked me if I was an international spy. I told her no, I am a very broke graduate student hoping that there’s a black hole inside my “cool and mysterious little black book” - my journal - that will suck away all my stress. She asked me what I am studying and when I told her I’m studying women’s issues and social justice here at the U, she said, “Ohhhhhhh. Wow. Coooool.” She looks older, but she still sounds garden-fresh.
She wears a big amethyst ring. I asked her what color FooFoo says it is. She laughed and said FooFoo says it’s purple.
June 29
The lady was sitting on the bench when I got there at the end of my jog today. Her name is Indigo. Can you believe it? She said her parents were hippies. She’s an anthropologist, a visiting professor at the U. She travels. She said her latest research was among Sami women in northern Sweden. I told her about my Swedish cousins. She thinks I should go see them after I finish my master’s degree and before I start my doctorate. My doctorate? I wish! I said that sure would be nice if only I had money. “You’ll figure it out,” she said, and patted my arm. I told her my relatives are in Dalarna. She said she knows people there.
July 5
The lady – Indigo – found me again this morning as I was sitting on our bench writing in my “cool and mysterious little black book.” She asked me what I wish for. I said I wish I knew what I was going to do with my life after I finish my master’s degree. I wish I knew how I was going to pay off my student loans. I wish I had applied for a Ph.D. program after college instead of a master’s degree program. She said, “Well think of all the extra things you will have learned on your way to your doctorate!” She said it like she’s sure I’m going to go on for that terminal degree.
July 9
Indigo said she has two grown sons. They live in Providence, Rhode Island near Brown University where she teaches during the school year. She said that her husband died right after her second son finished college. After a year of grieving, she said, she decided it was time to do something new. Two summers ago she was up in Alaska doing a study among Inuit women, and then last summer was her study in Sweden. She told me where I could find the articles she had published on those two trips, so I looked them up. They were super interesting. She’s like the me I want to be in 30 years.
July 13
Maybe I should get a job. I’m just barely making it with my financial aid. It’s so hard to constantly be wondering how I’m going to pay for my next oil change or how much my heating bill will be when the weather changes. Maybe I’ll be stuck in this microscopic studio apartment for the rest of my life because I’ll be spending all my money trying to pay back these student loans. What am I even going to do after I graduate in December? Do I even want to be in this town? It’s okay, but I never aspired to live in a place with no Big Water. I need a Great Lake or an ocean. I’ve never been anywhere except for back home, college in Minneapolis, and now grad school in Denver. I don’t have any marriage prospects in sight. I’m okay with that for now, but once I’m finished with this leg of my journey, do I really want to just settle in somewhere and get a low-paying job as a community advocate at a non-profit organization? What was I thinking when I started this degree? How much have I really allowed myself to dream? How much has fear kept me from trying bigger things? Where did I get this lack of confidence in my own abilities?
July 19
Indigo and FooFoo had me over for dinner. She’s staying in this really nice apartment with a great view of the mountains. FooFoo has her own little lavender blankie. She’s such a well-behaved dog. Boy, was it good to eat some mom-cooked food. She said she never cooked much growing up but once she was on her own she started missing her mom’s cooking so she started collecting recipes. She made quiche with a really sweet little spinach salad. She served hardtack and lingonberries with it in celebration of her friends and my relatives in Sweden. And she made sorbet for dessert and served it with fancy little cookies from the bakery over by the U. She is so cool.
Indigo said that she has struggled with self-doubt her whole life. She said that her friends see her as being really strong and assertive but she spent a lot of years feeling timid on the inside. I told her about how I applied for this master’s degree program because I was too scared to go for a Ph.D.
We ended up talking about what life has been like for women throughout the millennia and about how sexism is still keeping women down even in America. It was really eye-opening to hear her talk about these issues from the perspective of an anthropologist. I said if this stuff has been going on since the dawn of time, it almost feels kind of hopeless to think that I could do anything to change it.
“How do you think big things have ever happened throughout world history?” she said. “Do you think government leaders just wake up one day and decide to change their laws to make them more just? Do you think protesters all just happen to meet on the same hour on the same day on the same street corner to make appeals for change?”
Probably not, I said.
“This is how big things that impact world history happen,” she said. “This! You and I eating quiche and hardtack together! You will say something to me that I find interesting, and I will think about as I get ready for bed tonight. Tomorrow at work I will think about it again. I will mention your interesting thought to my colleague as we’re grabbing coffee in the break room. I will mention it to one of my students who comes to my office to ask me about an assignment. I will mention it to my daughter-in-law when I talk to her on the phone at the end of the day. My colleague will mention it to a room full of students. My student will mention it to her best friend in San Diego. My daughter-in-law will mention it to her book group in Providence. And that roomful of students will mention it to who knows whom when they eventually disperse to who knows where. A few words exchanged between friends will change the world.”
Wow.
July 21
It’s so good to be done with classes until September. It’s so nice to have some down time. Indigo flew back out East yesterday. I’m going to miss her. I was very flattered when she gave me her contact information and invited me to come out for a visit.
July 25
I got called in to the Dean’s office today. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why the Dean would want to talk to me at all, much less in between semesters. She had me sit down in a chair and handed me an envelope. I asked her who it was from.
“I can’t say,” she said.
“Can I open it?”
“Yes!”
I pulled out the contents and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was an open-ended plane ticket to Stockholm. A voucher for four weeks in a bed-and-breakfast in Dalarna. A flyer for a Ph.D. program in anthropology at Brown University with a sticky note attached that says “FooFoo-endorsed, includes letter of recommendation.” And a cashier’s check for $20,000 with a note in the memo line that says, “Go for it. Dream big. No strings attached.”
About the Creator
Jane Marilyn Howard
Jane is a psychologist, pianist, writer, mother, and grandmother living on the shores of Lake Superior.
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