The Red Umbrella
Christine Beebe
May 2002

In the midst of a San Francisco rainstorm, she gave me her red umbrella. How unlike me to have forgotten mine in the taxi, how strange to be suddenly unprepared. She tossed back her glistening Italian mane, not minding the rain. "I bought it when I lived in New York, and now it's yours," she laughed. "Did you know a red umbrella gives your skin a rosy glow?" I'd never considered that.

This was pure Cynthia, who'd first captured my attention one day as she swept across a country school yard, an armful of books clutched to her chest and her long black city coat flying in her wake. She was a teacher of words and English literature, mesmerizing her adolescent students - and me - with stories of her youth, made timeless through the magic of her memory and her continuing journey of self-discovery.

Swept up in the poetry of her essays, I was astonished to discover that her lyrical phrases revealed a fragile and awkward inner self. It reminded me of the agonized one that cringed and thrashed and sought peace through my own writing. But my troubled thoughts struggled and fought as I tried to capture them in print, leaving me exhausted and unfulfilled. Cynthia's words flowed with such ease and confidence even as they revealed her vulnerabilities, and I wrapped myself in them, yearning to discover her secrets.

With reluctance and some embarrassment, I shared one of my pieces with her, certain it would appear amateurish and ponderous. Oddly, she praised my composition with compliments that seemed to befit a more talented writer, and behind my smile, I felt like an impostor soon to be exposed.

The red umbrella seemed inappropriate for me at first. Never fond of this brave color, I'd always felt safer with taupes and muted greens. But it opened a new dimension to me, one I explored cautiously until I began to discover red everywhere: on the iridescent throat of an elusive yet impudent hummingbird, and in the sprawling fields of strawberries tended by patient laborers.

An unexpected memory from long ago began to drift into my thoughts. Trudging alone through a springtime Sierra snow, I had unexpectedly come upon a flash of scarlet, a single incongruous brilliance against a monotonous field of white. This rare mountain snow-flower had sent a curious tentative probe up through the icy blanket, and loving the brilliant sun it found, had boldly unfurled crimson petals to amaze and inspire those who wandered near.

My friend had given me a gift far greater than shelter from the rain. The storm in my mind slowly passed, and my thoughts began to plead for recognition, but now with a renewed clarity and sense of promise. My written words are no longer enemies, but soul mates buoying one another along and collaborating towards a common destination. As I glimpse new horizons in the distance, I sometimes have the slightest sensation of a gossamer scarf of ruby red settling softly around my shoulders. Its glow warms my soul. And at these times, I think of Cynthia.