Elevator Sharing (04.05.22)

Our apartment building is large and diverse, and I’ve become peculiarly fond of the elevator. Each ride holds the potential for a wonderful surprise. On some of these pandemic days, it provides the only possible proximity to strangers, and I love strangers.  When the door slid open today, a young worker boarded, pushing her cleaning cart. I was masked and so was she. We both smiled. When I asked which floor she wanted, and then added casually “how’s it going?”, the day changed. She lit up like a torch, like a flame, joy shooting out of her eyes. “I am going to have a baby! I just found out!”  Already beautiful, she became exponentially more so, her startling joy filling the little box of the elevator car. We had the length of that ride to enthuse together, to offer and receive congratulations, a particularly female connection. For me, it echoed my own motherhood; for both of us, the universal community of womanhood. An interaction of perhaps a minute; a pleasure still reverberating. She doubtless went on to tell her friends, her parents, her partner. But she told me, too, and I am grateful. Can’t wait to see her in the elevator again.