'Jane's' 901
It’s 901 Day for 1.06 million people who live in the roughly 800 square miles in and around Memphis. This includes a favorite lady who lives in Orange Mound.
Jane (That’s what we’ll call her) didn’t finish middle school. To her, 901 Day means that there are special gift-wrap assignments and more customers than usual as she works at the House in Orange Mound. Her cell phone number starts with the area code 901, but she doesn’t know that 901 is a geographic region.
She fits into the classification called Below Basic Literacy, BBL, which means she lacks the minimal skills needed to perform simple literacy tasks. Though she has a firm handle on her neighborhood, she cannot read the road signs. Her limited world can be walked in forty-five minutes.
Jane has mastered her daily route to work on foot through eight blocks she knows by heart in Orange Mound. She leaves home every weekday morning at 8:15, passes the Dollar Store just before she reaches Park Avenue. If she has five dollars and time allows, she stops into Church’s Fried Chicken for two biscuits and a Coke. She continues to the corner of Park and Semmes and turns north. She waves at the people who are passing her in their cars, and nods at one or two neighbors who are headed South to the bus stop. She deftly steps around the countless holes and cracks in the crumbled concrete sidewalk, as if walking on autopilot.
Her mind, however, is deeply occupied in prayer with the collective needs of her children and grandchildren. Last weekend she housed and fed 15 of the 20 who live in Memphis, in her two-bedroom apartment for three days. A storm and straight-line winds cut through Memphis on August 22nd, disabling thousands of MLGW customers. Her kids’ rentals lost power for four days. She had to miss work on Monday even though she needed the money.
Tuesday, she reached work at 3028 Carnes by 8:45 and left her imaginary backpack of intercessory prayers on the wide front porch. At 2:00 pm, she gathered them up and reversed her 30-minute walk back home, a little more slowly in the hot and humid Memphis afternoon.
She is in control in the corner of her two-mile-radius world. The package store, work, the loan company, her sister’s “hair salon,” and her brother’s rental are all within her personal area code: 000.
Her little world is deep, not wide. Scarcity of options makes life a little less complicated when survival is the priority. Her energy goes daily to family, food, and shelter. Poverty and time shrink a person’s map in Memphis, and level the geography to sidewalks, curbs, and busy streets.
Jane can’t easily leave the turf she knows, and as a result, the rest of the city is abstract. Political or civic rallies, voting poll locations, alternate school options, and fully stocked grocery stores are invisible unless someone gives her a ride and she pays for the gas. Resources, recreation opportunities, and shopping centers a few more miles out might feel like a different country, not the city she calls Memphis.
However, Jane is managing her two-mile radius like a dancer knows her marks. Her small world is deep with what matters: family, faith, and the ladies with whom she works. She has sorted out ways to encourage her coworkers and is often the first to sense their sorrows. She holds her family close, and the Lord holds her even closer.
Jane is content, always at peace and at rest in a noisy world full of distraction. She has distilled what most are trying to find in the vast shallows of our troubled community. She doesn’t need a bigger map because she has, by grace, never been lost in her world. She is the leading lady in a story worthy of reading. She is honored and respected. She is one of our valued and beloved employees at My Cup of Tea.