(Jerusalem Sage. Not a missed signal; just something nice to look at.)

Here from the past week are examples of small near-misses in messaging. If only our human communications were a little more fine-tuned, it would be a safer and warmer world.

Incident 1.

This week before wakeup time, group texts were pinging to my phone. The phone number of the sender and group member numbers were all unfamiliar; so were the area codes. In the distant past I might have reached out in friendly fashion to let everyone know that I’m me, and not someone else. But I’m more cautious now, and simply deleted them. There’s a history of incorrect group emails from mysterious social clubs, and from online retail advertisers. What’s more, for the 18 years that I’ve had this phone, the former subscriber to this number (we’ll call him Morris) has received texts in Spanish, urging him to vote or fill in a survey or enter a contest or open a link promising alluring photos of ladies wanting to meet & greet.

To this soundly sleeping person, the group texts (probably meant for Morris) bypassed the thin veneer of good nature, and seemed like a nuisance. The texts had an official now-hear-this tone, commanding us all to await orders on where to go, and when. The texts kept coming in, this time in Spanish, insisting that we all had to be patient and wait to be escorted out. It sounded like instructions for people picked for jury duty, but they named landmarks that were nowhere near here.

What?

In no cheerful mood, and wondering why people can’t proofread the phone numbers in their subscriber lists, I hauled out of my blanket roll and logged in to the computer to look up the phone numbers. There was no online information on any of them. But some of the area codes were in Dade County, Florida. That called to mind news of the week, reporting heavy rains in the Southeast. Huh. Sure enough, a quick check of weather alerts showed a flash flood warning at “Catastrophic Threat” level, with many Florida area people stranded and waiting for orders and the safest route to evacuate.

Oh Goodness! That put-upon feeling can vanish instantly, once one knows the back story. Perhaps some sheriff or county agent was trying to contact as many residents as possible? I considered texting back to let them know the error, but decided that emergency services had enough to worry about without being corrected by some former grammar teacher.

Instead I prayed about it, hoping that Morris and all of them got out okay.

Incident 2.

On the back of the bus I sat enjoying my book and the evening commute. Idly I glanced out the opposite window up front, and noticed a man resting on a street bench who looked to be no older than in his forties. He was very pale and thin, stooping over with his back bent at an angle of over 45 degrees. As passengers filed on to the bus, the man stood up in an unsteady manner. It took a moment for it to dawn on me, that he was trying to walk to the bus stop. It took another moment to realize with concern that he wanted this bus, and actually thought he might make it. I couldn’t fathom why he was out without a walker or even a cane. It was alarming to watch him shamble off balance, trying to pick up speed.

“HEY!” I called to the driver. “Somebody here is trying to –” But the driver had already closed the door and pulled out. At that point drivers are not allowed to stop the bus and swerve back to the curb, because injuries occur when passengers fall off the curb or run into traffic after the bus.

Another bus was due in 15 minutes. But it was sad to see this man left behind. The college students all around him looked up from their phones, registering the problem as we drove away. Hopefully they were able to step up and intervene to flag the next driver, and perhaps lend the man an arm.

Incident 3.

One of our neighbors has never spoken to or looked at me. That’s fine; everybody has the perfect right to privacy and to be left in peace. I still give him a nod and a smile in case he looks up, but so far he hasn’t. The other day I smiled again, and he passed by looking distant and unaware. I dropped off my recycling, and passed his door on the way back.

Behind the door there was the sound of a man sobbing bitterly.

I stood there frozen, wondering what to do. If this were any other neighbor I would have knocked to call through the door, asking whether they were all right. At least I’d have slipped a note under the door. They would do the same for me. In this case, a strong inner intuition ordered me to back off, leave him alone, and walk away. I did, but it troubles me. What if he just needed somebody to talk to?

He passed by me yesterday. I said hello.

Incident 4.

About twenty steps from the bus stop, on a recent warm sunny morning, a young man stood swaying and stumbling about on the sidewalk. Despite the unseasonably high temperature, he stood in the sun overdressed in a ski hat and puffy coat. Judging by his gestures and speech he was unaware of his surroundings and was in a labile emotional state.

That’s normal. Every day on our streets there are people who seem unaware of their surroundings, and/or in a labile emotional state, and/or saying things which seem unconnected to situational awareness. They have every right to stand on the street and talk to themselves as they wish. Still, to watch for the bus I preferred to step out of sight around a corner to the front door of a restaurant. It felt more comfortable to be in sight and sound of the restaurant staff and other shopkeepers right nearby.

A little girl came along, no more than 10 or 11, with long fair hair and skinny jeans and a cute little summer top. To me she seemed a bit young for traveling by herself. She was dragging an awkwardly made and inadequate child’s luggage cart in bright colors. The cart kept tipping over and dragging on the pavement, hampering her progress. Every few steps she had to turn around and bend over to right the cart. That made it impossible for her to stand straight, to walk at a normal pace, to keep balanced, to keep her hands free, to watch where she was going, or to take in the scene on the street. My first impression was annoyance that her responsible adults didn’t give her a usable cart or better still a knapsack.

She dragged the cart around my corner, spotted me, and instantly shied away to go wait at the bus stop.

Reluctantly I left my hiding place to keep an eye on the girl. The man nearby seemed unaware of us, and went on talking and waving his arms. But soon his speech grew louder; there were general random threats with profanity.

At that, I spoke to the girl. The goal was to get us both out of view in a respectful discreet manner without provoking attention. “Let’s stand behind this corner,” I said to her quietly. “We will see the bus from there.”

Now mind you, I was not inviting her into my car, into a phone booth, or behind a shrub. I was inviting her to an open populated parking lot with shops and pedestrians and drivers. But she gave me only a blank look, clearly uncomfortable with I had approached her. Perhaps she had been trained to never speak to strangers under any circumstances. “Huh?”

The man turned and noticed us.

“We. Can. Wait. Over here.” Shifting into mom bear mode I beckoned, and pointed. Let’s GO!

That gesture works quite well even on dogs; dogs are good with hand signals, they understand pointing, and they know real fast when you mean business and want them to move. But apparently to the girl, given a choice between two strangers the suspicious one was me. (In his books, my hero Gavin de Becker teaches parents how to teach their children to assess strangers on the street, and to pick out likely people (= women) who are likely to help when needed. Any kid of mine would get a bazillion hours of field work on checking out people around them.) But this girl turned her back to the man, and ignored me. She stood gripping her little cart, aiming for an air of sophisticated nonchalance while the man stood looking at her. I stayed nearby, but felt it unwise to speak again to an underage girl who wanted no contact with me.

A neighbor from our building spotted this drama from the supermarket far across the street. He charged right through the traffic to stand and watch over both of us. He kept up an outspoken friendly assertive presence until the bus finally arrived.

The girl got on, and sat in a side-facing seat. I got on, and beelined to the back. The bus was nearly empty, but the man with the puffy coat sat down right next to her. In response, she shrank down in her seat, pulled up her cute summer top, and used it to cover her nose and mouth. What a startling sight in this day and age, to see a modern child strive for safety by looking smaller and covering her ability to breathe and use her voice!

At last she did get up and move to the back near me. I wanted very much to seize that chance to talk to her, to say that we women on the street need to watch out for one another. But she was back there only to ring the bell. She hopped off, yanking her cart as it caught on the door.

But here’s a happy ending: I got to tell it all to Angelina and the women tonight, as they sat outside with their dogs; it was very satisfactory to hear them all talk at once, about how outrageous it was and how we-all as a culture need to empower our girls.

And, Mrs. Wing gave me red and gold raspberries, just picked from her bushes, along with a glass of some kind of delectable health-giving transfusion of juice, made from a blend of berries and other fruits.

Here’s to good neighbors, and people everywhere who look out for one another!

(There were lots more berries, but I wolfed them down on the way upstairs.)