Sweet Charity

You can be bruised without letting the bruise become the whole

I have been thinking a great deal about the old trio of Faith, Hope, and Charity. I wrote recently about faith. I wandered next into hope. And as these things often do, they nudged me gently toward charity, the one who stands just offstage with her hands folded, waiting her turn to be invited in.

This grey autumn afternoon in Pound Ridge carries the kind of stillness that makes you draw your chair a little closer to the window. The sky hangs low like a wool blanket that has been washed too many times but still manages to keep you warm. Steve is napping with Mackie curled contentedly beside him, a small guardian of comfort with his steady breaths rising and falling in rhythm with Steve’s own. Somewhere beyond the ridge line the sun is trying to gather itself, like a shy visitor hoping the door will open when it knocks. And with that slight hope resting just beyond the horizon, I sit and write.

Charity is not one thing. It is a cluster of small acts that do not look like much when viewed up close, though experience teaches us that these small acts often steady a person’s soul. Charity slips into a room without fanfare. It sits down quietly beside the weary. It appears in the gentle word at the right moment. It arrives in the hand placed at a back to guide someone down a difficult stair.

His visiting nurse carries that kind of charity with her. Many nurses do. They arrive from long years in hospitals and now step into home care as a bridge toward retirement, or perhaps because life insists they continue. They do not announce their goodness. They simply help. They listen. They return the next day. Charity, as it turns out, often wears practical shoes.

Whenever life hands me difficult work, my mind wanders toward theatre, that old anchor that steadied me long before I ever met Steve. And that is how I found myself thinking of Sweet Charity Valentine. I performed in Sweet Charity at the Wagon Wheel Theatre with my dear friend Roy Hine.

The anniversary of his passing was yesterday, and that date carries its own familiar ache.

So I spent the day helping Steve recover and thinking of Roy, which is its own sort of tender sorrow and its own sort of grace.

One of my favorite stories from that theatrical world involves Nichelle Nichols, the luminous star who played Uhura on Star Trek. She had a nightclub act and carried herself with that soft, commanding glamour that makes a room lean forward before it knows why. At one point she added If My Friends Could See Me Now to her set. It was the bright and joyful number from Sweet Charity, but she began it with a sly twist.

If they could see me now, that Star Trek gang of mine.

What delighted Steve and me most is that we learned this story separately. We each heard it from different corners of the universe, and when the time finally came that we told it to each other, we laughed like two people discovering they shared the same favorite childhood book. We adored it. It felt like a small, knowing wink from the universe.

I suspect Steve may have been just a touch jealous when he learned that Roy once showed me an 8x10 glossy headshot of Nichelle from her nightclub days. There she stood in a six inch pair of stiletto boots, radiating the kind of confident joy that could have stopped traffic on a quiet Sunday. Roy loved that photo. He kept it tucked among his theatre treasures like a relic from a cathedral built on sequins and pure spirit. And every time I think of it, I remember why that story stays with me.

At the warm and glowing center of Sweet Charity rests a deeply human longing. Charity Hope Valentine wants what most of us want. She wants to be seen. She wants to be loved. She wants to believe the world can be kinder than it sometimes appears. Her story grew from Nights of Cabiria, the luminous Italian film that starred Giulietta Masina. Masina had a face that could cradle sorrow and hope at once, the way a person can hold a candle and a memory in the same hand. She played Cabiria with trembling resilience, with tender determination, with that quiet courage that makes a viewer want to stand beside her in the wind.

There was something in Masina’s spirit that reminded me of my mother. My mother carried that same mixture of grit and light. She rose again and again, even when life pressed her down. She was not a woman who backed away from the world. She walked toward it. And because of that, Sweet Charity holds a place in my heart far deeper than nostalgia. It is the daughter of a story that feels connected to the soul of who Ma was. A woman who hoped even when hope felt thin. A woman who believed in the goodness of the world because she knew the alternative was to grow small, and she refused to do that.

Charity Hope Valentine may shine beneath stage lights and sing her hopes out loud, but her soul comes from Cabiria. And Cabiria reminds me of my mother. That is why the musical has never left me.

Thinking of all this carries me back to Roy. Roy was one of my dearest friends. My friend Randy is my touchstone, but Roy kept me steady. We could talk for hours about everything and nothing, about theatre and life and how the two overlap more often than not. Every Thursday at eleven we spoke. It was our standing appointment. His laugh had a warm rasp, a sound that made you feel as if the two of you had shared something true. He gave advice in the way some people offer a second cup of coffee. Practical. Encouraging. Without ceremony. It nudged you toward courage without ever announcing itself as wisdom.

Roy has been gone for a long while now. Randy remains a gift in my life, but Roy’s absence still brings its own quiet ache. A phone call from him today would do more than steady me. It would settle something inside my spirit.

Thinking of Roy led me to think of the charity that lives inside friendship. The calls that arrive. The calls that do not. The simple question, How are you. These small moments can mend more than we admit.

Somewhere in all this reflection I began to understand that charity is something we can weave into our own days. We do not need applause. We do not need a platform. Charity appears when we hold the door for someone. When we let a weary person step ahead of us in line. When we write a note to someone we miss. When we hand over a coat that will keep another person warm. When we give a few minutes to someone who needs to feel less alone.

Kindness does not drain us. It replenishes us. All it asks is that we lift our eyes long enough to notice someone else’s need.

On evenings like this one, when the grey sky rests over the ridge and the world grows quiet, I think about how kindness moves. You give a little to someone and the whole day softens. The corners ease. The air warms. And you discover the heart is a lamp that glows more brightly when its light is shared.

I used to visit Ma on Saturday nights when she was in the hospital. Those nights were the loneliest hours. Families had gone home to dinner. Television sets flickered behind half closed curtains. Long hallways stretched out quietly. Only a few nurses walked them with patient steps. I remember standing in the pass rooms, looking out at those dim corridors, wondering the same thing I wondered again this past Saturday night while sitting with Steve. Where is the charity.

It was never a complaint. It was a wish. It was the hope that some small kindness might enter the room and sit beside the worry.

These nights with Steve braided themselves into those nights with my mother. My mother’s quiet Saturdays. Steve’s careful climb up the stairs. Roy’s voice. Nichelle Nichols opening a song with a wink toward the stars. Sweet Charity spinning with her heart offered to the world. Cabiria walking forward with her tiny candle of hope, refusing to let the wind extinguish it.

All of it folded together. And this is what I came to understand. Charity is not the dramatic gesture. Charity is the presence. It is the moment we choose to stay. It is the soft answer offered in the still room. It is the hand extended when the world feels steep. It is the lantern we carry into the dark places of life, the lantern that keeps the shadows from growing louder than they need to be.

This is what I believe about charity. Not only in these recent weeks, but for most of my life. Charity is the quiet courage of staying open. Charity is the open heart. Charity is the small flame that refuses to go out.

But the dog needs to be fed, and last night’s pork tenderloin seems to be a good fit for Steve and I tonight before we settle into maybe the final season of Schitt’s Creek we are so far behind but we love that show so very much. It might have the correct attention span for both of us at this time brief funny touching….

And then, if we decide to watch another episode…

So be it.