- The monks that are waiting at my gate at JFK
might not be monks
but they are all wearing orange robes, orange sandals.
They are rolling orange carry on bags.
And one of them even has an orange neck pillow
already on his shoulders
in preparation for this flight to Dallas.
I know the rules about photographing people you don't know,
but forgive me, I snapped the shot
so I can send it to my mother and make her day.
My mother won't say that she gave up photography
to raise children, but it is true
that used to be a professional printer
with a life of image making
and then stopped to fill her arms with babies
and then toddlers and then children.
And then the things teenagers handed her
when we refused to be held any longer.
You might think that a woman who spent hours
inhaling chemicals and grueling over various sinks
and under various lights
to create a perfectly balanced image
would begrudge a technology that imitates it
but you haven't met my mother.
This is a woman who loves New York
more than she loves any human alive or dead.
Every day, she walks through this same shitty city
as the rest of us.
But when I return with a mouth full of complaints
about the weather, the subways, the tourists,
she remains an endless scroll of wonders
of the things she insists could only happen in New York.
So when my best friend James teaches her to use the app
we all use, she isn't angry, but amazed.
"This would've taken so much work in the dark room,"
she says, "Now it's just a button.
It's like magic."
When James and I were little, his favorite color was orange.
And my mother loved this fact.
Found it strange and marvelous.
This little boy willing to forego fire trucks
and Power Rangers,
claiming the untouched reject of the crayon box.
Preferring the traffic cone, the citrus fruit.
In order to practice using the app
and get her photography sea legs under her again,
she takes photos of orange objects around the house
and on the street.
She only has two followers, James and me,
but every caption is the same,
"Orange for James" and she wanders the city
as wide eyed as always stopping strangers with,
"Excuse me, I noticed your wonderful orange bag.
Your hat, your construction vest.
That's my nephew's favorite color.
May I photograph it?"
Nevermind that he isn't her nephew.
Nevermind that this makes him sound 6 and not 30,
which he is.
This is the way she has always moved through New York
in search of bright morsels she can bring home to share.
In Dallas, I wait for my bag at the carousel
and a man in a corduroy jacket approaches.
Asks me if I am Sarah Kay.
When I say yes, he says, "My priests know your poetry.
And they thought that it was you."
Motions over his shoulder at the men in orange behind him.
But when I wave, he says, "I'm sorry
because of their religious vows
they are not permitted to communicate
with someone of your gender.
But they ask me to tell you
that they wish you continued success."
Days later, a new email through my website reads,
"We hope we did not offend you
by not meeting in person to appreciate your work.
And also pray that your poetry lights up minds,
smiles, and souls of all those searching for meaning.
That your beauty with words be not just a trained art
but a reflection of who you wish to be."
And then an offering of a poem in Sanskrit
that roughly translates,
"On bearing fruits trees bend,
become humble with newly gathered water.
Clouds hang very low.
This is the nature of the benevolent."
I used to think this was a story about coincidence
or about the invisible thread of poetry
that so many people are holding onto even, and especially,
people who may not have anything else in common.
But I actually think it is a story about my mother.
How she didn't have to take a photograph
for 30 years to make a camera of a daughter
or at least teach her
that the way you notice can be a weapon
or an act of love.
That color blooms through every city
whether you see it or don't.
Whether you seek it or don't.
So why not seek?
Why not see?
Why not ask yourself, who am I looking for?
(audience applauds)