CarrollBlog

The middle aged woman giving out flyers on the sidewalk has bad Parkinson’s Disease. As she tries to get passersby to take the black and white advertisement for a new Sushi restaurant, her offering hand trembles badly. I look at her face: a mixture of disappointment and frustration—please take this paper/why won’t you take it? She has a large stack of them in her other hand. She’s not been very successful at spreading the new sushi word today. Passing by, I slow to take one but her quaking hand has difficulty passing it to me. There is an uncomfortable fragile moment where I don’t know whether to go more toward her to make it easier, or keep my hand right where it is and let her work it out. Her eyes give me no indication of what to do.