Do I dare to eat a peach? Prufrock’s question resounded through my morning. Do I dare to drive up Van Ness Avenue? After all, it’s raining. I’m a quadriplegic. Anything could happen. But in reality nothing much did. In fact, once I had arrived at the Episcopal church on Clay Street, it was apparent that this was the optimal time. Parking places were abundant. But in my mind the whole drive was a sort of dangerous slalom, with not an empty spot to be found for my van anywhere. Forgetting that in drought-stricken California rain has become an intimidating, even sinister force. People stayed home this morning. No sense in venturing out on a Saturday. I could have parked anywhere, it seemed. I took a cab.

At the church, I found it slightly annoying that there was no sign of entry. The doors were open and light spilled down the front steps. Rain was spilling too, that’s why I didn’t appreciate wheeling about the place looking for the disabled way in. Finally, in desperation, I stopped outside what might be a church school or a church office on Clay Street. A chirpy woman emerged and led me to the fully hidden wheelchair lift. How about a little blue wheelchair symbol somewhere, I suggested. She thought that was a splendid idea…one that seemed unlikely to ever see fruition. Whatever. I was here.

Inside there were only a few of us. But one must admit that the church gradually filled. How much I couldn’t say. My wheelchair faced the altar, and turning around to count the house would have been obvious and perhaps a little tacky. Nancy Pelosi stepped forward, shook my hand and thanked me for coming. I did the same.

Things started. The church’s rector welcomed everyone and gave an all-purpose, nondenominational prayer in memory of the Newtown shootings four years ago…20 kids and six teachers. Someone from the Everytown gun control organization talked about losing her son to an apparently random bit of gunfire on Mission Street, slightly more than a mile from my home. A black guy talked about the nine times he had been shot and the 10 years he spent in prison for gun possession. I’m old enough to have witnessed two organizations of moms come into being around guns. And there was someone from the newest. Moms Have Had Enough…or some such. Am I cynical about all this?

Our hearts are broken, Nancy Pelosi told us, but not our spirits. I admire the sentiment. I admire the leadership. I wish I could say that with this advancing dark age my spirit was in better shape. But, for better or worse, I was there, in the church. And waiting outside in the now fierce rain, I was there long enough to see that Pelosi was among the last to leave. This woman is for real.