Weird Shit that Sometimes Occupies My Mind
I took a late-night walk in the park a week or two ago, and as I was heading home in my neighborhood, about 1:30 a.m., I heard a loud crashing noise behind me that startled me.
I spun around and saw a young man and woman – in their very early 20s, I’d say – who’d been riding some sort of semi-motorized semi-foot-propelled foot scooter together (I don’t understand these newish contraptions), and they’d toppled over in the street behind me.
And the young woman screamed.
“Did you hit your head?” asked the young man urgently, bending over her. He was standing and seemed okay himself. She was on the ground.
I stood riveted where I was, a few feet away.
The young woman picked herself up off the ground. She was no longer screaming, but she was walking about in a tight circle, in a kind of weaving, wavering way, still making whimpering sounds.
“Are you all right?” I asked. “Can I help? Do you guys need anything?”
The young woman looked distastefully at me and declared, “It’s just … you’re so random …”
And I knew immediately what she meant and what had happened. My presence there, on the sidewalk in the middle of the night, had scared her out of her wits, and that’s why the scooter had fallen over. She’d been in front, and hadn’t even seen me until they were almost upon me, and then she’d tried to stop moving all at once. (Not that they would have hit me, but I think she was afraid to be seen by a tall male stranger walking at night.)
“Did I scare you?” I asked.
She acknowledged, “A little, yeah. We live around here.” She made this last statement as if asserting a territorial right.
“So do I,” I said. “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
“I’m fine, I’m all right.” She waved a hand dismissively at me, disgruntled, it seemed, that I’d had the temerity to (unwittingly) shatter the private serenity of her quiet cool night with her friend.
I said, “I think you guys should walk your scooter home from here.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”
I glanced at the guy again. He seemed a little embarrassed.
I turned and walked home.
The other night I was walking in the park again and I thought back to that incident and – for about the tenth time –replayed it in my mind, and this time I retorted righteously, “Look, I’m no more random than you are, okay? I’m sorry you got scared but we both have an equal right to be out here at night.”
So. I was retrospectively resentful of that young woman’s lack of courtesy, and my thought stream was “putting energy” into that resentment.
And then I realized, What a strange and trivial thing to be doing with my mind at this juncture in history, and at this point in my life!
Surely this is not what I’m being called to do right now, if I really tune in to what this moment is asking of me.
Moment by Moment Priorities
I didn’t watch Trump’s address to Congress. I haven’t been taking in much news these past few days. My nervous system gets unbalanced. My psyche can’t metabolize it.
(I won’t say I’ve taken a “news fast” exactly but – as my dad used to say on Yom Kippur – “I’m not really fasting today; I’m slowing.” In other words, I’m letting just a little bit in.)
Still, mindful of just how dire things feel for the world and for the USA, I am questioning my reflexive thought processes. For example, I was in a social situation recently, and I wondered if something I’d said had come off awkwardly. That is, I was concerned about what someone might be thinking of me. And then I realized, Why should I care what they think of me?
When I scratch the surface of my mind and look into my heart, I see the underlying truth is I want people to know that I love them, and to feel loved. But the words “I love you” alone won’t always accomplish that. I have to find different ways of expressing it. Sometimes just by listening well, for example.
There was a pop song on the radio when I was a kid, called “Love Is All Around” by the Troggs, and the line “So if you really love me, come on and let it show” used to tickle me in a deep way, and even cause me to blush a little, because (cheesy as it sounds) I heard the risk involved. No question about it; showing your heart is risky. But at the very least, I think I’m being called to do that now. Probably more too, but at least that much, from moment to moment.
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