I just wanted to sit on the steps.
No reason really.
Just sit.
Watch people. Do nothing.
I watched people walk by, sit on steps, talk, catch Uber rides, hail taxis, eat while walking.
There was a white dog trotting down sidewalk. Her fur was very clean. Very white. She had a proud, friendly prance. She was smiling.
Dogs smile you know.
It was sunny. Not hot. Not cold.
I don’t remember how long I sat.
Miracle.
Earlier this year I thought I was going to lose a longtime friend because he said I wasn’t “honest enough” with him. I only said good things about his writing, his opinions, what he was doing, etc. and he felt that just couldn’t be right. I couldn’t possibly like everything he was doing.
He said that it can’t be a really true friendship if we only say god things about one another. We have to be able to say the good and the bad. Truth.
Now, I have another longtime friend who is at risk because, at her insistence, I gave my opinion about how she might beheld through an enormously stressful period right now by asking doctor about anti-anxiety medicine. Wrong answer.
She now thinks that I am belittling her and thinks she can’t manage her life well.
Then earlier today I asked my husband to “speak more deeply” about a topic. He was offended that I didn’t think he was already “being deep.” (We had barely started the conversation; I was wanting more).
So I guess I need to shut up.
Something I’m doing is offending people who are very important to me. Maybe I just need to go away, alone, for awhile. Something is out of sync and the place to look first is in the mirror.
What would cause you, young, late-20-something year old male, to “shoot me the finger” so aggressively early yesterday morning?
It was a sunny and not yet oppressively hot day. I was standing with my bike in the bike path, patiently waiting for all the cars to pass the cross road. I was stationed well back from the road so it was clear I wasn’t a threat to cars. I wasn’t going to somehow lurch out into the road causing you to brake or dodge me and my little bike.
I don’t even look like a cyclist. I don’t have the spandex. None of my clothes match. My helmet isn’t event same color as my fifteen year old bike. I don’t look like an athlete. How could I be a challenge of any sort?
There you drove though. You and your passenger seat buddy. He was looking straight forward and it was his huge grin that even made me look at your car. It was then that I saw you leaning over from the driver’s seat to shoot me the finger through the open window.
If you wanted to offend me you didn’t. Your action was irrelevant to me. I just wondered what is in you that would cause you to do such a thing.
The others cars cleared the road and I continued on the bike path. The little brown rabbit off on the side chewing his morning grass made me smile.
Yes, all of us on earth “look up and wonder at the same moon,” but it still thrills me to know that we do.
I stare at that shine in the night and imagine people in different parts of the world and wonder what they are thinking right now as they, too, look at the moon. And what did those on the other side of the night where its now morning think when they saw the craters that look like a face. Or does everyone think it looks like a face? A man? What are the traditions around the world?
People living in places that may be very different from my home…a city, a field, a jungle, a mountain, war ravaged terrain, lush garden… I imagine they have that same feeling inside. The one that catches us off guard and reminds us we’re just one here together on this planet. We really do all look up and “wonder at the same moon.”
And I believe in that surprising moment we share a longing to connect together.
Sometimes that’s when I ask the moon beams to thread us together. Remind. Just one. Together. All here. Same planet. People. Sharing feelings.Love.
BethenyReid 