Year 2 Daily Random Acts of Kindness

I thought I would share a tale of a recent adventure and see what we might learn….or not.

I was walking my daughter’s dog (Molly) on a wooded path that runs near our home.  Because she is young, smart, and high energy, she was able to slip out of her collar (Molly, not my daughter) and starting running up and down the path.  Imagine a four-year-old, totally wired on Halloween candy.  Now add four legs, a flexible spine, streamlined body and the ability to reach speeds that are close to 30 miles per hour. Zooming, running in circles, into the woods, bursting out of the woods, saying hello to everyone in our area of the path, asking if anyone would like play, wagging and hopping, a blur of doggy joy. In general, despite her enthusiasm, she was polite…although I am pretty sure she poked one young woman runner in the butt with her nose (Insert me grimacing, sorry!).  Molly thought: This. Is. Epic!

I, on the other hand, did not think this was epic.  My first response was to be really mad at Molly (Stupid fucking dog) who had obviously done this on purpose to zing me, and myself (stupid fucking self) because I know dogs and it was stupid to have let this happen.  Because 1) If you are trying to catch a dog, expressing anger at any point in the process is a great way to make sure you don’t catch that dog, and 2) I have been working on questioning my initial response to events, especially if they involve anger or avoidance, I stopped and took a quick look under the hood.  What I found was anxiety (surprised, right?).  Fear that Molly was going to run away and get hit by a car or hurt in some other way, and it would be all my fault.  And fear of embarrassment that the dog I was responsible for was misbehaving and bothering people, and might cause someone else a problem.  I am ashamed to admit it, but my biggest fear was not the safety of Molly, it was that I would get in trouble.  That someone would be mad at me and yell at me and tell me what an irresponsible, reckless, horrible human being I was. As fate would have it, the Wooded Path provided just such a person for me.

For the record, 99% of the people Molly and I encountered during this unscheduled moment of freedom were neutral to great, with a good portion of the fine folks being on the great end of the spectrum.  Several people stopped to try to help (Molly toughtt that was hilarious), including the young woman who got poked in the butt (Insert me grimacing, sorry!).  There were only 3 people who were definitely not great.  One of these small handful of fellow path travelers unleased (no pun intended) a torrent of verbal abuse at me that pretty much could have been scripted by the fear inside my head.  She yelled at me about how irresponsible I was, how out of line my behavior was (Although I would like to point out, I was not the one zooming up and down the path and did not poke the girl in the butt with my nose).  As I tried to explain what had happened and that the dog was friendly, her fury spilled out and crashed over my head. No explanation or provision of context for what she was witnessing was sufficient, nothing I could say or do had any effect.  I felt my own defensiveness rise as my willingness to play nice began to fade. Then that whatever-it-is inside my head that a year plus of daily RAKs has wedged in there asked me a question.  Why did I think she was so angry?  Sometimes I really hate that whatever-it-is.

In between spitting venom at me was fear.  I saw this woman was dog phobic.  She was terrified of the dangerous creature that was hunting along the path, which would at any moment select its prey and savagely attack. This is over-the-top melodramatic, and it is how phobias are experienced.  I wish I could say that in that moment I felt great compassion for her (That came a couple hours later).  I wish I could say that in that moment I felt admiration for her amazing courage.  I don’t know about your world, but in mine I never go for a walk/run (unless it is some god-awful, Oh-Dark-30, predawn training run) without encounter multiple canines.  Given the percentage of Jack-Asses and Fools (you can decide which camp I belong in), running into an off-leash dog is going happen every couple weeks.  Later, I was able to appreciate her being out there, going for a run.  What I was able to do in that moment was understand enough to create some space between my defensiveness and my response. Perhaps not worthy of a prize, but maybe worthy of a couple bonus points toward a prize?

Some stray thoughts to share.  Feel free to come up with your own. Or just close this blog and shake your head.  For me, there He is again, that Anxiety who lives deep down in the cold depths of the stream I swim in, and an awareness of the many ways I have across my lifetime tried to ignore and disavow His presence and influence.  In all honesty I have given up on the goal of having Him go away.  I do think He and I are beginning to have a better understanding; one that allows Him to swim up from the murk of my past, while not giving Him much say in what I do. That whole “Acceptance” and “Openness” thing.  He actually seems pretty cool with that. We will see.

Of course, the events on the Wooded Path are a classic example of that psychological truism that it is our interpretation of events that drives our responses.  All those people on the path, one dog doing the exact same behavior in front everyone (Insert me grimacing, sorry!), and only one person seriously lost her shit about it.  It is so easy for our day to be all about our history, not our day. I know I stumble over my history constantly.  Of course we can never truly step out of our stream as we are paddling along, and I believe we can know that our stream has certain currents, rocks, sink holes, monsters, and calm stretches, beautiful fish, and an interesting shore line…..ok, starting to drift into the silly here…but still….no, no I will stop.

As may be obvious to you, of all the people on the path that day, the one I have been stuck on is the single Mean Human.  All those kind people, even after being poked in the butt with a dog nose (Insert me grimacing, sorry!), who wanted to help, who knew this was not my fault, and I focus on the one who  echoed my fears of being an irresponsible, reckless, horrible human.  I know I am not alone in doing this.  In part it is because our brains are working hard to keep us from being eaten by lions.  Paying attention to things associated with bad events helps makes us wary and watchful for lions (I think this is why we are compelled to look at car wrecks, our brains are looking to learn warning signs). Stupid brain with its negative-valence oriented evolutionary advantage.  Although major chops to my ancestors for having that.  Much thanks.  I think another reason is more nuanced and complicated.  It has something to do with looking for evidence in the environment that, of all seemingly maladaptive things, confirms our worst fears about ourselves. Maybe we will talk about that another day.  Or not.

In case you are wondering, I stayed calm, spoke in soothing tones, eventually her energy level dropped and I sat down, and she came over to get scratches and I was able to put her collar back on (To be clear, this was Molly, not the Mean Human).

A Second Year of Random Acts of Kindness

I know a woman and her husband who gave me a wonderful and challenging gift.

I have passed the completion date of the commitment to a year of daily random acts of kindness.  It was in late August, and here we find ourselves in late September. Which also means the one-year anniversary of the death of the young woman has gone by. I have continued to offer up daily RAKs, although I have not been sure if it has been from a continued commitment or sheer momentum.  I am in this space where I know I have learned so much during this past year, have a deep sense I have a long way to go before there would not be more to learn, there is more that I want to say (You: Oh, great….)…., and I am tired (You: Sounds like you should stop…..please…..).   Maybe being tired in itself is a good reason to keep going?  Seems I had a coach once offer (scream at me) that when you are tired is when the best lessons are learned (his language was more colorful). That sounds like a something a coach would say, right?

In addition to what to do regarding continuing daily RAKs, I have also been unsure whether I should continue to blog (You: Sounds like you should stop…..please…..).  I am not sure what that is about.  I am tired?  Floundering in a life filled with Crazy, Busy, and Crazy Busy (God, I could tell you stories)?  Feeling too vulnerable? Questioning whether blogging matters (Face it, the interweb is filled with jokes about how telling people you blog is pretty much met with the same facial expression and interest as if you told them you have 500 pictures of your colonoscopy  you would like to share with them)? To highlight my ambivalence (or is it confusion?), I have written 3 blogs that I have not posted.  I don’t know why.

So many off-key, out-of-sync voices offering such vehement opinions.  What is a small town boy who just wants to find fame and win prizes while making the world a slightly better place and feeling like he has better sense of who he is and how to live a life more consistent with his values supposed to do?  I tell you what; stall making any decisions.  Inspirational, right?

As I noted, despite my lack of certainty about what to do, I have continued to do daily RAKs. Here are the tales of 3 recent RAKs, which will perhaps be of interest. Or not.

#1: A few weeks back, a friend and I were running near where we worked.  We weren’t running far, we weren’t running fast, but we were running which I was feeling kind of smug about.  As we neared the end of our not far, nor fast run, we passed an elderly lady in a wheelchair, by the side of the road.  My friend said we should stop and check on her, which we did.  Turns out she was from the physical rehab hospital we were all standing in front of, waiting for her husband, who drove up right then.  We heard a bit of the story; She was in her late 80’s, her husband in his early 90’s, she had had a fall and was now paralyzed from the waist down and therefore rehab.  The husband said he had it under control (he didn’t).  She said some help would be great.  They bickered a small bit while we got the wheelchair into position, assisted with the transfer into the car and helped him get the wheelchair into the trunk.  He told me a couple old man jokes and away they went.  All in all a nice RAK, although I give full credit of this one to my friend as she was the one who noticed the woman in need.  I was too busy being on a voyage somewhere deep inside my head (one of the many obstacles to seeing a world populated by other human-like creatures) and would not have seen her.

#2: Speaking of wheelchairs, last week my daughter and I were walking her dog on a wooded path near our home that meanders close to the neighborhoods.  We came upon a young women (early 20’s? late teens?) being pushed in a wheelchair by her family.  My guess was recently out of the hospital post car crash, maybe not even out of the hospital yet but on an outing; tall, hard plastic wheelchair for use with spinal cord injuries, no muscle tone in her legs, mildly spastic upper limb movements, speech not fully recovered. Her eyes lit up when she saw the dog and so we stopped to say hello and let her interact with Molly (Haley’s dog). Molly was shy at first, but the woman knew about dogs and stayed still with her arm out.  Molly warmed up and let herself be pet, while the woman asked questions about her.  At one point, Molly was comfortable enough to make an enthusiastic dog request to play; rapid play bow, a couple quick back and forth movements.  The woman pulled back in surprise at the sudden movements.  I quickly explained that Molly was just saying that she wanted to run and play. The woman smiled wistfully and said, “I feel ya, Molly.”  Some eye-juice leaked out of my eye then.

#3: Speaking of young women, I was leaving a Very Important Meeting last Friday that was downtown in one of the Very Important Washington, D.C. Buildings where Very Important People get to go everyday.  This meeting had a great deal of value and was indeed a Very Important Meeting, but my role in it was minimal and almost purely symbolic.  Which means that I sat the Children’s Table trying to do a good job of paying attention to what the Very Important People were saying, reminding myself that it was an honor to be in such a Very Important Building with Such Very Important People at such a Very Important Meeting, while fighting the growing urge to jump up and run around the room, shouting nonsense, flapping my arms.  Given that I successfully avoided doing any of these behaviors, not even a little bit(!), I consider the day to have been highly successfully.

When the meeting ended, it was a stunningly beautiful day (Autumn days can be quite lovely in D.C.) so I decided to walk rather than go to the closest Metro station to catch a train.  After I had walked a couple miles, I looked up the block and saw a young homeless woman, panhandling at the street corner.  It was too far a distance for us to make eye-contact, but it was clear that we had seen each other.  It had been a day of me sitting as still as possible, using those frontal lobes to behave myself, I was tired, many other lame excuses, so I crossed the street to avoid her. Even as I was crossing the street, I was keenly aware that I was going out of my way to avoid her, rather than face the risk of having an encounter with her and the chance of having even the briefest of interactions.  As my foot touched the far curb and stepped up on the sidewalk, I was already deep into dragging my behavior into the direct sunlight of that gorgeous day; not in any kind of harshly judging, name-calling, self-loathing way; rather in a questioning way, a way that would have accepted if I stayed on this side of the street while also curious about why I crossed and if I really wanted to be over on this side of the street, was I really too tired to be present for this young human, even if for just a small time? Was I afraid more than I tired? If so, where did that come from? Her vast canyon of needs? My emotions at facing the sadness of her world and her suffering? The list could go on.

I must admit that I am not sure if it was a choice made from a strong, centered place, or if I just wanted that Damn Hippie voice to shut the fuck up, but I crossed the street at the next light and went back a block to talk to this human.  She was working the cars and I had to say, “excuse me” to get her attention.  I said that it looked like she was having a bad day, gave her some money, and said I hoped her day got better.  She gave me a timid, truly tired smile, said “Yes, a very bad day. God, bless you” then paused and gave me a look a recognition.  “You came back to give this to me.”  I said yes.  Some eye-juiced leaked out of her eye then.  We went out separate ways.

I will leave it to you to draw any lessons or whatever from these stories.  To me they are just stories of recent random acts of kindness, and they touch something that matters to me, even if I can’t find the words to share with you.  Maybe my words wouldn’t be helpful even if I had them?

In writing these RAKs out and putting them in front of myself, as opposed to keep them tucked away in the labyrinth inside my head, I see something on the horizon.  Given that I don’t know what else to do, I guess I will keep walking in that direction; I will commitment to another year of daily random acts of kindness and to sharing with you.  I understand if you decide not come with, although I will go ahead and confess that I hope you do. Turns out, even though at its core it is a personal journey about connecting with people and the world, this is also a lonely and often difficult journey. I would be happy for your company. (You: Oh, great …..)

Violence and compassion

I know a woman and her husband who with a small push sent me spinning off on a huge adventure.

I am most certainly not a Comparative Religions scholar, but it seems pretty much all the major religions have a number of themes in common. One of them being an idea that one should treat All Others with kindness and respect and as equals, which sounds like a wonderful idea but quickly gets sticky.
[Insert name of Respected Religious Figure]: Treat all humans with kindness and respect.
Us Regular Folk: Right on, Respected Religious Figure! Love our fellow humans. Except for that group of Others over there.
[Insert name of Respected Religious Figure]: Treat all humans with kindness and respect.
Us: Oh….right, of course. All humans…..but surely not that other group of Others, right? I mean look at what they believe in!
[Insert name of Respected Religious Figure]: All humans.
Us: All humans? Huh…..got it “all humans”……..by which you cannot mean that horrible person who has done the thing that is so horrible.
[Insert name of Respected Religious Figure]: (Looks at us knowingly)
Us: Oh, come on, Respected Religious Figure!!!
This is probably one of the reasons these folks are Respected Religious Figure and we are just Us.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.

During the last few months the crazy whirling stream that I swim in has taken a strange course in that I have been exposed to more violence in this time then I am normally exposed to across 2-3 years. I have not been the target of any of this violence but I have had a seat close enough to the front that offered a frightening and challenging view of the action. While keenly aware of the human suffering, I have witnessed a number of opportunities within myself (because it is all about me) to face my own demons around violence. Among the many opportunities have been questions about my attempts to bring less judgement and more compassion to the people in my life and the people I stumble upon as I try to be more present. I want to share what’s been bouncing around inside my head from two of these violent events.

Recently I was again involved in trying to help someone I care for deeply navigate growing emotional, verbal and physical abuse by her son. While doing so I was aware of the powerful pull to judge all involved and push for what I “knew” was the “answer.” I wanted to scream, “Kick that immature shit out of your house, end this pattern, force him to be responsible for his behavior, protect yourself and the rest of your children!” But I didn’t. It was so easy to judge him, to judge her, and I knew that would be an epic fail. Those were the things I needed to say to quiet my own fears about the impact her chaos might have on my life. Those were not things that would have in anyway helped her or her family. She knows kicking him out is the option everyone wants her to do, including me. Hearing it does nothing to bring compassion to her suffering, does nothing to listen to her fear.

As I sat with this, deleting yet another text message I was preparing to send her because it was about me, not about hearing her, I tried to listen for what she was afraid of. I heard that she was afraid her son would die; alcohol/drugs, gang violence, encounters with the police gone wrong, or that he would hurt or kill someone else. Perhaps if she could keep him at home, no matter how abusive he became, he would be safe. She was struggling to be a good mother in the out-of-control chaos of white water rapids that is her world. Why should she be judged for that, other than it is easy for me to do so?

And him? Immature, fucking shit who deserves to have his ass kicked and kicked to the curb, how do I feel about him? I know this young man. I know that life has kicked him in the kidneys, and then stomped on him when he fell to the ground. He is filled with rage, and helplessness, and fear from his history. He is lashing out at the wrong targets because there are no right targets. When I set aside my seeing him as a problem that I wish would go away, I saw his suffering and, instead of disgust and anger, I felt compassion and I understood. I wished I could reject him out of hand with self-righteous anger, but I found I couldn’t. I wanted to just feel pissed off at him and his immaturity, but I didn’t have it anymore. All I had was compassion, which in all honesty kind of pissed me off because anger felt more satisfying, even if compassion felt more real. Now to be clear, I still think she should throw him out, and I feel deep compassion for the suffering of both. I blame this as a side effect of daily random acts of kindness. So if you try anything like that, be forewarned.

What about the second incident? On the Fourth of July, I went to a baseball game with some friends, had a couple hot dogs and beer (what could be more American?), my fiends and I walked from the stadium to the National Mall to catch some of the Folk Life Festival (I think the country highlighted this year was Peru), saw the pre-fireworks preparation in front of the Capital Building, and then went our separate ways. The Metro subway train to take me home was delayed (not a big surprise) and when the train did come, the going was slow. Final the train operator apologized for the delay, saying there was “police activity” at one of the stops ahead of us, so the trains were single tracking. We finally pulled into the station in question, the train on the other line was stopped, there were paramedics, lots of police, miles of police tape marking off a single car and all the space around it, something “Very Bad” had happened, and had happened not long before we arrived. By the time I made it home it was reported that a shockingly brutal murder had occurred on that train car, a petty theft that turned into the assailant stabbing the victim more than 40 times and then severely beating the victim, in broad daylight, on one of the safest metro lines, in a car with numerous others in it on their way to Fourth of July festivities. Absolutely horrifying.

The next day they arrested the assailant. This won’t be a subtle or nuanced murder trial with twists and turns in which CSI solves the case. There is video surveillance footage, DNA evidence, oh, and let’s not forget about those 20 or so severely traumatized eyewitnesses. I hope he goes to jail forever, in part because of the nature of the crime, and, in all honesty, because his actions toppled my views of how the world is supposed to be, seeing the crime scene forced me to acknowledge a world I do not want to acknowledge, the whole event scares the shit out of me. How do we bring compassion to something so horrendous and brutal, something so nightmarish?

I don’t know. I have been trying to step back from my fear and disgust, and somehow get some perspective. The mug shot that ran in the papers and news showed the standard defiant, angry Non-Human Monster we always see. And we know this is not who will show up for the trial. That young man will have a different look and be dressed in a suit. Evidence will emerge about his childhood, his neighborhood, the genuine struggles with poverty and violence. Maybe he will have a history of mental illness that fell through the gaps in a poorly sewn safety net. There will be reasons. Of course, just like I am not a scholar in Comparative Religion, I am also not a scholar in Sociology & Media. However, I offer this; it seems fundamentally human that we quickly want to capture and castigate the Villain so we know our world is safe in no uncertain terms (See the Captured Monster that is so not One of Us). Later when we find out the Captured Monster is One of Us, we need to find out why this horrible violent crime happened, we need an explanation, an explanation that also allows us to feel our world is safe (See the Human who was Understandably Deeply Damaged). I think that understanding helps us to sleep at night without the fear that a member of our pack might turn rabid in the night and do horrible things.

I don’t know. Maybe somewhere in this likely turn of events there is the smallest space to begin to find compassion for this young man. Maybe not. I still want him to be locked up forever because of this brutal crime, and I hope that there will be people in his life over the next 40-50 years who can be compassionate for his suffering. I hope that my sense of a need for justice can also be tempered with my desire to find a way to bring compassion to all. I think finding that is important for the path I am wobbling along, important for my soul. Perhaps there is a Respected Religious Figure or two who also thinks this is a good idea. Maybe.

I know a woman and her husband who have inspired me to find courage to walk toward when the expected behavior is to ignore.

Me: Hey. I have been a bit behind in posting lately. You: If by “a bit behind” you mean 40 days.      Me: (Hanging head in shame) On the plus side I have continued my commitment to daily Random Acts of Kindness.  I just haven’t written….although I have a really good excuse in that my crazy world has been spinning on a more than usual wobbly axis.  I am writing today though!                          You: We quiver with excitement.    Me: Sarcasm does not become you.

Today I engaged in one of the most intense RAKs I have done thus far.  I was downtown with some visiting relatives on our way to a lovely brunch.  We were way too early so had to walk around for a while before the restaurant even opened.  As we walked, I was saw a couple who were obviously having an argument; she wasn’t saying anything but kept trying to walk away, he was speaking quietly but intensely and gripping her arm tightly, stopping her from walking away.  It was one of those uncomfortable situations where you don’t know if you should say something, it wasn’t clear she was in trouble…still…. Maybe it is none of my business…is it rude to say something…..what if he gets violent toward me…what is going on, I can’t tell….still?  I set my uncertainty aside and I took the easy way out and just kept walking. We had teenagers with us, don’t need to be causing a scene and trouble with teens with us.  Just keep moving.

When we circled back to return to the restaurant, now a couple blocks up and on the other side of the street, we encountered them again.  Things had turned ugly.  There was a group of people standing about ½ a block away from the couple.  Someone said, “Oh my god, they are fighting.” I walked to the front of the group to see him push her down into a bush and stand over her yelling and cursing at her.  I walked toward them until I was about 10-15 feet away where he could see me (he did, we made eye contact, he pulled her out of the bush and, although still arguing, things dropped a notch), I took out my phone and called 911.  I told the operator where I was and what I was seeing.  She had me describe what the couple looked like and what they were wearing (as he was wearing baggy jeans, I was able to share that he was wearing grey underwear- we both had a laugh about that).

The police arrived, I waited a little closer until the officer was free, I told the officer that I had called 911 and he took my statement.   A nice hippie girl walked by and said thank you for making the call.  One of the adults in my group said that was an impressive demonstration to the teens of doing the right thing when others were frozen.  I told her that the truth is I was so scared my voice was all quaking on the phone and I could feel one of my legs shaking. We both had a good laugh about that.  She kindly offered that walking toward my anxiety when I didn’t want to meant that I got bonus points for this, and, as I am all about bonus points, I accepted them.

What I really wanted to share today is something I have noticed about two types of Random Acts of Kindness, both of which are “valuable” (assuming RAKs have value other than my earning bonus points).  My brilliant categorization scheme divides them two categories: Doing and Being.  Now, yes, according to the rules of my Year of RAK, all require some level of presence, so the distinction is whether the core activity is Doing or Being. Each makes different demands on us and, at least for me, Doing is much easier than Being. I present to you “A Tale of Two RAKs” (Please insert your own dramatic reading of what follows):

As we discussed many months ago, even though airports are about opening up our world, transporting us across distances undreamt of a couple generations ago through what has become a mundane process, airports ironically also pull for a special type of self-focused, anxiety-induced, small-world view that can become so narrow that our ability to see Other Humans is severely impaired. It becomes You in a sea of scurrying blobs of flesh, a sizable proportion of which appear to have been assigned by the Queen of the Hive the task of getting in your way.  It is perhaps also ironic that in this same context of self-focused, anxiety-induced, small-world view, so many of these scurrying blobs of flesh are finding it difficult to navigate the mundane process of being transported across undreamt distances. Simply put, if you can find a way to rise above the plight of the Hive People, it is pretty easy to do Random Acts of Kindness in an airport.

On a recent trip, I accomplished several RAKs before I even made it to my gate.  Yes, one must be present to certain extent for any RAK, but fundamentally all my airport RAKs involved Doing, not Being. My exemplar airport RAK was an interaction with an older woman who was behind me in the airport security line. She was not old enough to get the “leave your stuff on” TSA Get-Out-Jail-Pass, but was old enough to find the security procedure a bit intimidating and a tad confusing.  I let her go in front of me, put her stuff in bins, asked the questions TSA would ask to avoid complications as she went through the magic scanning machines & generally shepherded her through. I figured a bit less anxiety & confusion made everyone’s day better.

On the other end of the RAK spectrum is a recent interaction with an elderly Hispanic gentleman.  He approached me as I was getting out of my car, on my way into a building for an “important” work meeting. He was disheveled. His English wasn’t good, my Spanish wasn’t good. In our efforts to communicate, it quickly became apparent he was not drunk or stoned or schizophrenic or any of the other common flavors of mental illness you typically find on the streets. He was not acting or pretending. I came to believe he had dementia. The disease was in its early stages, but I felt the familiar interaction behavior pattern, the loosening of logic. I have seen this for several years in my world.

I don’t know that I ever truly understood what he was asking for, but, through his broken English and my broken Spanish, I was able to piece together some of the important parts of his story. As his story unfolded, his eyes welled with tears, which began to stream down his face, and eventually he was sobbing, waves of grief flowing over us. I tried to be as fully present for his pain as I could, and there was also a huge part of my brain that just wanted to know what the fuck he wanted and how I could make him (and his overwhelming fear and distress) go away.  I don’t think he wanted money (What homeless person doesn’t want money?!!) because I gave him some money, he looked at it confused and kept talking & crying.  I listened and I listened, trying to hear just what the “ask” was, just tell me what you need!

I listened and I listened, and then, instead of listening for how to make him go away, I just listened and tried be with him, tried to understand his suffering, tried to hear him. Nothing miraculous happened. I didn’t fix him. I didn’t save him. And I didn’t run away (even though I wanted to: “Look! It’s the Pope!!” (Me run off)). And still something got better. He quieted, we prayed together (I’m not a big prayer guy but it was obvious he was), he sang me a hymn in Spanish, I explained and pointed out how to get to a nearby church that had social services that might be able to help his pervasive problems. We went our ways; him seemingly more stable, maybe with more hope, perhaps more of a sense that another human had seen him as a Human and shared his pain; me sad, shaken, raw from the interaction, and a sense that I had seen and heard another Human and shared his pain.

If you should ever find yourself with a close-family-member-with-Alzheimer’s disease and you are wondering how to rip into your already inflamed heart, encountering an elderly homeless person with dementia will do the trick. Of course, if you should ever find yourself with a close-family-member-with-Alzheimer’s disease (or any of a zillion difficult life challenges), you may also find yourself in a place where you are better able to Be in whatever nasty, heartbreaking situation you are ambushed by, and it will suck. And you may find that you walk away with something important…..or not.

As always your experience and challenges with random kindness may be completely different from mine, revealing different lessons about who you are, what you fear, how you want to be different in your stream.  For me, having the concreate accomplishment is easier.  Probably because Doing allows me to push away my insecurities and keep at bay the monsters of Unlovable and Never Good Enough that lay in-wait in the deep, dark, cold waters,  ready to rise up without warning.  Ha ha, silly monsters!!  Look, I just did something demonstrating my value and, of course, showing all just how worthy, perhaps even lovable, I must be with concreate evidence that can be pointed to as an example of my worth and worthiness.  Being is more slippery, harder to bring forth as evidence in self-worth court, especially when monsters are doing the cross examination.  And yet, it is growing ever more apparent to me that Being, although harder and often sucky, is where the value lies; value for interactions with Other Humans, value for interactions with the ones you care deeply for.  Now, if I could only figure out a way to assign bonus points to Being.  That would be epic.

I know a woman and her husband who belonged.

The other day I was taking off my shoes and sweaty socks after a run, and I paused to look at my feet.  Even being exhausted from the run, my brain harshly judged the appearance of my feet amazingly quickly.  As I sat there judging my feet, I remembered that I have a friend with beautiful feet.  She is one of those people who likes to take their shoes off so I have had a few opportunities to see her feet, and they are lovely.  It occurred to me while sitting there with my feet that one of the things that make her feet so beautiful, and mine so not, is how comfortable she is in her feet.  That kind of comfort in your own feet is a big part of what makes feet beautiful.

Yesterday Haley and I were hiking on a tough, steep and rocky trail down near the Potomac River.  That lazy river that rolls through D.C. is an intense, dangerous river that cuts through a steep rocky canyon just a few miles north.  It is not uncommon for people to drown in that section of the river every year.  As Haley and I scrambled over rocks, climbed a section of cliff, pondered where the trail markings had disappeared to, and generally pretended to be mountain goats instead of humans, we came across a group of hikers who were not prepared for the difficult trail we all found ourselves on (what they were wearing on their feet revealed this to us). Turns out one of their members had twisted his ankle and they were on the Struggle Bus to complete the hike.  Our random act of kindness was to stop and offer to help them.  They cheerfully said no.  We offered to tell a Park Ranger who could come and get them.  They declined.  As we parted ways, I encouraged them to not be shy about asking for help, should they decide they needed it, as that is what Park Rangers are paid to do (with their taxpayer dollars) and also that people in the woods are typically glad to help each other (I didn’t mention the ax murders who roam all woods) .

As I thought about why these people who so obviously needed help declined to accept it, I realized there are lots of reasons why it is so hard to accept help from others.  A biggie is that we are then open and vulnerable to others.  Let’s face it, things never went so well for the children in fairy tales who stopped and asked for help from strangers….or asked their family now that I think of many of those stories.  Another crucial reason is one that falls from what if we ask for help and the person says no.  My experience is when that happens I feel stupid and self-conscious for even asking, and this then starts a series of internal dialogues about whether I asked too much, am I worthy of asking for anything, that receiving a “no’ is probably revealing that I am not worthy of asking, and in fact I don’t belong to whatever pack of humans I just asked for help from, I most assuredly must not belong for good reasons, and I will never belong anywhere….  I feel small and constricted. Ah, the beat of the crazy drummer goes on.  Now maybe it is just me who gets zinged when requests for help are denied.  If so, would you do me the favor of pretending it happens to you too? Learning that it is just me would totally fire up the See-You-Don’t-Belong blast furnaces in my soul.  Thanks.

Belonging?  We have touched on this before in these posts.  Is it really that big a deal?  Does it matter that much?  The answer is “yes.” A quick story from the Hippies (with apologies for bastardizing such an important tale): When Siddhartha Gautama (The guy who became Buddha) decided to stop messing around and get serious about the whole enlightenment gig, he plopped himself down under the Bodhi Tree (Ficus religiosa, for those of you who are interested in that kind of thing), determined to sit through the Long Dark Night of the Soul, facing whatever remaining challenges blocked his path. Mara (The Crazy Demon Hamster that lives in each of our heads and hearts, spinning in his wheel, bringing up doubts and self-judgments) arose before Siddhartha with his Crazy Demon Hamster Army and began to confront Siddhartha with all the doubts and self-judgments he could draw from the deepest depths and most hurtful private places within Siddhartha.  Siddhartha meet them with compassion and kindness, turning them into flower petals which fell to the ground.  When the morning star arose and dawn was near, Siddhartha sat surrounded by a pile of flower petals, and Mara was down to his last weapon.  In his most fierce Crazy Demon Hamster voice, Mara screamed, “Who are you to think you are worthy of rising above the suffering of humans? Who are you, foolish vulnerable flawed human, to think you are worthy of enlightenment?”  In response, Siddhartha smiled and reached down and touched the Earth before him, signaling that he was worthy because he Belonged to the Earth, he Belonged to the World, he Belonged to the Foolish Vulnerable Flawed Humans.  He Belonged.  With a string of profanity and promises to return, Mara vanished.  Siddhartha was still a Vulnerable Flawed Human, and he was now the Buddha.  For the record, Mara continued to return throughout the Buddha’s life.  The Buddha invited him to tea.

If that story doesn’t convince you then I perhaps these lyrics from Radiohead might: “I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo.  What the Hell am I doing here?  I don’t Belong here.”    See?    Even rock stars have this challenge! This is clearly a real human struggle, right?

Not convinced yet?  How about Tracy Chapman: “So remember when we were driving, driving in your car; Speed so fast I felt like I was drunk; City lights lay out before us; And your arm felt nice wrapped ‘round my shoulder; I had a feeling that I Belonged; I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone.”     Even Folk Rock Stars know what we are talking about.

I have faced a series of events lately that have been pushing on the tender spot that is my struggles with that whole Belonging thing. Most of the events have been rough, and nothing special.  Perhaps of more interest has been the process of the struggle, which in all honesty has mostly been a series of wins for the Struggle, rather than me.  I do get some points for awareness and moments of presence, but typically it ends with the Crazy Demon Hamster doing a victory dance, tiny hamster arms raised triumphantly overhead.   This morning I put up a good fight and it came out a draw…possible even a slight margin of victory for me, so let’s look at that one (because I look relatively good), shall we?

I was hanging with the Hippies at a yoga class of which I previously was a regular attendee, but had missed a couple months due to dealing with the psychodrama of the Close-Family-Member-Who-Has-Alzheimer’s disease, work travel, illness, and all the kinds of stuff that emerges when you just want to go an exercise for Christ’s sake. On top of this, I have also been struggling to get back into long distance running, coming off a long standing injury that took me out of running for most of a year.  So with that as background: before class I heard two people discussing their recent training runs, distances & times, upcoming race plans, etc., and watched as they both warmed up for class; looking strong and powerful.  The Crazy Demon Hamster in my head and I looked down at my body through glasses tinted with comparisons to these others.  The Crazy Demon Hamster said, “Wow, do you look the Pillsbury Dough Boy or what? And I thought we agreed those feet are ugly and here you are walking around in them in public. WTF are you thinking? You don’t belong here.”

It wouldn’t surprise me if you read this and think it is just plain silly. My experience in that moment was that it really hurt.  It hurt so much I almost started crying and considered leaving class.  Kudos for my being aware of what was happening, and I still wanted to run away, stuff these feelings back under the stairs in the basement, maybe barricade them in with whatever other garbage is down there.  In the end, rather than “bravery,” it was the embarrassment from the thought of leaving class that kept me there.  Probably related to that annoying daily RAK gig, I figured as long as I was going to stay I might as well see where this would go.  As I sat there trying to “calm my mind and be present in this moment” for class and all that other Damn Hippie stuff yoga instructors implore us to do, I was filled with awful. I didn’t Belong here.  I didn’t Belong anywhere.  Current assessment indicated I didn’t even Belong in my body. I didn’t Belong in my brain. I didn’t Belong in my heart.  I didn’t even Belong in my feet!

I am many things and, in beneficial and destructive ways, one of the things I am is stubborn. Having determined to “be present” for this, I was all in.  Bring it, Crazy Demon Hamster! Let’s see what ya got, Mother Fucker!  I sat there watching this tidal wave rise, holding fast as I could to the moment, the curiosity, the sensations, at times offering a small morsel of compassion to this Goliath and even occasionally to myself.  It sucked, and I stayed.

Class began. I sloshed around in the waves of sadness, loneliness and sense of not Belonging. Then the  experience began to change.  No, I didn’t become enlightened, wasn’t filled with this joyful belief that I Belonged, or a powerful grounding awareness that I was in fact comfortable in my own feet.  No, none of that. I did however have less of the feeling that I didn’t Belong, my constricted internally-focused view of the world loosened some, enough for me to occasionally see the others in the room for what we all were; Humans on the Struggle Bus.  The room had all kinds of people in it.  Sure there were Yoga Rock Stars, who were fun to watch when not being used as a comparison of how lacking we are, and they also had times when holding a poise sucked like it did for the rest of us.  Pretty much all the Humans were trying to get through an hour of intense yoga without collapsing into Child’s poise and begging for mercy (Yoga instructors are a kind and cruel lot). The Struggling Humans were also fun to watch when not being used as comparisons to create a false sense of how much better we are, but rather as recognition of the human continuum as we all seek to find some peace in our day….and more flexibility with a stronger core, let’s not forget that.

I left the class with much of the same emotions as I started with (I cried a little bit on the way home), and those emotions were less so.  I have a painful history.  You have a painful history. We have painful histories.  It is hard for me to imagine a time where my Crazy Demon History, my own Mara, won’t challenge me.  It is hard for me to imagine a time when I don’t struggle with Belonging.  And I am the tiniest bit optimistic that I can avoid being waylaid by the emotional storm that arises; that I can be a smidge more present in those moments without running for cover; that perhaps even on occasion I can bring a sense of curiosity, an active welcoming for what surfaces from the deep without harsh judgment of myself or the need to put others down in my head so I can climb; that I can have moments of compassion for myself while also bringing kindness and empathy to the Other Humans and their struggles.

As I take baby steps on this path, I returned to thinking about my feet and how intense a judge I can be. My feet and I have been together for as long as I can remember, we have a longstanding relationship, and here I am being so harsh.  We have resolved to try harder, to try to make it work between us.  I promise to try to not be so critical and neglectful.  My feet promise to use this attention and caring to the best of their advantage, try to show the world that they are loved, if not always liked.  I think it is a long steep road to continue to try to build a sense of Belonging anywhere, including my body, brain and heart.  Perhaps trying to be comfortable in my own feet is a start.  I may even invite my feet to tea.

I know a woman and her husband who have reminded me of the importance of getting back on the diving board.

“There was still the serpent whispering…..’Taste and be as Gods.’     But neither infinite power nor infinite wisdom could bestow godhood upon man. For that there would have to be infinite love as well.”   A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr

As I am not yet ready to get another dog, today I tried out volunteering for a dog rescue organization that was doing a Meet Some of Our Lovable Dogs Who Need Good Homes event in one of those big box pet supply stores.  While hanging out near the front of the store with one of the Lovable Dog Who Needs a Good Home (who by the way was truly a Lovable Dog Who Needs a Good Home if anyone is interested: https://ophrescue.org/)  I encountered a woman who was juggling an infant in its infant-sized space capsule, a medium sized dog who was Super Excited(!) about this field trip, and a large purse that appeared to also be Super Excited(!) about this field trip, as she tried to separate a shopping cart that was tightly snuggled with its fellow shopping carts.  I helped her get a cart and made sure she was safely off on her pet supply shopping adventure. Random act of kindness in a big box pet supply store: Check!

Despite having completed the legendary quest of moving the Close-Family-Member-Who-Has-Alzheimer’s disease to a situation much better prepared to deal with her worsening status and growing care needs (See “Ouch” and “An Epic Tale”), my stress level has continued to be extremely high. I can easily generate an impressive list of reasons for this, but I could also tell that there were underlying reasons that did not immediately shout out their names when the roll call of likely suspects was performed.  I blame random acts of kindness for the loss of the blissful ability to ignore any signals from the Deep indicating there were reasons to listen more closely when searching for explanations. Stupid RAK.

But there those signals from the Deep were, so listen I did.  It turns out a key source of this extremely high stress was this situation required that I needed to rely on others, in this case the staff at this facility.  How can I know the staff is doing what they say they are doing?  How can I know they are truly trained and skilled enough to handle the current level of (hopefully temporary) psychosis and cognitive impairment? How can I know they won’t fail me, abandon me, leave me to try to pick up the pieces in a tidal wave of crisis?  Yes, I know these thoughts quickly escalate up the crazy spectrum, and there they are and my knowing they quickly move toward irrational does not stop them from being there.

I suspect most of us have had things happen in our histories that lead us to draw a line in the sand marking how far we go with trusting others, often for solid reasons, even if staying on this side of the line closes our horizons and shrinks our world. Some of us develop the skills to venture beyond that line, many of us don’t. I could be wrong, but I think most of the people in my life, even those I am quite close to, would be surprised that trusting others is such a big challenge for me.  I think I come across as open and trusting, and in many ways I am, and there is a wall that has historically been nearly impossible to get beyond.  I have been working on changing that, becoming one of those people who boldly ventures beyond the line in the sand.  It is really hard.  Perhaps the following story will help us both understand why it is so difficult:

I started swimming competitively when I was like 6-years-old and continued through high school. I could have continued to swim in college but by that point in my life the path I was on had taken some strange turns so I didn’t.  I was a decent competitor, but not great (which is pretty much the story of all my athletic activities). Some time late middle school/early high school I started to play around with springboard diving, again decent but not great. One day I was learning a new dive on the 3-meter board (the dreaded “high dive” our youth).  I had performed all the preliminary pieces off the board.  My coach and I had walked through putting the pieces together on the deck.  I climbed the ladder, stood on the board, thinking the steps through in my head, started my approach, made my jump-step, started my dive at the peak of the arc as the board tossed me into space. Somewhere as I folded and unfolded, twisted and spun, I made a mistake.  I opened up not as a knife edge slicing through the surface of the water, but as a full belly flop, every inch of the front of my body landing flat on the surface. Had the point of the dive been to complete a full belly flop, I would have received high scores from all judges. Sadly, that was not the point of the dive.

If you have never had the opportunity to experience the sensation of a full belly flop from a height of more than 3 meters, I will share with you that it is quite painful. I paused before surfacing and swimming to the side of the pool to assess my choices. Getting out of the pool and trying the dive again pretty much seemed to be the only option, what with my coach and other divers, etc., standing around waiting for me to get out of the water. I climbed out, the front part of my body now lobster red. My coach and I made a few jokes, I headed back to the board, climbed the ladder, and dove….with the exact same result.

This time I stayed under the water for a longer period of time while my body communicated in an extremely direct fashion about the consequences of falling from that height and landing on a substance that had the surface tension of water with the full surface area of the front of my body.  As I climbed out, I noticed my coach had stripped down to his swimsuit and had a look in his eye like he was getting ready to go in after me.  Meanwhile, additional people were starting to gather near the diving area.  My guess is the loud crack my body made as it encountered the water in a full belly flop had attracted curious onlookers. As fate would have it, some of these curious onlookers were attractive girls that I knew. Keeping in mind that I was a young adolescent male with all the glorious insecurities that come with that, the stakes were now significantly raised.  Far too cool to let on how much pain I was in, or to make eye contact with the ladies (Attractive girls? Huh, didn’t even notice them), of course I headed for the board.

I climbed the ladder, prepared myself, started forward with my approach, and my body froze. My brain watched this happen and at first couldn’t do anything to change this unexpected rebellion by my physical self.  Then, with great effort, I took another step forward. My body started to shake, I began to cry and I could move no further on the board. I had to climb down the ladder, left the pool in tears. Given that I am now such a well-educated smarty-boots, I know what happened was I had a panic attack.  At the time I didn’t know what had happened, I was humiliated, confused and still in pain due to the physics of flesh and water. I was never again a decent but not great spring board diver, because I stopped diving.

Our interactions with our Fellow Humans are filled with so many chances for missteps while attempting aerobatic maneuvers from the high dive.  We open up and find ourselves in the wrong space, smack!  Pretty much all of us get hurt in relationships. Sometimes it is a sting, sometimes it is the kind of injury that makes your coach wonder if they are going to need to pull you out of the pool. Sometimes you get really, really hurt by the people who are supposed to most look out for you and care for you and love you and provide you with a safe place to be you. Full on belly flop from the high dive. It is easy for our hearts to learn to simply say fuck that. No more climbing the ladder to the high dive.

Relationships are such a crucial part of finding our way toward that…..that something which allows us to become our best selves, to find meaning in all the complicated goo.  And we get hurt in relationships. Our evolutionary history has mechanisms to protect us from pain, physical or emotional.  One key tool is our body stepping in and taking control when it decides we are being too stupid to be left in charge (Body to Brain: Freeze, sucker! Nobody move and no one gets hurt!).  Another key tool our history as a species brings is Avoidance.  Seems to make a lot of sense, right? Stay away from things that cause pain.  Simple. Done. Well, that was easy…. Except avoidance of relationships means isolation from the source of something crucial and makes our fear of being hurt even worse, not better. Oh, crap. Well, this sucks…….

We are left struggling between wanting the intimacy of others and wanting to not get hurt. We try to play it both ways; having relationships but staying curled up (you might make a huge mess splashing others with a cannonball all curled up but you won’t belly flop). But is that really having a relationship? Really a way to get access to all those marvelous connections and prizes that are sort of the whole point of having relationships?

If avoidance actually makes our fears worse and trying to both be in relationships while staying safely unopened doesn’t seem like it would lead to relationships that nurture and feed us, where does that leave us? How do you get back into the trust pool when you belly flopped from the high dive? How do you walk out on that board 3 meters above the water when every neuron is on red alert and screaming, “Stop him! Abort, abort!! He can’t be trusted to drive this body. Stick a wrench into the spokes of the motor neurons. Lock those muscles down!!”

What are we supposed to do when two crucial aspects of our evolutionary history, our very ability to survive as a species, let alone our own efforts to not get eaten by fierce-some beasts are at odds with each other? As always we have a choice (There is always some damn hippie, sucky choice). Climb down the ladder, walk away, hoping not too many people see you in your tearful retreat, stop trying to be a decent but not great diver (Yea! Yes, let’s do that). Or (here is that sucky “OR”) you can stand there on the board until the shaking stops, then inch forward, repeat until your toes find the end of the board and then jump. It doesn’t have to be a 1&1/2 in the pike position with a full twist. You get full credit for simply jumping off the high dive.

In looking back over this post, I doubt any of this helps. Except for maybe if you find yourself frozen on the high dive with the cool kids watching you, looking down into the relationship pool, know that you are not alone. At least I have been there even if it is only you & me.

I know a woman and her husband who I think would appreciate the telling of epic tales. Perhaps even this one.

The other day I was driving through the small backstreets of my neighborhood on my way to a large street then to a huge freeway to get to work. My caffeine dose was well titrated and I was in that obnoxious awake but relaxed and centered post coffee pre-work zone. A minivan came up on me quickly and a glance in the rear view mirror revealed an agitated bearded man who was pounding on his steering wheel in frustration at the audacity of my driving the 25 mph speed limit in this neighborhood filled with kids. He even honked at me. On another day I might have stirred his crazy by slowing down a smidge while remaining steadfast to my course. That day, as I was in the obnoxious awake but relaxed and centered zone, I pulled over and let him pass. A random act of kindness, perhaps? He zoomed by me, circled around two cars waiting to turn right at a stop sign, and the last I saw of him he was crossing a double-yellow line to get to the head of a line of traffic at the stop light to get on to the huge freeway. While watching him disappear in a mini-crime spree of traffic violations, I wished him well and hoped whatever was happening in his day got better……as well as thinking he was an asshole and hoping he had a “challenging interaction” with a police officer who issued him a ticket specifically for being an asshole.

A few morning commutes later I saw this same driver in our neighborhood looking much calmer & following all the traffic rules including speed limits, stop signs and demarcated no-passing zones. I wondered if maybe he was not a card-carrying Asshole after all, if maybe he had been having a particularly bad day, if maybe there was an understandable reason for our previous encounter, maybe that moment didn’t reveal who he truly was. Maybe.

I am in one of those narrow metal tubes filled with strangers flying home from the could-not-wait visit with the close-relative-who-has-Alzheimer’s disease (See the post “Ouch”). For some reason, this morning’s early flight is crackling with anxiety and rudeness. I wonder why? Of course in the midst of this there is a core group of pleasant people, as well as those who are clearly amused by the high crankiness level. I am in the clearly amused group as I watch the anxiety & rudeness, and I wonder why it is like this today?

There have been a few times in my life when events stacked up to take me far outside my normal stream (I have an epic tale of trying to get home from work in a record breaking snowstorm that includes disabled buses, exploding transformers and walking passed a car engulfed in flame). Whether the series of stacked-up events take me to a vast ocean with huge swells or land me in a stark desert, I find that I am so far from my own stream that swimming as normal becomes useless. Despite this fact, I often continue to flail about futilely, splashing and sputtering, going absolutely no where until the tide changes and I find myself, through no action of my own, back in familiar waters where I am a master swimmer.

On those occasions where I realize that I am Not In Kansas Anymore and give up attempts to use my standard strokes to escape the circumstances, the strange world I find myself in (whether vast ocean or stark desert), becomes less pressured and less frightening. I somehow become more in that strange world even if that world includes chaotic, horrifying, heart wrenching, grind-your-teeth-to-the-roots stressful events, as well as providing me with an opportunity to truly embrace the absurdity and genuinely laugh at the strange land in which I find myself. This trip I am returning from on this plane with the cohort of anxious and rude people was one of those occasions where I was far from the stream I call home.

The primary purpose of this trip was to improve the living situation of the close-family-member-with-Alzheimer’s disease and in turn help a close family member I hold dear who has provided care for her for too long. I also ended up interacting with a number of other family members, including other family members I hold dear, trying to bring something to their worlds which did not grow there easily. I have come away with another epic tale. There were no disabled buses, exploding transformers, or cars engulfed in flames, but it was an epic tale nonetheless. Heroic deeds were accomplished, dragons were flushed from their lairs and faced in the open light of day, an old lady was moved to a more appropriate living situation.

Even with the dragons and heroic deeds, this would hardly make a truly epic tale, so the Universe added a cascade of tragic-comedies to make it a tale worthy of telling someday. There was the adventure of getting lost and being found in an Emergency Room 2 hours later with the mystery of how did she get there (Answer: She called 911 from a pay phone. Who knew pay phones still existed?). While waiting with her in the ER, because once you enter the Gates of the ER there is no escaping for hours, I heard a doctor tell a women in her 50’s she was having a heart attack and needed an emergency surgical proceed right now; watched the dynamics unfold for the multi-generational family of the grandfather next door who might not make it through the night as the mom tried to convey the importance of this to grandchildren who were sullen at being pulled away from their social activities; it goes on. Amidst all the beeping and advanced technology, Emergency Rooms are fundamentally human places, where we often find ourselves laid bare and vulnerable to much of what is so raw about being human.

Adding to the circus of the week were a visit to support a young relative who appears to have his act together as he ironically completes a short prison sentence; interceding in a domestic disturbance including calling 911, interacting with the police, and trying to support a family member I hold dear; and challenging an angry young man…..who was drinking…..and who was seen the day before with a loaded gun. [I am often not the brightest of humans when the Universe takes me on adventures, although I do have a great story about getting Not Robbed in Brazil].

How did I get here? Seriously, after all that, now this? Oh, Denizen of this Odd Space, is that really the life choice you want to make right now? Perhaps you should take advantage of my offer for you to take this in a different direction before the police arrive? I practically vibrate under the stress, and find myself giggling at the unlikely absurdity of it all.

It was also a week with many opportunities to perform daily RAKs, so I had that going for me. Much winning!

Ah, but back to the center ring of this circus: The close-relative-who-has-Alzheimer’s disease! Exacerbated by the stress of changing living situations, her Alzheimer’s flexed its muscle and put on an impressive display of classic Alzheimer’s symptoms. There were demonstrations of a wide array of pervasive hallucinations and delusions, confusion, dense memory deficits, mood swings, the emergence of near and distance past events which shape a life. And also my awareness of her ever increasing fragility and child-like manner she takes toward the world. There was the opportunity for me to strive to be fully present for expressions of deep sadness, fears about the very safety of the world, anger and betrayal. To be present for Cruel Words targeted to those trying to help her most. Cruel Words which stung deeply, not because she had said them (she is no longer herself) but because they were Cruel Words I was already saying to myself. Even as I knew the accusations were not reality, the sting hurt. A lot.

On the final day, I found myself standing quietly on the covered walkway leading into the new home of the close-relative-who-has-Alzheimer’s disease, talking with an older Hispanic gentleman who is also a resident. Shyly and with a soft voice, he repeatedly told me he had served in Vietnam for a “1000 years” and had received a Purple Heart medal.  He had seen me several times during the previous few days but never returned my hello or smile. I tried to be there as he smoked his cigarette down to the filter. I listened closely to his story. I believed him. He smoked another cigarette and then retreated back inside as one of the most intense thunder storms I have ever seen descended (and I am no stranger to intense thunderstorms). I stepped back out of the direct rain, but stayed on the porch. I tried to be as fully present as possible to the 30-degree drop in temperature right before the storm, the gale-force wind, the crack of thunder so close it immediately followed the lightening, the bits of rain & hail that reached back into my sheltered place to touch me, to how cold I was, standing there shivering, watching the streets flood. I tried to pay attention to and be as fully present as possible for all this fury, as I stood quietly on the covered walkway leading into the new home of the close-relative-who-has-Alzheimer’s disease.

Sometimes the events stacked up, you find you are no longer in Kansas and it is terrifying (Who covered their eyes during the Wizard of Oz when the Wicked Witch showed up? Show of hands?). But that is what makes it interesting, hilarious, and EPIC(!!), even if sometimes you do cry yourself to sleep. You take a foolishly large bite of the wasabi the Universe offers you, your sinuses explode, water gushes from your eyes, it stings like Hell, and it Shocks you awake. And maybe an opportunity to appreciate the humor and sadness that is happening in a different part of the world, far from the stream we are each comfortable in.

A lot happened this week, a lot happened that I don’t understand. Don’t know if I ever will. I know I had an adventure that may prove to have been an Epic Adventure as I absorb and ponder the lessons the Universe offered, and of course craft my story (I do love a good story).

In the short run, while waiting for my connecting flight back to my stream, I was given the Super Power of being able to walk around and actually “see” what was happening in a big, busy airport. Our fellow Flesh Puppets do some hilarious things.

I know a woman and her husband who challenged me to really see.

I have lived in DC for 15 years and the place puts on a pretty good Spring. This year has been the most beautiful Spring I can remember. Perhaps because for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, I am really seeing it.

Some friends of mine had a discussion the other day in front of me about whether I was an introvert or extrovert, which was kind of odd given that I was standing right there.  In the end, they turned to me for the answer and I said I didn’t know, I was sort of weird hybrid.  The weird part they agreed with, but they were not happy that I would not put myself clearly in one camp or the other. But I think it is the truth that I am both. That is probably just one of the many things that makes me “complicated.”

You: Well, that was random.  Me. No, no, this is a good segue to today’s chat.  You: Segway? Those standing scooter things? What?  Me: No, segue, to make a transition smoothly from one topic to another.  You: Uhuh…….

The world is easier when we can put things into categories. Often categories have values attached…which may be the whole point of putting things into categories to make the world easier.  Given the lack of appropriate ingredient lists & warning labels, we need to make judgement calls: I like this. I don’t like that. That is yucky. That is yummy. That is scary. Oh, super nice, this one will be part of my Happy Place.

Our fellow flesh puppets; man, but life gets easier if we can sort our fellow flesh puppets into tidy canisters…. and those bastards stay in their assigned canisters(!).  There are mountains of evolutionary and societal forces that make it such that sorting Flesh Puppets is the go-to behavior. If for some crazy reason you foolishly don’t want to sort humans, you would like to try actually seeing people for who they are without judgment, then you’d best be prepared for the difficult task of pushing back against a mountain…..should you choose to be so foolish.

I am much better about not judging people than I used to be (I attribute this as a by product of the sustained daily random acts of kindness challenge or Damn Hippies. Not sure which). “Much better” most certainly doesn’t mean miraculously awesome, but, yes, much better.  Judging others is such an easy behavior to fall into, especially when things aren’t going that well in your world, whether because of current events or grappling with demons from the past.

This last week was *not* a week of prize winning non-judgement. It was a rough week on many fronts and as the week progressed I was aware that the frequency and intensity of the judging mounted.  It is quite clear that the worse I feel about myself, the more judging comes spewing forth. As my insecurity, sense of isolation and self-criticism grew, and my sense of personal power, self-worth and world view shrank, the super-sized cargo ship of my judging broke free from it moorings and splashed into the shipping lanes of my life. Collisions everywhere.

What finally turned this around for me and allowed me to tie down that judging juggernaut was running in a 10-mile race.

Running has proven to be such a great place for me to witness my own behavior acted out on a glorious stage where I can plainly see it, especially around judging, whether it is judging of others or judging of myself, typically both intertwined. [Quick note: I am not a good runner.  I never will be.  There will always be people who completely bury me. The only person I compete against is myself. So none of this is about “winning.”]

Pre-race; it is easy to fall into assessing (judging) others against yourself and vice versa: “Oh, I will so crush that fat guy. Why is he even here?” “Hmm, that athletic woman will be way ahead of me. Don’t even think about her.”  “WTF? Why would any one wear something so stupid??”  So much judging, so little time.  And yet, all this “assessing”/judging is completely useless for what happens next when the race starts with you and thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of your best running buddies. The Fat Guy blows your doors off.  The Athletic Woman is somewhere far behind you.  You start to think around mile 8 that wearing an outfit like that might be fun. The assumptions I make about these people are always wrong because I know nothing of the circumstances that brought them to this place on this day.  The Fat Guy may have lost 100 pounds and trained for this specific race for months.  The Athletic Girl may have lost her job this week and stayed up all night with a sick child, on top of her nagging tendinitis.  That questionable outfit? Might be running in memory of a friend who loved Questionable Outfits, or simply might think it is fun and if we aren’t out here suffering through these miles to have fun, why the fuck are we out here?

The same is true for training. The guy who blows by you on the path might be doing speed work and on his first 100 yards.  The person you zoom by, perhaps finishing a 20 mile run.  You never know.  I guess while we are at it, the same is true of the people we meet in every context.  We never know the circumstances that brought them to this place on this day.

At this point in our journey together, I am sure it comes as no surprise that I have discovered I inflict my harshest judgements on myself.  I won’t ask for a show of hands, but I suspect I am not alone. What drives this? Yes, mountains of evolutionary and societal forces prime the sorting and judging game, but what do I bring?  For me, judging has its deep roots in a sense of not belonging; a fear that my own self-comparisons will find me lacking; that I am not good enough.  Lots more to consider as the layers peel back, but a start.

One of the many powerful lessons running has offered me is the opportunity to witness and ponder my judging, to notice the forms it takes and to find the bruised spot it emanates from.  That in turn has given me the chance to create space to step away from harsh words.  The reflex is to compare, but, on a good day, I quickly move away from comparisons when the Fat Guy runs by me like an antelope and the Athletic Woman stops to catch her breath as I sail by.  The Lady in the Questionable Outfit? Still working on that.

I know a woman who I think would have been amused by the post which follows.

Yesterday, I walked past a man in a public parking deck on my way to dinner.  He was standing at the pay-for-your-parking machine thingy, trying to feed it money and looking baffled as it kept spitting his legal tender back at him.  I could see his frustration growing.  I turned around and went back and told him you didn’t have to pay for parking after 7:00 which is why the machine wasn’t hungry. He was relieved and appreciative.  Sometimes the best random acts of kindness are little acts.

A quote from Tracy Letts (Among a variety of achievements, author of the Tony Award winning play August Osage County):  ” I think there comes a point in your life where you own your damage.  You don’t necessarily get over it, you don’t necessarily have it all figured out, you just say this is mine, these are the things I have to be aware of, take care of, work around.”

I gave Haley a preview of this new post.  She responded with “huh” and “Interesting.”  I am not completely sure what she meant, but I pass this along to you as a warning of sorts.  Maybe set your expectations low?

A rabbit story for spring because….well, because rabbits are cute…not as cute as puppies or kittens or penguin chicks (OMG! Penguin chick photos are some of the cutest!) or hedgehogs (who make me laugh) or even human chicks (who can also be pretty special), but rabbits are cute. And even though rabbits are…. “not the brightest bunny in the forest,” they seem to have a certain wisdom about them when you stop to watch.

You: Is this an Easter Bunny story?  Me: No   You: Oh……ummm….. Because we could probably work with that if it was.  Me: Not an Easter Bunny story.   You: Too bad.

There is a wild rabbit who lives in my backyard (the rabbit is not in any of the pictures because rabbits are good at hiding). Rabbit joined us about 10 months ago as a tiny baby bunny. He….she….I am not good at detecting rabbit genitalia so I don’t know….I assume rabbits are quite good at telling the difference….One would think… Let’s just say it is a boy for no particular reason. Anyway, there is a rabbit who lives in my backyard. I saw him just this morning, merrily eating the spring growth of fresh grass, beating back the chill of the morning by basking in the sun on my patio. My backyard is well enclosed with a solid wooden fence. Like Peter Rabbit, he must have squeezed under the gap in the gate about 10 months ago when he was a cute tiny baby bunny. He is now full grown and I do not think he can easily get out.

Etta (the annoying little sister) used to think he was fun to chase, although she never came close to catching him which was beside the point of Etta’s game. Chasing- way fun. Catching- why would you do that? Elly (favorite dog) used to think the main function of adding Rabbit to the backyard was as a provider of yummy rabbit poop treats so fully supported his presence in peace. Mr Kitty. Ah, Mr Kitty. He believes he is a fierce tiger in the grass and has hunted Rabbit almost every day since his arrival. Mr Kitty appears to be of the mind that Rabbit is either prey to be captured and then……something (I don’t think he is sure what happens next), or a rival who needs his ass kicked and to be vanquished. Mr Kitty can be a real asshole. Definitely not a live-and-let-live kind of guy. He has never achieved either of these objectives, and with the tiny baby bunny now a full grown rabbit I am skeptical he can. Still he continues his quest.

All in all, it would seem that Rabbit has a pretty good deal. Shelter, large food supply, safe from predators (Sorry, Mr K, but until you start bringing home confirmed kills….). All the trappings of a successful rabbit. This dude has it made, just look at his luxurious rabbit lifestyle. Look at all this grass. Look at that shed to hide under. Not a fox or coyote to be seen. I am sure his rabbit parents would be proud. Of course he has no rabbit relationships, let alone a close rabbit relationship, and the animals around him are hard to relate to and in turn don’t seem to understand him. But check out that grass, which is all his. Did he mention the shed? Practically a rabbit mansion/fortress (in case of the Bunny Zombie Apocalypse.).

I imagine a series of random events, rather than life choices (because who among us really makes life choices as a baby bunny?), lead to his current circumstances. Maybe his parents and siblings were eaten by a crazed wolverine and he barely escaped. Maybe there was a forest fire, he dove into the creek and emerged on the other side. Maybe one day he turned left instead of right.

No matter what happened in his childhood, Rabbit has accidentally found himself in safety, practically a rabbit paradise. Although it does not appear he gets to experience much of rabbit life. But then rabbit life is filled with danger and risk and anxiety. There are creatures actively trying to eat you to meet their own well-justified needs. There are cars which can squish you without even noticing your demise. Of course, rabbits are social creatures, and I don’t know if this rabbit is lonely & has an empty place inside his ferociously beating rabbit heart (Resting rate ~ 150 beats per minute), or is he completely content with his circumstances? If he could rise above his grass-level view and really see there was another way for a rabbit to live, what would he choose?

Watching him calmly nibble at the grass, he seems happy. But I wonder what it is like to be the last rabbit on his planet. Should I help him find his way out of my yard?

I’m not really sure why a story about this random rabbit seems like the story to tell.  It seemed important when I started.  Maybe I will leave it to you to figure out, or not.

I guess it is silly, but Rabbit started me thinking about the people I hold dear.  I find myself circling back to a question I said was important to me several months ago.  People that I care for, care about, and love, tell me what are you most afraid of?

And how can I love you better?