On Being Reminded

The ad said a mommy-to- be had an extra DVD player that was given to her as a gift. She'd only played it a couple of times, but it worked fine, and she'd sell it for $20 including the remote. Coincidentally, my DVD player died today, and I know better than to waste any time trying to fix it. I called and said I would be over right away. She sounded so relieved and grateful. She thanked me. I didn't think too much of it.

I missed the exit, or, more correctly, that exit didn't exist, so I called her number again to have her repeat the directions and a guy answered. He gave me long, involved directions, not even remotely resembling the directions she gave me, but I still thought I pretty much knew how to get there, so I tuned out the last bit, and just concentrated on the exit part. At the very end of the conversation he asked me how much she had advertised the DVD player for, and I said $20. He said $25???(incredulously) and I said, no, $20. Two. Zero.

Long silence.

he said, "well the remote is another five dollars."

I said "actually the ad specifies that the remote is included."

Another long silence.

Now I'm getting irritated, so I say, politely "I'm assuming you'll honor the price since that's how it was advertised"

he said "Sure, I guess so.......but I wouldn't say no to a tip!"

"I only have a twenty dollar bill with me." I said curtly, since I had already driven five miles out of my way, and was turned around and retracing my steps back that five miles.

I pull up to the house, and walk to the front door and knock on it. Dogs inside go crazy. There is a very long wait while the dogs continue to go crazy. I hear a guy in the background telling them to be quiet.
They obey, sporadically. Still, no one comes to the door.

Now I'm really irritated, and in my imagination they've decided that they want more than the $20 it was advertised at, and they just are not going to answer the door. I notice that the outside of the deadbolt on the door is missing and it's taped up on the inside. I start to think maybe this isn't a great idea. Maybe I should just go back to the car.

I'm stubborn and stupid and I knock again, louder.

finally a woman's voice says "Sorry, I'm coming...." The dogs accompany her, still barking. She opens the door.

In that minute the whole picture snaps into focus. I'm in tweakerville. She's got straggly hair, and her teeth are rotted out and she can barely concentrate on me. The dogs, little ones, are weaving in and out around her feet and she's having enough trouble steadying herself as it is. She's drunk and high and that much is obvious, and she's not sure how to do this. I say "That's okay, I'll wait out here - you can bring it out to me..."

She turns around and picks up a slim, dusty, stained DVD player, obviously well used. I say "Isn't there supposed to be a remote?" This further confuses her, and she turns around in a circle again, and then picks up a remote off the floor by the door, but it's the wrong color. It isn't the remote for this piece of equipment.

I am standing there and I don't want this DVD player. First, I'm not at all sure it even works. Second of all, I recognize a tweaker selling off stuff to buy more drugs, and I'll be damned if I'm giving her twenty bucks to help her poison that baby in her belly. Third, the energy around her, and the house, and the transaction, and this piece of equipment is really toxic. I don't want to bring it home with me. It's literally making my hair stand on end.

I stand there, unsure of how to get out of it. I stammer something about her boyfriend sounding like he wanted more money for it, and how I was fine just walking away, and she could re-list it at a higher price. She said "No, No, we only want $20.00 for it. It's fine. It's a fine DVD player. You can call us if you have any problems with it. We just want $20.00. $20.00 is fine...." She trails off.

But I just look at her and I don't want anything to do with this. I start backing up off the porch. "No, No," I say "...I just don't think this is the DVD player for me. Thanks very much...." and her little dog tries to follow me out onto the porch, but she comes out and scoops him up.

She's disappointed and it's awkward, but the wave of toxicity coming out of that house, out of that situation, is hitting me like a brick wall, pushing me all the way back to my car. I can't get in the car fast enough.

I'm driving away, and I'm glad I didn't buy the thing but I feel sick and sad from the whole scenario. It makes me cry and I cry all the way to Carmel. I'm crying for that little baby, curled up and helpless in her body while she poisons it over and over and its little body struggling to process the sheer volume of evil that she floods him with. And I'm crying for that woman and her desperation for the drugs, and where her heart must be that she can enact these crimes against her unborn child - because you know she feels what she does to him and she just can't stop herself, such is her desperation. And I'm crying for humanity and the world at large - which is full of so much hopelessness and helplessness and loss. I'm even crying for those dogs, because how can they all be getting what they need with parents like that? And I'm crying for me, because why did God give her a baby but not give me one? Why was I denied a child when women like that are popping them out all over the place and then crapping all over them for the rest of their lives, breeding more hopelessness and helplessness and despair?

eventually I get to the beach, and I am cheered up by the sun and the surf and the sand. The wind is high, and the foam lifts up off the crests of the huge, huge waves in a glorious salty spray, and the dog is beside herself with joy. We play until I'm too cold to play anymore, and I sit down against a granite boulder with the fragrant plants blooming above and around me, sheltering me from the wind. I'm listening to OK Go "This Too Shall Pass" on the mp3 player, and I have my hood on and my sleeves pulled down over my hands and my dog is curled up against my thigh, just watching the kids and the birds.

To my left a young boy, probably about 13 or 14 is building a sandcastle. He is rapt in his attention to it, stooped over it, stroking it with his hands, shaving off smooth surfaces with a piece of plastic he has with him, going over to the little stream that flows beside him and collecting water to drizzle over the top of the tiny parapets, smoothing the arches with his lean fingers. And I'm thinking that he's too old, and he's a boy, to be so captivated by this, but I then I see it, crystal clear. He's an artist. He's completely in the zone. The rest of the world goes on around him, but he is so meditatively fixed on his work that he doesn't notice them at all. The sand and the water and the wind are talking to him and he is answering them with his hands, with his heart, and there is a purity about him that is so beautiful that it's healing to me just to sit there watching him work. Watching the way his hands are moving, so deliberately and with so much care. Watching his face lost in concentration. It's amazing. I am uplifted and inspired and reminded, blessedly reminded, of how rich and varied the human landscape is.

God tells me every day to give up my attempts to understand the the humans in shorthand. God tells me every day that any conclusions I might draw about them are superficial, and flawed and absent of the love that is required to see them clearly. What matters in this situation is not whether the tweaker mom is a bad mom, or whether it's fair that she gets pregnant, but I could not, or whether the young boy on the beach represents a better model of humanity or worse. None of the judgments and comparisons matter. None of the ideas that I can come up with to classify the humans matter. This human is like me. This human is not. This human is good. This human is not. None of that has anything to do with what it means to be a human.

What matters is the connection. Connecting to the humans. Love matters. Today I loved the baby in her belly. Today I loved her even in her struggle and the way that she hates herself for what she can't stop doing. Today I loved myself through my loss and my confusion and my anger at God. Today I loved that boy for reminding me that we are all touched with grace. That we are all capable of everything.

And today I even loved myself for trying, always trying, and always in vain, to think up a shorthand. Some way to understand the humans. To understand myself in light of what it means to be human. To stand bravely in the threshold world where I am neither blind nor sighted. Where I belong neither to the camp of the blissfully ignorant, nor the camp of the blissfully enlightened. It takes stamina to stand in this place and to see and to see and to keep seeing and to keep feeling and to keep the open heart even though the "knife of uncertainty" surrounds me constantly. But this place, this threshold place, is actually what it means to be human to me, right now.

Behind the boy comes a blissfully ignorant man with four huge matching Weimaraners. He's walking right toward the sandcastle, and his dogs are bolting ahead of him, totally unaware of the work of art about to be trampled. the boy has just finished his masterpiece, smoothed an area and signed his name and he is rinsing his piece of plastic and his cup carefully in the stream. He looks up and sees the man and dogs coming straight for his castle. I am gesticulating wildly to the man, who is confused. My own dog is now confused. The man gives up trying to understand what I want and brings his attention back to his dogs, who are charging on toward the sand castle.

The boy merely glances at them, dries his hands casually on his jeans and runs off toward his family. Doesn't even look behind him to see if they trampled his masterpiece or not. I can see by his movement that his body is relaxed. His work on the castle is complete and his attention has moved effortlessly on. He is completely unconcerned about the well-being or longevity of the castle. He is a zen master; totally immersed in the moment, and completely unattached to the outcome or the physical representation of his efforts. He gets it.

I realize that I have been blessed by this boy. Watching him, I have been shown in detail how to do this living in the world thing and to do it well. It's a tiny parable - a little demonstration in real time. I'm certain that I will need to be shown again and again and again, because I always forget, but one thing I know I can count on...For every time I forget, Someone will remind me. I will always be reminded.

The dogs and the man swarmed around the sandcastle, but none of them noticed it, and never looking down at it, all of them crossed essentially right over it, some of them missing it by as little as an inch. None of them even touched it. Miraculously, they went about 50 yards down the beach, turned around, and retraced their steps, crossing over it again, never looking down, never noticing it, and leaving it completely untouched in their wake.