Wow, it has been a long time since I wrote anything in my journal. What I have to say today isn’t earth shattering but here goes. I have noticed the occasions that when I initiate contact with a total stranger, I feel good.
At the Nets games, or should I say losses, I wave to Frank Isola, one of the Nets broadcasters who does pre and postgame analysis and sits near our seats. And he waves back. Several seasons ago, he was standing behind where we sit and I asked him why, as a VIP, they don’t give him a chair and offered him my seat. He laughed and said he was no VIP and declined my offer. Then I caught him on a postgame analysis at the beginning of one year where he vowed to look both ways when crossing the newly installed bike lanes, mainly because you can’t hear the ebikes. Later on, I went to his station during the game and told him that I think of him and say his name every time I cross a bike lane. He laughed and since then we exchange a friendly wave.
After leaving the doctor’s office the other day, a man was leaving another doctor’s office. As we waited for the elevator, I said to him that I thought it a good sign we were able to walk out of the place. He laughed and on the elevator he told me he was fitting in all the doctor stuff before he left to deliver a speech in Denmark on people’s relationship with trees. I couldn’t refrain from telling him about my interaction with Dana Milbank and my efforts to view nature by taking pictures of the sun and moon. I don’t think he yawned as we left the building and parted ways, another good sign.
That same day as I was walking to the bus stop, I saw a man on crutches, the kind that loop around the wrist, he was holding one up in the air as though he was trying to flag a cab. He was standing behind cars parked at the curb and hardly visible to passing traffic. I stopped and asked him if he needed any help. He couldn’t hear very well and I told him either could I, but he managed to convey the car he was waiting for was down the road a bit and he just couldn’t get his attention. So, I went out to the street, saw the car, then motioned for him to move up. I then opened the door and helped the man get into the car. His legs were so stiff and one foot was medically wrapped so the driver got out and the two of us managed to get the man in safely. The man blessed me, thanked me and joked that I likely did not know what I was getting into. I laughed and bid him farewell. As I was walking on, the car passed and the man I helped waved to me.
Connection. Each of these very simple exchanges connects me to another and I feel a sense of joy. I can only imagine that they feel the same as I, if so, I had something to do with it by reaching out. With regard to the man and the car, upon contemplation of my own medical issues, I recalled one interpretation of the old story about the frogs and the hares, “However unfortunate we may think we are there is always someone worse off than ourselves.” I concluded this is not how I want to be, it seems to me it casts one as either better or worse than me. As Swami Rama taught, “all people are one because a single, non-dual Absolute Reality is the essence of every human being.” Or more simply put by the Māori, “we are all in this canoe together”. If only…