Two moments

Modern-day fables based on real life and fallible memory

I have two moments that keep me grounded. They’re times I recall being intensely present and trying to really see another human, who might be otherwise easy to look past. I play the moments in my head when I'm spinning, so I can try to return to earth.

I hate that memory is flawed, because it saddens me to think that what feels like such deeply personal and authentic experiences have been re-written to erase what was actually there in the moment. The very authenticity and grounding that I get from reflecting on these moments might be a result of my brain’s inventions, and not the true facts of each situation. 

What a disappointment.

But, they’re still serving their purpose, and I can hold them in that way in my head. They’re likely flawed, and I don’t need to cling to them as the truth-the-whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth-so-help-me-god. That disappointment and gentle holding of these stories can also be a part of their gift to me.

Indeed, holding things in these between-spaces has been a skill I’ve been developing, and a lot of that has been aided by Dharma talks, especially from Tara Brach. Listening to her weekly recordings has been a pretty regular part of my life for at least the last 10 years. These talks are given to a live audience, and then distributed as a podcast so that anyone can tap into her wisdom. 

Each of these is a kind of Buddhist lecture, explaining ways of being that I see as improving my life, and also making the world a better place. There’s abstract truths and direct applications like breathing exercises and meditations. 

Tara also uses stories and anecdotes to illustrate her points. They’re charming interruptions and demonstrate teh I’ve been listening long enough that sometimes she brings in a story that she’s used before and I get excited that I recognize. I think to myself, “Oh! I know where this is going! It’s a good one!”

Many of Tara’s stories probably aren’t factual, but the lessons that they have ARE true.

I see my own stories that are written below as having a similar function: they’re likely based on shifting facts, like grasping sand that slips through your fingers. But, their truth holds me, like the sand when I’m standing on the beach and staring at the sea.

What a Mother

She was struggling to push a stroller up an incline. I was walking behind her, on 20th Avenue (NOT 20th Street and don’t you forget that) in San Francisco. We were between Irving and Judah streets, only a block or so away from my home. This area, the Sunset, is an urban environment, but chuckled at as the “suburbs” of San Francisco, especially by those cool hipsters and techies who can afford places in the Mission District (which DOES include 20th Street). 

The Sunset has regular blocks of housing dotted with pockets of commercial activity. This quilt of streets sprawls mostly uninterrupted to the ocean, usually topped with Karl, the blanket of SF fog that has its own name. It’s regularly the foggiest, windiest, and coldest part of the city. It can have a dreary and expansive quality to it, in a city that regularly feels bustling and claustrophobic. 

I remember that day being windy. I heard her child crying, and she was also letting out frustrated cries and groans. I think she had some bags she was carrying as well, but I don’t totally remember. I felt like she was oblivious to the rest of the world, and appropriately so: she seemed to be carrying so, so much. A literal and figurative uphill battle.

I spoke up, with as much gentleness and earnestness as I could muster, “Can I help?”

She jerkily turned to look at me, indicating she had not realized I was there. “Huh? Oh, uh…no thank you,” was her response. 

She carried on more calmly. I really hoped it was a response to the verbal hug I had meant to pass along, and it wasn’t a shame response. I know mothers get enough of that.

Office Visitor

“I need to speak to your CEO!” 

A man had charged into the office where I was working as the front desk receptionist. Parts of his appearance, such as his tattered clothes and unkempt hair, suggested he was one of our unhoused neighbors. This was my job to greet anyone who came to our office, so I stepped up to answer his question.

“Oh, this isn’t where he works,” I matter-of-factly responded.

Some back and forth to explain that this was just an office where a couple of locally-based teams were located, and the main corporate office was downtown, a few miles away.

“Okay, who is here before you?” he asked.

“You are,” I replied, a little confused by the question, and also thinking I had maybe misheard or misunderstood him. I had understood him as asking who was standing before me, but why would he be asking that?

I never got that clarified, because that was all the man needed: he turned and exited the building right after that, without saying another word.

My co-workers came up to me, “Oh my god, are you okay?” 

Of course I am. I mean, the man hadn’t bothered me, but their question had. 

The real question: are my coworkers okay?