And Then It Hit Me
So while I was down in Orange County, I was walking in a parking lot, probably too close to the cars, and a woman backed up her car without looking and ran right into me. Fortunately I was walking fast and she was driving slow, but ouch. She was obviously shaken when she realized that the something she hit was a human.
I was fine, but it was a situation that seemed to demand some further interaction, and I turned back to reassure her and tell her that we both probably needed to pay closer attention to what we were doing.
But some fat pompous guy in a cheap suit was sitting nearby in his car with the windows open, and he shouted to me that if I was about to give that woman a piece of my mind, I better think again, because it was my fault as much as hers.
What was his problem? I told him he should mind his own business, and he got increasingly nasty, so I called him an asshole and told him to get a life. "Asshole!" I said, and stormed off, forgetting entirely about the woman who hit me.
I could not believe how much venom I felt, and how long it lasted! Even long minutes later, I found myself wishing I had slung a more customized insult at him -- maybe something about his corpulence, or how pathetic it was to be sitting in a car in the middle of the day lecturing strangers.
Asshole was a weak word, too generic. I had missed the chance to really shame and deflate him, and that made me even madder. Did he think he won? I even hoped some misfortune might befall him, nothing fatal, but certainly something inconvenient and humiliating.
And even though I sort of recognized that my rage was disproportionate and misapplied, it was hateful anger nonetheless, and I was in the throes of it. (I guess this is why folks should not carry guns around.) I like to think of myself as a peaceable soul who tries to cultivate patience and understanding, but here I was, stomping around like a pissed off Mafiosa girl ready to break the guy's legs.
Anyway, it was one of those days when everyone seemed ugly. Best to have those days when I'm back home with the cows and coyotes, but that's seldom when they happen. Mostly it was a day of duty and anguish and attempts at suffering-amelioration tempered by helplessness.
When I told the story of the parking lot incident to my friend Vickie, she said, "Of course you reacted. You're in a war zone down there."
Her sympathy was soothing. It released a dram of self-pity which I eagerly sipped. I had, after all, just come from the hospital...very hard, very sad. And I was after all, on my way to doing other hard things. There was a lot of emotional energy churning around inside of me. I was vulnerable and volatile. Shaky.
And then it hit me. Maybe the woman who backed her car into me was upset by terrible news she'd received that morning. The fat man sitting in his car in the middle of the day? He was feeling like a loser and thought that acting like a cop might inflate his self-importance. The point is, every contact and interaction is preceded by a whole series of events that shape our reactions as much as the contact itself. And life is tough, and everyone's got problems.
As I concluded long ago in this post, "...we never know what someone else is going through, and it is best to navigate with compassion." Yeah. I said that.
Well, it's a worthy goal, but sometimes it's hard to be so zen-like. People can be awfully annoying, and there are so damned many of them. (I bet you didn't know I was such a bitter old broad.)But I continue to strive. Maybe it started with my Sunday school indoctrination back in the 1950s...all those constructive, do-good, pot-luck-hosting Methodists with their firm handshakes, jumble sales, and kinder, gentler Jesus stories...somehow being a Nice Person in the world became very important to me, and continues to be. It is therefore disconcerting when the raging stevedore bitch woman emerges instead. But that potential for rage has been lurking in me for a long time too.
What can I say? I'm a work in progress.In fact, I told this story to another dear friend who at one point in his life had actually taken vows as a Zen monk. He told me that one of his vows was: No getting angry, and his master asked him, "Do you know what this means, no getting angry? It means no judging yourself."
"Remember, if you don't take good care of Cynthia, she can't effectively be there for others," this wise friend wrote. "You too are one of those sentient beings for whom we must keep our compassion alive."I
will try to remember this stuff. Self-judgment is just anger turned inside out. And as for garden variety anger directed at others...well, it just perpetuates itself, obscures the truth, and doesn't solve anything. Which is not to say I will consistently transcend.
Because I also respect Mark Twain's advice: "When angry count to four; when very angry, swear."