The Accidental Voice

“It’s ‘The Decade of Discontent’,” I said a few years ago during a conversation about being in your forties.  And it occurred to me this very well could be.   Professionally, people of this vintage are often on the cusp of deciding to chase the money, continue to chase it, stop chasing it or do something completely different in an effort to find that which fulfills them most.  The children are grown, but not all the way so there is still that dependence but independence has crept in so parents aren’t “needed” as much.  The body starts talking back too, asking “what exactly are you doing working me like this and why is coffee not involved?”  And then there’s the big stuff.  Shocking and unexpected news, friends divorcing, cancer and people who have life smoke a curveball they just weren’t expecting or didn’t really deserve.

I had a former friend tell me their marriage was breaking up.  They said, “this has happened before.”  The implication being that their partner had caused the breakup.  Later, it came out that they had actually had the affair.  It revealed a lot about the character of a person I thought I knew.

A friend lost someone to cancer, and another friend underwent surgery for a brain tumor; now living with the possibility that sometime in the future it could come back.

Three other couples we knew split and I winced knowing the pain that would consume them and their children for a time.

I ran up against the stark reality that parents get old and infirm and there’s no stopping that train once it’s begun to pull away from the station.  No conductor to tell or emergency rope to pull as the wheels slip a few times and the forward momentum begins its gradual build to full steam ahead.

Was it my age group?  Was it just me?  Was it this “Decade of Discontent” revealing a side that was darker than anyone knew?  I couldn’t tell, but it seemed so odd that so much was going on.

The pattern seemed obvious but there were no particular reasons.  And there were people focusing on the negative and finding the danger, fault and unhappiness in everything.  Again I asked myself was it just me?  My own outlook?  The political climate?  All the intolerance in the world?  People looking over their shoulders because someone told them they needed to be afraid.   It’s a habit that’s easy to start and once there, like anything, it’s a hard one to break.  Where were those who smile at the simple fact that the sun came up and everything is right with the world?

I read recently that 35 percent of human communication is facial expression.  So a third of what your trying to say comes not from your mouth, but from your whole face (words are only 7 percent, body language the rest).  I wasn’t really surprised because for whatever reason, I have always sought to make people smile or laugh whenever I spend more than just a moment or two with them.  The face always looks much better that way.  It’s not something I actively seek, just a … well … hobby of sorts.   It seemed a decent thing to do.  Collecting happiness.  Watching for the smile, making a subtle joke or comment that elicits the crinkle of the nose, the sparkle of the eyes, the drawing of the corners of the mouth.  It’s a trophy from a brief exchange of words while waiting in line, a small token I can take from a business meeting, a triumph that, for a brief moment, I had a little part in bringing a small amount of joy to someone.

I have known positive people and I have known people about whom others say “boy, they find the negative in everything.”  Everyone has that choice to make  and, thankfully, some have made the choice to be happy people.   Just by their very nature they are happy and what a pleasure it is to run up against them.

***

Diane and I headed up to the Smoky Hill Library the other day for a meeting about high school options for  the boys.   It was a bright, sunny day and as we walked in to the library, we noticed a small coffee bar tucked off a hallway where the meeting rooms were.   The name escapes me, but it was typical of what you might expect; little alcove, books to read, a counter for service and a closet of a back room for supplies.  We had a few minutes so decided to grab something.

That would have been the end of it had the young woman behind the bar been a regular cashier just doing her job.   But she wasn’t.  As soon as she opened her mouth, the inflection and expression she put forth was like the wash from a passing semi.  The kind that rocks you back on your heals and if you’re not ready for it, you immediate think “whoa, laying it on a little thick.”  It made Diane and I smile but I was a little uncomfortable because I didn’t quite know how to take this person.

Ordering our drinks, we made small talk and in that minute or two I suddenly realized she wasn’t laying it on at all.  This was how she lived.   She was simply filled with joy.  It almost seemed as if every moment was a gift to her and she wasn’t apologizing to anybody for appreciating each one.   So much so that the words she used were full of happiness and appreciation.  Words like fantastic and wonderful, greeeat and excellent.  And she meant them.  We talked about nothing of particular importance but it was as if we were the ones she’d been waiting to talk to all day.  Suddenly, we were basking in her joy, letting it cascade over us like a warm late-summer rain; turning our faces into it, almost holding our arms out to catch what we could.  We walked away from that little coffee bar feeling pretty sweet.  It may have been one of the best drinks I’ve ever had … and it wasn’t the coffee.

***

My family and the boys’ grandparents went to Elephant Bar to celebrate father’s day this year.  We’d been there before, liking the service and the menu with its abundance of choices.  When our server walked up we were met with a bright, beautiful smile, pleasant air and friendly voice.  She didn’t sit down in the booth with us and pretend to be our friend.   She didn’t slap her book onto the table and squat down so she could look us all in the eye, elbows splayed out on the table while she took our drink order.  Nope, she just spoke to us directly, looked us in the eye and immediately (I’m not exactly sure how she did it) made us feel that she was happy to be there for us and maybe just happy to be there, period.  The conversation somehow strayed from the business at hand and we found out that she had ridden her bike to work.   She rode to work every day, in fact.   From Denver to Centennial.  We were duly impressed.

The weather was pretty stormy outside that evening so we expressed our concern about her return ride, but she brushed it off.  “I sometimes hop on the lightrail if I need to,” she said, even thought the lightrail was still a few miles up the road and riding in the rain was a real possibility.  She told us she was closing that night so it would also be late when she left.  With the weather, the late hour of her departure, the prospect of possibly having to stand dripping in the back of the train with her bike (those are the rules: you have to stand, in the back, if you have a bike) you’d think she would be put out.  Nah, life was an adventure and she just seemed to say “bring it!”  She was there to help people have a pleasant evening together, riding home in the rain was inconsequential.  We were convinced that anything challenging that came along for her would be met with relaxed determination and aplomb.

She was, I would venture to say, the best server I have ever had in the fifteen or so years I have lived in Colorado.  Not because she was there to fill our water every time we took a sip and not because the timing was especially perfect.  That didn’t matter.  It was because she looked at us with a clear gaze, spoke with a calm voice and projected a true desire to make our evening better.  Diane and I both felt the tip was nowhere near adequate to pay her back for that but we found her manager and made sure he understood there was someone in his midst that brightened the world around her.  That mattered.

***

How great to be around people such as these who are so warm and giving of their kindness and joy.  How great it would be if there were more of them.  You kind of wonder what font of life they’ve found from which to drink.  If I find it, I’m giving it away to anyone I can and I won’t tell the marketers.  They’ll just exploit it, soiling the purity of the simple luck of coming across someone and suddenly having your day become completely different.  And that’s kind of the point isn’t it.   Making the world brighter around you; laughing, sharing a joke with the person across the counter,  changing up the way someone might expect the conversation to go so they slip out of the groove a little.  And the smile always comes.   Another bit of happiness to collect.

Thank you sir, may I have another.

As you step out into the bright sunlight, or even the teeming rain, in days to come, think of the gift of a smile or kind word you’ve been given and use them both willingly and with reckless abandon.   If everyone endeavored to create laughter around them whenever they were, I am convinced their lives would be better for it.  And, who knows, perhaps they would unknowingly help that one person who needed it the most that day.   The neighbor who’d just told her husband she was leaving and knew the pain it caused, the one who’d just found out it wasn’t benign, the one who just spent the weekend discovering their parent didn’t really know who they were any more.  In that, they themselves might find a brief moment of peace, grace and joy without knowing where it came from.

Essays being happy, giving joy, human interaction, interpersonal communications, joy, positive outlook

Imagine this! You’re walking North on Wilcox heading to dinner at the Castle Cafe, or maybe breakfast at B&B. About half way down the block a new business is setting up shop. They have boxes and equipment outside up against the front of their store. It’s mostly moved out of the way, but there’s a lot there so it’s kind of crowded. Because the sidewalk is not very wide and there are parking meters at the curb, the path to get by has become just wide enough for one person. The pedestrian traffic is not all that heavy, but there are a few people on the walkway.

As you approach the narrowing of the sidewalk you move to your left to pass the store front and avoid running into their stuff, you suddenly sense a presence off your left shoulder and before you can think, someone has cut in front of you and is quickly making his way through the narrowed walkway. You have to slow your pace to avoid now running into him lest you veer and crash into the boxes strewn about.

How about this? You’re waiting on a street corner for the light to change. Just as it changes you drop the book you were holding in your hand. The crowd around you begins to move as you stoop to pick it up but the person behind you has to wait briefly before he can proceed across the street.

“Come on, buddy, move it,” he says behind you as you stand again. Stepping out into the street, you notice the man behind you suddenly pick up the pace and jostle you to get by. He passes and waves just a single finger at you. Hopefully, in this instance, although the urge to respond might be high, you hold your tongue and your temper and continue one your way.

One more. Again walking down the street, this time there is light foot traffic and you are moving along nicely with them. A guy turns in front of you so you have to slow a little quickly to let him pass. From behind you you hear a “whoa!” as the person who was following you too close pulls up short and has to stop himself from knocking you down.

Next thing you know, he has sped around you but instead of continuing on he stops dead in his tracks and you crash into him.

I would think any of these events, especially on a busy city street, would lead to additional physical contact or at least the exchange of harsh words. I don’t think anone reading this could imagine actually doing that.

So what gives? People do these very same things in cars…every day. Something that might significantly increase the chance of getting the living snot beat outta someone on the street, is practiced every day as if the cloak of a car is enough to make you anonymous.

They give you angry looks, flip you the bird, zoom around you and slam on the breaks and whatever else they can do to let you know they are the “king of the road”, you are in “their house” and you’d better get out of the way, because what they have to do and where they are going is far more important than anything you might be up to.

Just after college, I lived in Annandale, Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C. One weekend evening, on the way to Georgetown, a friend and I were driving on I-325 through Alexandria. Already amped up at the prospects for the evening, we “got into it” with some fool (or at least at the time, we thought him the fool) who eventually did end up zooming in front of us and slamming on the breaks.

Being an inexperienced and overzealous 23-year-old behind the wheel, I hit the breaks a little too hard and in the middle of a 6-lane highway did a complete 180, complete with smoking rubber and squealing tires.

When it was over a few seconds later, I was facing a phalanx of oncoming headlights, the acrid smell of burnt rubber was in my nose and all I could says was “far out.” As nonchalantly as you might expect an inexperienced 23-year-old hopped up on testosterone might say it. These days, with the wisdom of time, I ask myself, who was the fool.

At the time, it was “cool”. We had a great night and I think my roommate even met a beautiful red-haired flight attendant. But it could have turned out very differently. I could be dead and you wouldn’t be reading this.

I don’t do that any more. I and my wife like it that way. So, when the guy in the trailer won’t let me merge and then has the nerve to point his fat finger at me like a gun and “pull the trigger”, I just let him go by. He has to live with himself, not me. When the silly lady speeding up the road weaving in and out of traffic appears in my rear view, I make room. She’s going to screw up one day and end up seeing how quickly two tons of steel can come apart at 70 miles an hour. But I’m not going to be the one she takes with her. And yesterday, when I watch a guy in a pickup swerves from the hammer lane, across two lanes of traffic, to the far right lane and then back just missing my front bumper (I was in the center lane), only to waggle that single fingered hello with vigor at the horse trailer that was impeding his progress, I just shake my head and give a sad smile.

I guess in a way, we all try to hammer out our own space in the world. We try to feel like we have ownership of something. And so we try to buy the bigger house, plant the greener expanse of lawn, own the biggest car or truck and take ownership of the hundred or so feet of road around us. But if we’re all doing that, it leaves no room for anyone so I will never be sure of the logic in it. I just know it grows tiresome and uses more energy than I want to give to such trivial and unproductive endeavors.

There seems to be a lot of negative emotion in the world these days. Some days it feels like it’s poisoning the air and choking out reason. There is animosity and fear. Many people are fighting over power, oil, land, territory, money or whatever. In some cases it has consumed them. Even if they have already lost, they won’t give up until there is “victory” as if that will make any real difference.

All human emotion is there for a reason. We are built the way we’re built and there’s not all that much we can do about it. But as we coexist with the varied and diverse other humans that walk the planet, those emotions that bring us together are always the ones that take the most work to build. Compassion, respect, honesty and loving kindness are luckily not in short supply (they never really are), but through the storms in the news, they are sometimes hard to find.

So the next time you’re trying to hammer out more space for yourself, see if you can stop and ask yourself what you’re doing it for. Is the reason really that important? Wouldn’t it be better to just let him merge in front of you, take a moment to hold the door for someone at the post office, let the young, uniquely-pierced teen laden with items go ahead of you in the grocery line?

It may be human nature to try to gather to yourself all you can. A survival mechanism that kicks in when things get a little wonky in our world. Whether it’s the intangibles of power or respect, or the solid physical presence of material items or money, it sometimes feels that the more we have, the more we can cloak and protect ourselves from the fear that makes us feel so out of control.

In the end, we’re all part of the same thing. As Carl Sagen once said, ” that’s here, that’s home, that’s us”. I firmly believe It is less important to be a part of a collection of things as it is to be a part of humanity. Besides, you really don’t own anything, anyway. You’re just borrowing it while you here.

Essays interpersonal communications, kindness to fellow man, respect, road rage, the cloak of the car