How We Survive

27 January 2009

All in all though, other than losing my little white cat, these events weren't really about me.  They were related to me through the loved ones I have brought into my life.

Hiking up Runyon with David, I said, "I know we are always the star in our own life story, but this month, I seem to be playing the supporting role in other people's lives."  As if I am on loan, signing up for a 2 week guest spot as "the best friend" or "the loyal daughter."  And can I say - it's a relief to watch someone else struggle to grow and change instead of me?  David laughed, "So none of this is affecting you, huh?"   I love David.  He's a wise soul. 

How was this affecting me?  First - I was so angry that my cat was killed and the driver didn't even try to find the owner.  Then I realized - I don't know that he/she didn't try to find the owner - but I do know, my cat was left dead on the road.  So I'll assume only 90% rather than 100% today.

I have learned when I am angry, that I immediately have to do something good to find balance.  Sometimes, I buy my friend Marshall a present or I anonymously send in a donation to a worthy cause.  But today, I knew I had to go big.  So I wrote a letter to Daphne's Greek Cafe, praising my little chicken spot inside the trendy Target megacenter on Santa Monica Boulevard and La Brea.  Every time I go in there, the food is warm and fresh, the employees genuinely kind and they always follow-up and visit your table. Was the chicken well-done, like you wanted it?  Why, yes.  It was.

Having worked as a waitress for seven years, the first time I visited Daphne's, I was immediately suspicious.  Must be district manager pay a visit in secret and file a report week and they thought I was a spy.  I asked the manager that very question.  He was taken aback.  No - we really do try to provide good service all the time.  We know we can't compete with the bigger chains in volume so we're hoping for good word-of-mouth.   I refilled my soda and sat back down, pondering.

Having worked in both film and TV, I also know that most letters written by viewers are generally negative.  Rarely does one take the time to sit down and write a nice letter - hey, great episode!  No - normally you get, Katherine Fugate, you should be ashamed of yourself for what you did to our characters or hello, Burger King, your restaurant employee was eating fries in the drive-thru when she short-changed me a dollar.  So?!   I was 17 and hungry.  When I eat, I add better.  What we do less is send a letter of gratitude, of thanks.

So, I wrote my praiseworthy letter to the president of Daphne's and sent it.  That felt better.  But was it enough? 

I stopped my life and showed up for a friend.  Why?  Because I am a loyal friend.   It's just one chapter in her life, but it's a big one and I was proud to be a part of it.  To give the example that not everyone abandons.  Not everyone walks away.  You can still trust in this world.   Standing on the curb at the airport saying goodbye, my friend handed me a tissue-filled blue bag with a present for my daughter and for Ingrid and she thanked me.  Really thanked me.  That in itself, is extraordinary.  She is extraordinary.  She stepped outside of the pain in her own life and saw those around her. She was an example of gratitude.

Then I got to wondering - who did I really show up for?  Me, my friend - or perhaps both of us?  How would it have felt NOT to be there?  I would've been anxious, nervous and worried.  So in some ways, showing up for her was showing up for me.  Perhaps I was playing the lead after all.  We all play the roles we're comfortable with - that define us. I was let down so many times early in my life that I don't want anyone else to feel that.  So, my act is self-serving.  I have to be the loyal friend - because it's how I survive.

The jerk boyfriend plays the jerk boyfriend, because that's how he survives.  The victim plays the victim because that's how she survives.  The loyal friend plays the loyal friend because that's how she survives.  We all played our part, motivated perhaps by our past and the lessons we have learned.  Until those past behaviors, those lessons, don't work for us anymore.

David mentioned a difficult passage of time in his life when people suddenly showed up for him.  He realized he'd made enough deposits in the Karma Bank to cash out when he needed the coin.  My friend had done the same.  We showed up for her, because of how she has lived her life.  She earned it.

There is a belief that we choose the situation we are born into based on the lessons we are here to learn in this lifetime.  It helps explain why one child becomes a drug addict while another doesn't.  Why some of us are driven to succeed and others can live on the streets.  We can't walk every lesson - and we surely can't walk the lessons of others, as much as we'd like to - but our specific go-around this trip requires a certain lifestyle, a certain family, a certain sex, talent, drive or lack thereof to help us complete our cosmic checklist.  Which makes us thankful for every experience we have - good and bad - because they have helped guide us and arm us on the path we have asked to walk.

I met a man last week.  He had the album to Billy Jack, the song "One Tin Soldier," prominently displayed in his office.  I smiled slightly.  I was obsessed with that song.  Created the entire village "the kingdom on the mountain" and "the valley-folk below."  Named the villagers, even.  I still know all the words. "Turned the stone and looked beneath it.  Peace on Earth was all it said."  Then I noticed the fleur-de-lis on the candle holders.  Then the pictures of New Orleans on the computer.  Separated by birth, this man and I.  He told me this:

A guru once said, "I can tell when I meet someone how they weathered crisis in their life, just by looking at them."  When I see a successful, happy person, I know what path they chose when they faced crisis.  When I see an angry, shut down person, I know that, too.   We all face crisis, we all get kicked down the stairs. But it's how we get up that determines who we become, the friends we keep, the road we walk.

A violinist in the Metro.  An article came out last year in the Washington Post.  A social study, as it were, about where we expect to find our magic.  At 7:15 in the morning, during rush hour, a violinist set up shop inside L'Enfant Plaza in Washington, DC.  In jeans and a baseball cap, he played six of the most difficult classical pieces ever written.   In the 45 minutes it took him to play these, 1,097 people passed by.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy.  His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist.  Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head back to watch the Violinist as long as he could.  This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

Two nights before, the Violinist had commanded $100 and up per ticket at a sold-out concert hall in Boston.  His name is Joshua Bell.  The violin he played was worth $3.5 million dollars.  Twenty-seven people gave money, most of them on the run -- for a total of $32 and change.  How much do we miss when we're firmly locked in our world, unable to see those around us - what they give, who they are?

The first time I saw this quote, I was in a store with my daughter.  I had just had a long talk with a friend that lasted until 3 in the morning.  I was full of regret for having said too much.  I tend to be without a filter (better suited for coffee), especially in matters of the heart.  But despite my open-book bravado in the night, sometimes I wake up the next morning with a Reveal Hangover, wondering why the hell did I say all that I did?

Usually the Reveal Hangover comes with a splash of Uh-Oh.  Did I reveal to the wrong person?  Will this person somehow hurt me, abandon me, forsake me because they've got some kryptonite?

There's a reason we draw people into our lives.  Usually, we want a change.  To grow.  If we aren't honest, if we don't speak our true thoughts and feelings, we don't deliver the message.  If we don't deliver the message, we fail the greater weaver, who intertwined us in this first place.  I came home after buying the Invitation book and was still suffering the Reveal Hangover when Susan's magical box of cookies arrived. 

There are usually about 1000 lies out there one can tell, but only one truth.  I had told the truth that night.  I had the Invitation book in one hand, the box of cookies and Susan's note in the other and my Reveal Headache disappeared.

It was 10pm.  I didn't answer the call.  The voice was shaky on the other end.  We came home from the movie and found your cat, Pax, dead in the midde of the road.  I grabbed the phone.  She asked me where I lived.  On the next street.  We picked him up for you - we didn't want you to have to do that.  As she stayed on the phone, her husband carried our cat, wrapped gently inside a bag, that was then put into a box, all the way to my house.

He stood there quietly.  I said, hoping it was some sort of explanation:  I tried to keep Pax indoors, but he learned how to use the doggie door.  He longed to be out and to be free.  They are wild things, he said, still holding the box.  Another beat.  Then I took it gently.  I didn't open it.  He said, the collar is inside.  I had to cut it off to read your number.  I'm sorry.

I was amazed at the kindness of my neighbor, who I had never met until that night.  The next morning, we arrived at the neighbor's doorstep with a box of white chocolate and a thank you card.  The gesture seemed to confuse him.

Preston shook his head, bewildered, then said:  "It was the decent thing to do."

And I thought yes, it was.  We all do what we have to do to survive.

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