Yesterday I picked up a woman at a location I’d never been before. It was a brand new location, in a fairly new Kapolei shopping center. Not really that hard to find but I had some difficulty finding it anyway so by the time I did pull up to help her on board, I was feeling a bit annoyed at myself.
The woman was probably in her 70s. She was ambulatory but needed the lift. I quickly stuffed the peevishness peeking from the back of my consciousness and gave my passenger the full friendly Handi-Van treatment as I greeted and assisted her. On most occasions such as this I am happily reminded of how much I appreciate the fact that my job allows me to see clearly and in realtime how much and in how many ways I benefit from helping these people, but as soon as we were underway, I found it harder and harder to focus on this aspect of my service.
“Pau wurk aready, yea?” The woman said quickly and in such a thick local accent, I barely caught the meaning.
“”I’m sorry?” I responded. Immediately noting in my mind how I was intentionally not understanding her. Still slightly whipping myself for the recent navigational error, the unconscious part of me then projected these feelings of inadequacy onto this nice lady whom I’d only just met. What a jackass!… And of course that self judgment did nothing but exacerbate the feeling. The aware me stood by and watched, doing nothing as I forced her to speak more clearly.
“You off work soon?”
“No, I’m the night driver.”
I started driving and soon the woman spoke again.
“I saw you go by earlier.” She said quite clearly and I could feel I was now assuming she was suggesting I had been lost and thus didn’t know where I was going.
“Yes, I did go by earlier.” I responded in a fake polite tone. A curt response that didn’t leave the conversation open for her to follow what I was judging to be a poke at me to admit that I’d been lost. As I made a right turn from the building lot into the shopping center lot, I could hear her say something under her breath. I continued and went to exit the main lot.
“Ho! is dat McDonalds?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Over da lef sy.” There was a Wendy’s on the left but the nearest McDonalds was on the other end of the large parking lot. Near the other exit. We were obviously exiting differently than she was used to. Through the exit I would have used if I’d turned left upon leaving the building.
“You mean the Wendys?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Da kine McDonalds stay like how we go… all da time”
“This is a Wendys. The McDonalds is on the other side of the parking lot.”
“Oh, I thought you take the freeway.” She said.
I could feel the flood of judgement and corresponding distain for this woman welling up in me. It was all I could do to hold it at bay. I was quite aware of what was going on inside. I began reminding myself of this. Feeling the emotion while keeping my mind on my own actions and affirming how good it was that I could feel this with that awareness. The self doubt began to slip away and then I remembered to…
Breathe!
Oh how that changed everything. I responded to the woman with a completely different tone. Authentic friendliness with a nonchalance that projected as much of an “It’s all good” vibe as I could muster.
“Yes Ma’am” I said with a friendly smile in my voice. “We are taking the freeway.” And soon we were turning onto the fairly new onramp she may very well have never even seen before.
“Ho!” I heard her quietly exclaim as we accelerated into the night traffic. East-bound on the H-1 for Honolulu. To drop her all the way across town off Kapahulu street.
As we got near her neighborhood, I deftly navigated my way down some back roads to her house and stopped in front of her building with no further direction. Except now she wanted to be dropped at the building next door saying something about how she didn’t want the neighbors to complain.
I made no comment about that but instead made friendly eye contact and smiled warmly as she descended on my lift. I was truly grateful to this woman for being such a clear mirror for me. To look at myself once again. As I must do every day, with each contact I make with my fellow human beings. The contact that keeps me on track, showing up with intention and love.
To feel and think and act…
Truly blessed.
m(___)m
