The kindness of strangers
Which I don't mean so much in a Blanche DuBois getting-raped-and-then-institutionalized kind of way, more like a yogic maitri "lovingkindness for all creatures" and good Samaritan kind of way. Two incidents of note in recent weeks - the second of which happened just a few hours ago (thus engendering this post).
First was a few weeks ago, in LA. Dr. J. was headed off with the family to a Catholic ritual of some kind involving babies or small children or some such, so I treated myself to some early-morning yoga, conveniently located just 8 miles (= 11 minutes when the suburban LA highways are uncongested) from her house. This was the hot kind of yoga, not so meditative or eastern-style, but 105 degrees of sweaty goodness for 90 minutes that usually leaves me feeling happily wrung out and just better overall. Now every studio I've ever been to for this kind of yoga provides material for drop-ins: pay a little extra on top of the class fee and you can rent a mat and a towel and buy some water. But not this one - mat, check, water, check. But towel? None for rent, only for purchase. But I didn't want to buy some giant lavender towel for 3x the price I would pay at one of my discounty places, and also I didn't have room for it in the backpack and I suppose I could have left it with Dr. J., but really it was very annoying. "You really don't have towel for rent?" I asked again, hoping, I guess that the answer would change. "Maybe you should highlight that on your web page, because if I had known I would have brought one from my friend's house." As I finished pouting, this handsome guy I'd been chatting with as we waited for the studio to open popped his head out from around the corner. "Wait, you need a towel?" he asked. "I have a spare, you can use it for the class if you want." Now I come from a sweaty people (except for my Mom, who just goes kind of purple), and when you combine this with the 26 postures and high temperatures, it makes for a lot of sweat. I mean, a lot. So I stood there considering, and thinking, and weighing the pros and cons. It would save me twenty bucks and the bad mood of having to buy a stupid towel. But then could I really soak this guy's towel and then hand it back to him with a smile at the end of the session and just float away? He saw my indecision, walked over and put the towel in my hands, and said, "Please use it. Really." And so it was decided for me. His act of kindness put me in a really great mood for the entirety of the class, even though I felt super-sensitive and kind of guilty each time I felt a drip fall off my elbow, or nose, or ankle. I mean, it's one thing to be nice when it's basically effortless, but he knew that his generosity was going to entail extra laundry and cleaning up some stranger's perspiration. Which made it truly generous in my book. When class was over, I carefully folded up the towel such that the driest parts were on the outside, and walked over to where he was doing some post-class stretches. After thanking him effusively I was all ready to apologize for the ickiness when he leaned in and said, "I hope you haven't been worried about that towel being too gross. I mean, it's my spare towel, I always have it but don't really use it. So it's not like it's been dripped on every week for months, I mean, it's really very clean. So I hope you weren't worried." I couldn't believe it - here I'd spent the past 90 minutes worried about how he was going to think bad things about me once he got his towel back, but apparently that whole time he'd been worried about my perceptions of him. There's some kind of lesson in there somewhere, though I'm not sure if I can articulate it yet.
Today's incident was way more dramatic, although sadly did involve far fewer attractive and barely clad men (as in, none). In honor of Bike to Work day last Friday, I biked to work last Thursday. I know, I know, I'm such an iconoclast, or maybe just not understanding how society really works, but it's just that I was going to work from home on Friday, and the 3 block ride to the cafe didn't seem sufficiently meaningful. So I biked on Thursday instead. Anyway, although it had been over a year since I'd ridden my bike, which is in desperate need of a tuneup so not running all that smoothly, and despite taking some pretty serious detours because of badly marked trails, it was a great way to get to work. Mostly back roads and then lots of trails, most of which run alongside small rivers that have ducks and geese and all kinds of small songbirds (today I saw 9 finches landing on a tree) and many quite pretty mid-Atlantic-type vistas. And biking slow is taking about 60 minutes each way, which is just 15 minutes more than my commute via subway, and with many more health benefits. But at the end of the day, not only did my butt hurt, but also my back, both from the leaning and from the heavy backpack. So this morning I decided that on today's bicycle commute I would use my bike rack on the rear tire and attach my courier bag to it with two bungee cords. It worked fine on the way in, but the cords didn't seem to want to fully attach when I put my bag back on after work. I checked over my shoulder a few times, and listened for the rattle of the bike lock in the bag as it met with the rack each time I went over a big bump (Spookytown not big on the infrastructure, so that was pretty frequent). So imagine my horrified surprise when I made it home after 62 minutes of concerted peddling, dragged the bike down to the bike room to store it, turned around and reached to unhook the bag and get my keys, and discovered there was no bag. None. And one missing bungee cord. With a feeling of horror in my stomach, I thought back over my trip. How could I have not heard my heavy, heavy bag thudding to the ground? When was the last time I'd seen it? How could I retrace my steps by car and effectively search for my bag at the same time? What if it was on one of the car-free bike paths? Could I find someone to come along and help me on my search? Could I even get back into my apartment? I had a lot of stuff in that bag! My keys, for one, to the apartment and car and office and bike lock. My bike lock, also in the bag. And three books I need for some article revisions tonight, and my best pair of jeans, and oh, yes, my wallet too. As I was musing about how totally fucked I was if I didn't get that bag back, my neighbor appeared on her balcony, and then helpfully let me in, lent me a chair to climb over our balcony railings so I could get in through my (thankfully open) screen door, and offered any other help she could provide. I dithered about, not sure what to do first. First turned out to be getting out of the bike clothes and into human clothes once more. Second turned out to be going online, finding info about the sole credit card I carry in my wallet, and preparing to call them to cancel the card. I had just gotten the phone number and my account number and was lifting the phone to call and cancel when I got a call from the front door. It was a woman who had found my bag and had driven over to deliver it to me with her husband. They had been out walking around 10 blocks away, seen it, found my driver's license in my wallet (which was, of course, cash free) (now I'm relieved the farmer's markets here are so very expensive and I had so little cash left after yesterday's excursion), gotten in the car, and driven it on over. I wanted to give her a reward, but kind of had had all my cash stolen, so instead thanked her about a million times. "Just being a Good Samaritan," she said. "Well, you saved my day," I said. "Or week. Or month." As I staggered back to the house, relieved and also carrying a really heavy bag, I looked at my watch and realized that only 25 minutes had passed since the time I had realized my bag was missing. 25 minutes! It has got to be the speediest bag delivery/wallet recovery in Spookytown in many years. I mean, how nice is that? I'm certainly a person who has returned wallets in her day, but not within seconds of finding them. So I'm feeling a little lucky today, at least vis-a-vis bag karma. And so very appreciative of the kindness of strangers .
First was a few weeks ago, in LA. Dr. J. was headed off with the family to a Catholic ritual of some kind involving babies or small children or some such, so I treated myself to some early-morning yoga, conveniently located just 8 miles (= 11 minutes when the suburban LA highways are uncongested) from her house. This was the hot kind of yoga, not so meditative or eastern-style, but 105 degrees of sweaty goodness for 90 minutes that usually leaves me feeling happily wrung out and just better overall. Now every studio I've ever been to for this kind of yoga provides material for drop-ins: pay a little extra on top of the class fee and you can rent a mat and a towel and buy some water. But not this one - mat, check, water, check. But towel? None for rent, only for purchase. But I didn't want to buy some giant lavender towel for 3x the price I would pay at one of my discounty places, and also I didn't have room for it in the backpack and I suppose I could have left it with Dr. J., but really it was very annoying. "You really don't have towel for rent?" I asked again, hoping, I guess that the answer would change. "Maybe you should highlight that on your web page, because if I had known I would have brought one from my friend's house." As I finished pouting, this handsome guy I'd been chatting with as we waited for the studio to open popped his head out from around the corner. "Wait, you need a towel?" he asked. "I have a spare, you can use it for the class if you want." Now I come from a sweaty people (except for my Mom, who just goes kind of purple), and when you combine this with the 26 postures and high temperatures, it makes for a lot of sweat. I mean, a lot. So I stood there considering, and thinking, and weighing the pros and cons. It would save me twenty bucks and the bad mood of having to buy a stupid towel. But then could I really soak this guy's towel and then hand it back to him with a smile at the end of the session and just float away? He saw my indecision, walked over and put the towel in my hands, and said, "Please use it. Really." And so it was decided for me. His act of kindness put me in a really great mood for the entirety of the class, even though I felt super-sensitive and kind of guilty each time I felt a drip fall off my elbow, or nose, or ankle. I mean, it's one thing to be nice when it's basically effortless, but he knew that his generosity was going to entail extra laundry and cleaning up some stranger's perspiration. Which made it truly generous in my book. When class was over, I carefully folded up the towel such that the driest parts were on the outside, and walked over to where he was doing some post-class stretches. After thanking him effusively I was all ready to apologize for the ickiness when he leaned in and said, "I hope you haven't been worried about that towel being too gross. I mean, it's my spare towel, I always have it but don't really use it. So it's not like it's been dripped on every week for months, I mean, it's really very clean. So I hope you weren't worried." I couldn't believe it - here I'd spent the past 90 minutes worried about how he was going to think bad things about me once he got his towel back, but apparently that whole time he'd been worried about my perceptions of him. There's some kind of lesson in there somewhere, though I'm not sure if I can articulate it yet.
Today's incident was way more dramatic, although sadly did involve far fewer attractive and barely clad men (as in, none). In honor of Bike to Work day last Friday, I biked to work last Thursday. I know, I know, I'm such an iconoclast, or maybe just not understanding how society really works, but it's just that I was going to work from home on Friday, and the 3 block ride to the cafe didn't seem sufficiently meaningful. So I biked on Thursday instead. Anyway, although it had been over a year since I'd ridden my bike, which is in desperate need of a tuneup so not running all that smoothly, and despite taking some pretty serious detours because of badly marked trails, it was a great way to get to work. Mostly back roads and then lots of trails, most of which run alongside small rivers that have ducks and geese and all kinds of small songbirds (today I saw 9 finches landing on a tree) and many quite pretty mid-Atlantic-type vistas. And biking slow is taking about 60 minutes each way, which is just 15 minutes more than my commute via subway, and with many more health benefits. But at the end of the day, not only did my butt hurt, but also my back, both from the leaning and from the heavy backpack. So this morning I decided that on today's bicycle commute I would use my bike rack on the rear tire and attach my courier bag to it with two bungee cords. It worked fine on the way in, but the cords didn't seem to want to fully attach when I put my bag back on after work. I checked over my shoulder a few times, and listened for the rattle of the bike lock in the bag as it met with the rack each time I went over a big bump (Spookytown not big on the infrastructure, so that was pretty frequent). So imagine my horrified surprise when I made it home after 62 minutes of concerted peddling, dragged the bike down to the bike room to store it, turned around and reached to unhook the bag and get my keys, and discovered there was no bag. None. And one missing bungee cord. With a feeling of horror in my stomach, I thought back over my trip. How could I have not heard my heavy, heavy bag thudding to the ground? When was the last time I'd seen it? How could I retrace my steps by car and effectively search for my bag at the same time? What if it was on one of the car-free bike paths? Could I find someone to come along and help me on my search? Could I even get back into my apartment? I had a lot of stuff in that bag! My keys, for one, to the apartment and car and office and bike lock. My bike lock, also in the bag. And three books I need for some article revisions tonight, and my best pair of jeans, and oh, yes, my wallet too. As I was musing about how totally fucked I was if I didn't get that bag back, my neighbor appeared on her balcony, and then helpfully let me in, lent me a chair to climb over our balcony railings so I could get in through my (thankfully open) screen door, and offered any other help she could provide. I dithered about, not sure what to do first. First turned out to be getting out of the bike clothes and into human clothes once more. Second turned out to be going online, finding info about the sole credit card I carry in my wallet, and preparing to call them to cancel the card. I had just gotten the phone number and my account number and was lifting the phone to call and cancel when I got a call from the front door. It was a woman who had found my bag and had driven over to deliver it to me with her husband. They had been out walking around 10 blocks away, seen it, found my driver's license in my wallet (which was, of course, cash free) (now I'm relieved the farmer's markets here are so very expensive and I had so little cash left after yesterday's excursion), gotten in the car, and driven it on over. I wanted to give her a reward, but kind of had had all my cash stolen, so instead thanked her about a million times. "Just being a Good Samaritan," she said. "Well, you saved my day," I said. "Or week. Or month." As I staggered back to the house, relieved and also carrying a really heavy bag, I looked at my watch and realized that only 25 minutes had passed since the time I had realized my bag was missing. 25 minutes! It has got to be the speediest bag delivery/wallet recovery in Spookytown in many years. I mean, how nice is that? I'm certainly a person who has returned wallets in her day, but not within seconds of finding them. So I'm feeling a little lucky today, at least vis-a-vis bag karma. And so very appreciative of the kindness of strangers .
posted by Pangea at 11:08 PM
4 Comments:
Those are two great stories. *sniff* Makes one almost believe in humanity again.
Although it is too bad your wallet was in your bag and bad people stole your cash, it's a good thing it was in there to identify you to the good people. And it's a good thing that your address was up-to-date.
PS - Same about coming from sweaty people except for my mother, who until about 10 years ago just turned red.
You sweat? Never noticed. I thought you just glistened most attractively.
That is impressive. I've had my wallet lost/stolen 3 times in Chitown and no one ever returns anything. One time my driver's license and a single credit card showed up, rubber banded, with the mail about 3 weeks later, but other than that, zippo.
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