Yin and Yang describes how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.
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For example, one of our friends told me that she was going to get married. I had serious concerns about the guy, whom I had only met a couple of times, and those couple of encounters left me a bit puzzled and concerned. But, when I told Alice that our friend was getting married, before a single beat passed, she was screaming in excitement, saying, "How WONDERFUL!!! Oh how fantastic!!" Where my reaction was hesitancy and cautiousness, and yes, even some cynicism, Alice opened her arms widely to this celebration of someone else's happiness. She didn't need to understand it, she just needed to celebrate it. She is a truly wonderful friend.
True, Alice may have a snug-fitting, well-worn pair of rose-tinted glasses on, but I've seen her get serious when needed. To be honest, it is people like Alice who surprise me and catch me off guard. Of the several types of personalities people have, ranging from perpetual cynics to oblivious young souls, Alice was something else; she was electively, radiantly joyous. I believe that Alice chose - demanded - to be contagiously joyous in spite of her surroundings.
When something a bit awful happened, from passing aggressive junkies in the street (we worked downtown Baltimore in a sometimes-sketchy area), to learning about her children being bullied at school... you cannot break this woman. She whisks away the negative with the ease of a professional matador, and she hails and celebrates the positive like a trumpeting herald.
I'll tell you why these types of people are precious.
I tend to end up in situations that others would not consider normal, but to me, they do seem to happen quite often. I am going to share something with you that I have not told many people. It has been a couple of years since this incident, and it has stuck with me. In fact, I am often haunted by many stories like this which lurk around in my mind like tigers in the night.
It was towards the end of a regular work day at my office downtown Baltimore when I decided to run downstairs to the Starbucks to grab a pick-me-up coffee. This particular Starbucks is a Tier A location, meaning that there basically is not an hour of the business day that the place is not SLAMMED with customers.
I ordered my drink, and then grabbed a seat at the long table, sitting next to some other customers, including a VERY GOOD LOOKING (there, I went on record with it) young man who was just there chilling with his coffee and reading a book. I vaguely remember making small-talk with him, something about how he is in the military and in town for work...eh, that is all I remember, because what happened next paused the world.
This horrible screaming started coming from the bathroom area, towards the back of the store where we were sitting. It was a man's high-pitched screaming. My first reaction was that someone had slipped on the wet floor and fallen, since all I could see were legs on the ground behind the wall, and because the people around that area were not panicked. I checked to make sure that the Starbucks associates were calling 911, which they were, and then started walking over there. The Guy I Was Sitting Next To came with me.
It took me a beat to understand what I was looking at. He had not fallen. This mid-50s man was being attacked by a young-20s kid. When we realized this, we started running, and Guy and I stepped between them.
Can we pause the story here for a second so that I can highlight the above mention that no one was panicked, that no one else was helping? There was a crowd of people, and in this fight-or-flight situation, everyone else flew. Is it because they are so calloused because of our society, they figured it would sort itself out? Were they really just scared and so they ran? This is one of the things that haunts me.
So, Guy had the Kid, and I had the older Gentleman. It was hard to get him to stop sobbing, and his face was very jacked up, and his English was poor. I am showing you these pictures because it has been a few years since this happened, and because I want to be clear about this imagery.
He started telling me that he has no idea why this is happening. Why is he being attacked? Why? He was just waiting to use the mens room!!
I tell him to sit at the table, just sit and take a breath.
I go to the kid and listen in on what he is telling Guy. I pick up on that Kid thinks that Gentleman has stolen his cell phone, and so he was beating the tar out of him to get it back.
I go back to Gentleman and ask if he stole Kid's cell phone, and Gentleman is completely confused. What? No. My phone is in my pocket. Here it is. It is a black iPhone. He puts the iPhone on the table.
I go to Kid and say, Gentleman is saying that is his iPhone. Kid looks at the phone and says that is Kid's phone.
Guy says, "Okay, well, why don't we call your cell phone number, to prove it?" Everyone likes this plan. I look at Guy and he kind of shoots me a look, which I know to mean that I have to do it because his phone is owned by the government and this could get ugly. I dial the number, and guess what happens?
Kid's cell phone starts ringing... from within his very own pocket.
Yep, they had the same exact cell phone. Kid saw Gentleman's cell phone, and assumed that he had stolen it.
Kid kind of chuckles, knowing that he has just made a huge mistake, and he starts bolting for the door.
I start chasing him, taking his photo and telling him to pose for the camera. We hear the sirens coming.
He ran away. And that was it.
The medics and police arrive, and they start talking to Gentleman, getting his report, fixing his broken nose. He has no health insurance, he is visiting from Haiti or somewhere. He is supposed to go home next week. He just bought these brand new eyeglasses with the last of his money. What is he supposed to do now?
I take his eyeglasses while he is talking to police, and I bring them to my desk upstairs, and I clean the blood off of them, and use my little eyeglasses kit and some superglue to fix them the best I can. They looked somewhat presentable. I rush them back downstairs. Gentleman is very grateful and laughs, swears they look like new. I know that they don't... they are scarred. We all are.
I was so sad for this man. I still am. All I could do is sit there with him, letting him be in the moment, letting him be sad and take all the time he needs, holding his hand as he cried, as he was so confused and lost and hurt.
By the time we parted, we were joking with the paramedics, and everyone had a smile on. The paramedics made sure to stick around for a little while, just to be in good spirits with us all, to communicate to this man that not ALL of Baltimore is a piece of trash; not everyone here is a terrible piece of scum. I remember these moments very clearly. The setting sun, the twinkle-light covered trees we sat under, the holiday shoppers going about their business, and people ice skating and having fun across the street.
I had tons of photos and that kid's cell phone number that I was able to call into the police the next day. I am not sure what ever came of it. Probably nothing.
One thing that sticks out to me to this day is that, unlike that man, I never was truly surprised at the situation. He was SO devastated, so shocked, so saddened that in an entire room of people, he was beaten to a near pulp, and 95% of the people in that room didn't say boo about it, didn't stop the beating, and went about their normal business.
I could see it in his eyes, as they swept the room, that he could not actually believe that this was happening to him. I wonder how a similar room would have reacted if this had occurred in his home town, wherever that is? And this was his learning experience with America? I am not surprised by it; I am exposed to this sort of atrociousness enough to consider it run-of-the-mill. What does that say about me? What does that say about me???
So, I need people like Alice to help to bring some sort of balance to my life experience. I need her because I am desperate to see that things are also being healed and celebrated, instead of only being destroyed.
Thank you, sincerely, to the bright lights out there. Thank you to those who are electively happy - not out of oblivion, ignorance, cowardice, or naivete, but out of sheer determination. You help me keep my head above water, when all I see around me are bunch of perceived sinking ships, and all I hear are people screaming that the ship I am standing in is sinking.
Let's keep trying to bind ourselves together in a pact/life-ring of elected optimism.
Send me funny memes.
💓
