Babbling fool on the 83

Yesterday, on the 83 bus (yes, the very same soggy sardine 83 which we may as well rename the where-all-things-happen-83), there was a guy in the back talking to himself. OK, really more like babbling incoherently.

It’s one thing to babble discreetly. But this was not that. And I was seriously annoyed.

WTF, I thought, why me!

Is there nowhere in this city a sensitive girl can get some peace and quiet? thought the sensitive girl with a short memory of a lovely nap she’d just hours before taken in the sun under a birch tree in a hidden courtyard of said noisy city.

So there I was feeling sorry for self.

And then, with some smidgen of willingness I can only call grace, I sunk just past the annoyance and there, in the midst of noise noise noise, I began what ended up looking a whole lot like:

Bonding with a babbling fool

That’s right. I looked for what we might have in common. And from there, as things are wont to do, one thing led to another thing to another…

I found that he certainly had a mother. Maybe a mom that at that very moment wondered where he was, hoping he was OK.

Maybe he wondered what he’d have for dinner when he got home. I thought about the brownie in my bag.

Maybe he too thought the 83 sure does take a freaking long time to come! I’m with you, babbling brother.

Maybe he found this world a bit hard to take at times. Oh man, can I ever feel you there!

Somewhere along the way my imagination game became a matter of heart. And as his sounds became louder, faster and god-help-us-feverish, I imagined any number of things his sounds might be about.

Some girl who broke his heart.

Some plan of all plans gone awry.

I had no idea, of course, but it didn’t matter. By the end of my ride, all I could really find different between this babbling fool and me was that he gives his stuff a voice, a sound, whereas I tend to keep my mental chatter and drivel locked up inside my dear innocent head. Basically:

Babbling man, me: same, same.

I’d be lying to say I wasn’t relieved to get off the bus, but relating to this man allowed what would have been an insufferable 15 minutes to be bearable, in the least. Maybe even, good.

Good? Yeah, I got off with a smidgen more patience. And patience? Huge. HUGE.

In case you couldn’t tell: I am not one of those people that always walk around seeing the world through rose glasses. Oh no. In any given funk, truth be told, I look at a glass and see not only half empty but also the smudge that you missed while cleaning it. And the crack that is bound to happen sooner or later. Pro’bly tomorrow. And you’ll probably step on the broken glass too. (OK, I exaggerate. Writing license. But still.)

Lately I have been going head to head with my cynicism. Impatience. Paranoia. Suspicions galore. Envies. It’s enough to bring a girl who cares a whole lot about love and beauty and kindness to desperation. Even curiosity about all this wasn’t giving me much relief.

A few weeks ago, visiting my dear friend Lizi in Vermont, I happened to be on what can best be described as a horrible bender of cynicism that even the fresh Spring air of Vermont was not loosening. Not even Lizi’s adorable baby Isabelli was putting much of a dent in my misery. I was doing my best to keep it to myself, not being, after all, one of those incoherent loud babblers, but the more socially acceptable thank you very much keep-it-to-yourself kind.

But two days into my visit I broke down. I cried about how even in such a beautiful place and even doing the best a girl freaking could, I felt so scared. Life sucked. I knew it was all about my thoughts, but goddamn! All I could see, everywhere, was what was wrong, including with me: demanding, picky and critical. To utter anything that was good, would have been utterly fake and pretend. Lizi just listened.

Never, ever underestimate listening.

She was utterly present but said not much at all. (Which was huge: her not trying to fix me. Her not inviting me to “just shift my perception.”)

A while and a bunch of tears later I said: “the only good thing I can find in all this is that it softens my heart toward the tight-assed, the demanding, the perfectionists, the fascistas of the world.”

To which she simply lifted a brow and chuckled softly: “well, there you go.”

Comments

[Josiane]

What a beautiful example of how powerful that bonding exercise can be! Thanks for sharing it.
To you, Heidi, no words but a {hug}.

[Stacy Brice]

Ahhh, I feel for you :) I fabulously feel for you, because I find myself in situations like that from time to time, and although I *know* my answer, and I *know* what I need to do in those situations, my always, always first thought is, "WTF?"

So, here's my story... in case it helps or soothes you. :)

When I was training to become a coach, I had to take a teleclass I didn't want to take. It was called the "Buff Program" (or something very similar), and it was all about being buff and living a buff life. It was the brain child of the now late Thomas Leonard, and my problems with it (the reasons I didn't want to be there) were two-fold. First, the class didn't at all reflect my view of what buff is. It was all about what Thomas believed, and it seemed there was no room for interpretation. And in my life, then, getting massages every week, drinking only filtered/purified water, sleeping only on Egyptian cotton sheets—none of that was realistically “buff” for me. Second, I’d worked with Thomas shortly before taking the class, and I could actually *hear* him in my head in a way I wasn’t digging. So, taking this class, which was a requirement, wasn’t happy making for me.

But I dialed in, and there were my fellow students and the teleclass leader (a more senior coach, too) I didn't know. And as I dialed in, the folks on the call, and this leader, were just doing that gabby thing people do before a teleclass starts, and so I settled in, waiting for the class to really begin.

That's when I heard the leader. She was slurring her words like a drunk. And my first thought was (you know this already!), "WTF?"

I couldn't imagine that Coach U would let a drunk lead a teleclass, and I ranted and fumed most mightily on my side of the phone line, trying to decide what to do.

And then she introduced herself—slurring all the way. “Hi… in case some of you don’t know me, and are wondering why I sound this way, I have MS, and sometimes I don’t have good voice days. This is one of ‘em”

I burst into tears. I was SO ashamed for how I’d judged her without knowing what was really going on.

And I kept crying as I listened to her say that in HER class, we were each going to figure out what was buff for us. Because, for her, buff was often something like getting from her bed to her wheel chair without falling on the floor.

Heidi, I felt positively horrid. I wanted to hang up. I wanted to go hide. Instead, I stayed. And I learned. And I grew. And I developed two things that I have done ever since—immediately after I hear myself thinking, “WTF!”

They are:

1. I realize I don’t know the story. I realize that the person may have a very, very good reason for whatever I’m experiencing that seems wrong, or odd. And I remind myself to back off, unless I want to go over and find out that story so that I have enough information for an informed personal view.

2. I’ve learned to look at people who aren’t like me…like the kids with pants hanging off their asses, or the ones with green and orange hair, and exclaim in my head, “How BUFF!”

You see, what that leader taught me in the class is that we’re all buff in our own ways, all the time. And although we can’t always see someone else’s buffness, it doesn’t make it inherently any less buff. So, the pants hanging, or the green hair…they’re both buff in their hangingness and their greenness.

If I were braver, perhaps my response to those people would be something like, “Hey, dude…those pants falling off your ass are REALLY buff!” Or, “Wow… that’s some really buff green hair!” I’m not that brave. Or maybe I’m just not that girl, even with regard to things I like.

Maybe, one day, I’ll get to the place where I think something’s buff *before* I do the “WTF” thing. But for now, I’m happy that I do it shortly thereafter.

:)

[Heidi Fischbach]

Stacy, what a great buff story. Of course, me and my irreverent sense of humor, found it funny. But that's me. I laugh inappropriately quite often. In any case, I've had a number of such incidents too. I love it when I get to find out how wrong I am, like your MS teacher.

Incidentally, and inappropriately, have you seen Extras with Ricky Gervais? First season, the episode with Kate Winslet in it. You will know exactly why I suggested it. I'm laughing inappropriately just remembering.

Thanks for the note!
(And thanks Josiane, too ;) -- love seeing you here)