It's been a while...oops. It's not because I haven't been surrounded by love! Love is everywhere. You just have to open your eyes (and your heart...but to say that would have been terribly cliche).
A few weeks ago, while at work, someone showed me a little bit of love and it made my day.
It's a Tuesday and I've just gotten out of a meeting (If you do not yet have a real job, I must forewarn you that full-time jobbery is 25% work...75% meetings). I'm preparing to follow up on some of the team decisions we have made. My boss had mentioned that all I needed for a particular task was a sheet of paper that my client needed to sign. Easy enough. She has the paper. I have an abundance of pens. I go to my desk to call the client and schedule a time for her to sign. Check. I make sure my pen still writes. Double check. I shoot the quickest of breezes with a co-worker. Pow pow...check.
Then I walk out of my office with the intent to pick up this particular piece of paper from my boss. She is the director for no less than 4 billion programs and wears 87 hats daily. Aaaaaand her door is closed. Typical. So, I walk in the opposite direction in search of someone else who might have that paper. Enter Sassy Pants* (*names changed because nicknames are way more fun), a person whom I'd really enjoyed until this moment.
Me: Hey Sassy Pants, do you have a contract? I'm following up with a client and Boss Lady said they need to sign it.
SP: Well...why didn't I know about this?
Me: Um...I'm sorry...we just decided to do this in our meeting.
SP: Well have you filled out a yellow sheet?
Me: No. What's a yellow sheet?
SP: You don't know what a yellow sheet is?
Me: ...No I do not know what a yellow sheet is.
SP (chuckles): I can tell you've never done this procedure before.
Me: This is true. I have not. Boss Lady said all I needed to do was get the contract signed.
SP laughs again. Ok ma'am...this is officially beginning to annoy me. Another person is in our presence and they laugh smugly and conspiratorially at my ignorance.
Me: Well, can I have this yellow sheet so I may fill it out for you? What's it called?
SP: Go ask anybody else in your department what a yellow sheet is.
Me: So...you don't have one?
SP: Go ask anybody else in your department what a yellow sheet is.
Because I suppose I have nothing else I could be doing. So I spend the next 10 minutes of my life (10 minutes I will never get back) looking for, obtaining, and filling out this mysterious (and actually quite simple) yellow sheet. I return to Sassy Pants and hand it to her.
SP: You found it! I guess SOMEbody knew what a yellow sheet was. Now you'll know for next time.
She laughs again and even has the nerve to add a smirk and a wink for good measure.
Me: May I have the contract now?
SP: The client has to meet with me first.
Two deep breaths. Suppress the inner sista girl. Be a light. Jump through the hoops. Whatever you do...do not tell this woman about herself!
I schedule an appointment for the two of them to meet and return to my desk. I stare at my wall and realize how belittled and hurt I feel. Feeling belittled and hurt is actually rather distracting so I stare at the wall for quite some time. After two more deep breaths and a hearty shake of the head to clear the wounds away, I return to my work.
About an hour later, Sassy Pants (who has worked there for many many moons, has seniority and could probably talk to me however she pleased and not get any serious repercussions) comes into my office. I bristle at the sight of her, believing she might belittle me again. I feel silly because I am naive enough to like everyone I meet and gullible enough to believe that everyone is inherently kind.
After distributing some papers to everyone in the office, she stops at my desk and looks me in the eye. Without a single drop of sarcasm or superiority or prompting, Sassy Pants apologizes!
SP: I'm sorry I got an attitude with you earlier. It was uncalled for and unnecessary.
Me-- BLANK STARE. Shock is even too shocked to make its way onto my face.
SP:...Well...I just wanted to tell you that I was sorry.
Me: Ok.
I've always had such a way with words. The thankfulness I feel toward her (and God) for showing me that it's not naive to believe in the kindness of people is not easily conveyed by words.
Sometimes love looks like being sorry for your sass.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
I pay you! I pay it forward
So, having been loved on so much...I think it's time to share a love effort of my own! Love can be as big or as small as the tiniest effort. But a little more love adds up!
I'm in the field for work in Los Angeles. I'm driving to get my next client and I am currently in the company car alone. Having had a very stressful morning (and since I am currently hungry and therefore cranky), I begin to pray and repeat Bible verses to myself. This effectively calms me down, but it also causes me to be in my own little world. My window is rolled down because I find fresh air to be a more appropriate temperature than the fridgidity of the subzero AC.
Now I am humming to myself and I almost miss the little old lady standing at my window.
"Excuse me. You can help? You help me?"
I'm a little alarmed because the look of concern is etched so deeply in her face. The wrinkles have folded into themselves in a most ungraceful way and she is sweating.
"Help me? You can? I need to get to Fountain. Been here for 2 hour. I just need to get to Fountain. Bus never come. Is down street there. Please, you can help?"
I am ashamed to say that my initial reaction is suspicion. I look around her for a big bulky man waiting to jump into the car if I let her in and murder me. I see no man and I can only think of my grandmothers standing out here, wishing someone would help them get down the street.
What if nobody helped them? All she needs is a ride, Sarah. And if she does have a shank in her purse, at least you died trying to help somebody. Whoa, Sarah...that's a really weird thought. Well, it's how I feel, self...we should probably decide whether or not we're going to help her before this light turns green. What would Jesus do? Um...DUHHH!!!
So I move my purse (don't judge me...all my suspicion isn't gone yet!), and open the door.
"Oh goodness. Thank you thank you thank you thank you. I pay you. I pay!"
"No no, don't worry about it. I'd want someone to do the same for me."
I drive exactly two blocks (in the direction I was going anyway), as she sits breathing heavily and sweating in the passenger seat. She is possibly slightly afraid because she clutches her purse and looks straight ahead. (Turns out Fountain is a street! I thought she was looking for water!)
"Here. I live here. Thank you. I am so sorry to bother you. I could not walk no more. I wait two hours for bus and it never come. I pay you! I pay!"
"No! No need!"
"Please have good good day. You sure I no pay you? I pay you!"
"No thanks ma'am...God bless you" because I could think of nothing else to say.
She bows over and over again as she leaves the car. The burly murderer never shows up.
Sometimes love looks like driving 60 seconds thataway.
I'm in the field for work in Los Angeles. I'm driving to get my next client and I am currently in the company car alone. Having had a very stressful morning (and since I am currently hungry and therefore cranky), I begin to pray and repeat Bible verses to myself. This effectively calms me down, but it also causes me to be in my own little world. My window is rolled down because I find fresh air to be a more appropriate temperature than the fridgidity of the subzero AC.
Now I am humming to myself and I almost miss the little old lady standing at my window.
"Excuse me. You can help? You help me?"
I'm a little alarmed because the look of concern is etched so deeply in her face. The wrinkles have folded into themselves in a most ungraceful way and she is sweating.
"Help me? You can? I need to get to Fountain. Been here for 2 hour. I just need to get to Fountain. Bus never come. Is down street there. Please, you can help?"
I am ashamed to say that my initial reaction is suspicion. I look around her for a big bulky man waiting to jump into the car if I let her in and murder me. I see no man and I can only think of my grandmothers standing out here, wishing someone would help them get down the street.
What if nobody helped them? All she needs is a ride, Sarah. And if she does have a shank in her purse, at least you died trying to help somebody. Whoa, Sarah...that's a really weird thought. Well, it's how I feel, self...we should probably decide whether or not we're going to help her before this light turns green. What would Jesus do? Um...DUHHH!!!
So I move my purse (don't judge me...all my suspicion isn't gone yet!), and open the door.
"Oh goodness. Thank you thank you thank you thank you. I pay you. I pay!"
"No no, don't worry about it. I'd want someone to do the same for me."
I drive exactly two blocks (in the direction I was going anyway), as she sits breathing heavily and sweating in the passenger seat. She is possibly slightly afraid because she clutches her purse and looks straight ahead. (Turns out Fountain is a street! I thought she was looking for water!)
"Here. I live here. Thank you. I am so sorry to bother you. I could not walk no more. I wait two hours for bus and it never come. I pay you! I pay!"
"No! No need!"
"Please have good good day. You sure I no pay you? I pay you!"
"No thanks ma'am...God bless you" because I could think of nothing else to say.
She bows over and over again as she leaves the car. The burly murderer never shows up.
Sometimes love looks like driving 60 seconds thataway.
Plaid Taco Stand
A lesson I learn again and again is: It's really the little things that make the biggest difference. Everybody knows it-India Arie even wrote a song about it! I think we just forget sometimes.
Last weekend a little blond man with a scratch on his nose and a big black woman wearing plaid did a little thing for a group of us that has stayed with me all week.
It's early evening and we've just finished rehearsal. We throw on boots, sandals, scarves, hats, sweatshirts-random remnants from our daytime outfits- over our slightly sweaty dance clothes. We talk our way to our cars and head to a nearby taco place for happy hour (tacos, burritos and margaritas $1.50 a piece!!)
The place is PACKED and we are forced to park in Northeastern Timbuktu. It's Southern California so who cares about walking a couple blocks in the just barely cooled evening air. The inside of the restaurant is even more packed. Some people are sitting at tables or perched on stools; but just as many are standing, eying the sitters and willing them to eat faster. There are some high tables that customers linger around while waiting for a proper dinner table (not sure what the difference is...maybe it's not dinner if it's eaten on a high top table? maybe some customers are afraid of heights?).
We decide to order our food in shifts so the waiting girls can search for the stationary goldmine that is an open and clean table. As a part of Waiting Girls Shift 1, we spot a small empty couple-size table next to a big 5girls-sized table that is inhabited by a singular man. Operating on Rule #42 -"You have not because you ask not," we approach the man.
"Are you sitting alone?, because..."
"No I'm waiting for someone," he replies in the most quick and politest of fashions.
"Oh, then nevermind." I am also very good at quick and polite. I begin to walk away.
"Why do you ask?" His nose has a pretty nasty scratch on it and I find myself wondering if he has a cat that is as violent as ours.
"Oh, because there are five of us and if you weren't waiting for somebody I was gonna ask if..."
"Here! Take it! I can totally move." Picks up his things and bounces to the couple-sized table before I can even by properly surprised by his niceness.
"Wow. Thanks! We really appreciate it!" Waiting Girls Shift 1, Girl #2 and I move quickly to stake our claim on the table. It'll definitely fit 5 girls!
"Awwww! That was real sweet of you," says a strangely gruff female voice behind us. We turn around and see two women smiling at Scratched Nose.
"That was nice of him," one of the women informs us. They are heavyset Black women, both dressed in blue. I (with my propensity to assume) guess they are lesbians. They sit very close throughout the meal and bicker like a couple. And one of them is wearing plaid...and not the fashionable kind of trucker-chic plaid; the kind of plaid only worn by Crips in the 1980s, farmers and (of course) lesbians.
Plaid lady, when she's not swearing at her girlfriend or at the unlucky listener on her cell phone, has a very warm aura about her and I kind of want to hug her.
Ordering Girls Shift 1 return and celebrate our success at securing a table. We switch titles and shifts and leave the current Waiting Girls Shift 2 (previously Ordering Girls Shift 1...are you following?) to conjure up 2 extra seats since our perfect table only came with 3. We return with our orders (and some tasty chips) to find the ladies standing around 4 empty chairs now, no one wanting to be the girl that sits down at the expense of one person having to stand.
"No, you sit down. I've been sitting all day."
"No, you go ahead! I'm totally fine."
"Oh no no...I have wide calloused feet. Perfect for standing!" (this one is an embellishment for my own personal amusement)
And so on and so forth until Plaid lady presumably gets tired of our well-meaning bickering. She wades through the sea of customers to the other side of the room. She picks up a bar stool, raises it above her head like some sort of strange orange trophy and plops it down at our perfect table.
"There you go! Now everyone can sit." She's not irritated or being sarcastic. She's just...nice.
And I want to hug her again.
She walks back to her table, a plaid ship amongst a sea of tacos, and resumes her conversation.
A word problem: If each person took time to satisfy one need (no matter how trivial) of another person, how many needs would there be left?
Answer: 74.
Just kidding...NONE, of course!
Sometimes love looks like one extra chair, courtesy of a woman in plaid.
Last weekend a little blond man with a scratch on his nose and a big black woman wearing plaid did a little thing for a group of us that has stayed with me all week.
It's early evening and we've just finished rehearsal. We throw on boots, sandals, scarves, hats, sweatshirts-random remnants from our daytime outfits- over our slightly sweaty dance clothes. We talk our way to our cars and head to a nearby taco place for happy hour (tacos, burritos and margaritas $1.50 a piece!!)
The place is PACKED and we are forced to park in Northeastern Timbuktu. It's Southern California so who cares about walking a couple blocks in the just barely cooled evening air. The inside of the restaurant is even more packed. Some people are sitting at tables or perched on stools; but just as many are standing, eying the sitters and willing them to eat faster. There are some high tables that customers linger around while waiting for a proper dinner table (not sure what the difference is...maybe it's not dinner if it's eaten on a high top table? maybe some customers are afraid of heights?).
We decide to order our food in shifts so the waiting girls can search for the stationary goldmine that is an open and clean table. As a part of Waiting Girls Shift 1, we spot a small empty couple-size table next to a big 5girls-sized table that is inhabited by a singular man. Operating on Rule #42 -"You have not because you ask not," we approach the man.
"Are you sitting alone?, because..."
"No I'm waiting for someone," he replies in the most quick and politest of fashions.
"Oh, then nevermind." I am also very good at quick and polite. I begin to walk away.
"Why do you ask?" His nose has a pretty nasty scratch on it and I find myself wondering if he has a cat that is as violent as ours.
"Oh, because there are five of us and if you weren't waiting for somebody I was gonna ask if..."
"Here! Take it! I can totally move." Picks up his things and bounces to the couple-sized table before I can even by properly surprised by his niceness.
"Wow. Thanks! We really appreciate it!" Waiting Girls Shift 1, Girl #2 and I move quickly to stake our claim on the table. It'll definitely fit 5 girls!
"Awwww! That was real sweet of you," says a strangely gruff female voice behind us. We turn around and see two women smiling at Scratched Nose.
"That was nice of him," one of the women informs us. They are heavyset Black women, both dressed in blue. I (with my propensity to assume) guess they are lesbians. They sit very close throughout the meal and bicker like a couple. And one of them is wearing plaid...and not the fashionable kind of trucker-chic plaid; the kind of plaid only worn by Crips in the 1980s, farmers and (of course) lesbians.
Plaid lady, when she's not swearing at her girlfriend or at the unlucky listener on her cell phone, has a very warm aura about her and I kind of want to hug her.
Ordering Girls Shift 1 return and celebrate our success at securing a table. We switch titles and shifts and leave the current Waiting Girls Shift 2 (previously Ordering Girls Shift 1...are you following?) to conjure up 2 extra seats since our perfect table only came with 3. We return with our orders (and some tasty chips) to find the ladies standing around 4 empty chairs now, no one wanting to be the girl that sits down at the expense of one person having to stand.
"No, you sit down. I've been sitting all day."
"No, you go ahead! I'm totally fine."
"Oh no no...I have wide calloused feet. Perfect for standing!" (this one is an embellishment for my own personal amusement)
And so on and so forth until Plaid lady presumably gets tired of our well-meaning bickering. She wades through the sea of customers to the other side of the room. She picks up a bar stool, raises it above her head like some sort of strange orange trophy and plops it down at our perfect table.
"There you go! Now everyone can sit." She's not irritated or being sarcastic. She's just...nice.
And I want to hug her again.
She walks back to her table, a plaid ship amongst a sea of tacos, and resumes her conversation.
A word problem: If each person took time to satisfy one need (no matter how trivial) of another person, how many needs would there be left?
Answer: 74.
Just kidding...NONE, of course!
Sometimes love looks like one extra chair, courtesy of a woman in plaid.
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