Tap tAp taP on my driver’s side window, as I was already belted and about to pull out from the post office downtown.
“Excuse me Ma’am,” she says, “I need $35.63 or they gonna turn off my power and the food in my fridge gonna go bad.”
Hmm… I pause to check inside for the answer. I am aware of my habitual ‘yes’ response and of the fact that I don’t earn money and we have plenty of expenses. My inside, though, says yes.
I tell her I don’t have any cash, but we can go to an ATM. I invite her into the passenger’s seat.
And now that we are at eye level with one another, I can see her. Trina. Her skin, her teeth, the heavy of her shoulders and tired around her eyes; all baring the hardness of her life. With my hand on her upper arm, skin to skin, we land together for a moment.
She talks about the electric bill as well as the excavation of the bones of her children's father, to prove paternity and award some sort of monetary settlement. She tells me I can drop her off at her house so I know where she lives and can come and get the money back when she has it. She says quite a lot of things and continues to do so as I drive, following her direction to the nearest ATM.
Doubt creeps into my mind as I park the car. I take my bag, phone and keys with me into the bank. I pull out $40 and hand it to her, saying that she needn’t pay it back. I am familiar with things snowballing, with trying to dig out from way behind and do not wish to add to her challenges in that way. She is wide-eyed and she reminds me of a new human, a newborn baby. She asks about my church going habits and if I believe in Jesus. I tell her... not exactly. My church is yoga, meditation and outside. I don’t believe in a god with any real definition. She says that she was praying for help and then she saw me, “Like an angel… ” (haha) and decided to come and ask for help.
When we arrive near her house, she asks for my phone number, suggesting maybe I can teach her meditation at some point. I forget, yet another time in this life, how to say 'no' and give her my number. It didn’t feel right inside, but my thoughts were, maybe this is just what I need to get out of my own head with the sharing of yoga and meditation?
Fast forward to that evening: I am in kitchen preparing dinner. My phone is still silenced from nap--yes, my nap—but it’s plugged in nearby, playing a podcast. I startle at its unexpected RING! RING! But I don’t move to look at or answer it... something of an M-O for me. But then it keeps ringing, again and again and AGAIN (only repeat calls or calls from my son’s school come through when the phone is silenced). I look and see that there are many missed calls from TRINA FREDERICK and I promptly slide into victim mode, feeling hounded, meek and frozen.
I manage to snap out of it, because I know the whip of that RING won't stop unless I answer. So I do. I hear a hard edge in her voice. It softens ever so slightly and she says, "My kids... they hungry. We hungry. Can you come out here and buy us some dinner?" I think to myself, is she crazy?... I don’t leave my house multiple times a day. It requires so much stamina just to get out to Frederick. I don’t know if she’s crazy, but I sure am and my inner resources tap out after round 1… sometimes before. [Yeah yeah yeah... equal airtime, Brooke Castillo... sometimes I make it a few rounds, too. :)] So as much as I don't like to say 'no', I said no.
…. She never called me again…
Trina was no coincidence. She reminded me of my human. Of our shared human, our shared worth. She reminded me of just how good I have it and have had it for so many years. She reminded me of how my struggles have evolved… and of how many times I’ve been amazingly uplifted, given to, shared with, for no reason and with no expectation. She also reminded me that I am able to say “no,” even when it’s hard. It was a potent reminder and rehearsal of saying 'no', exactly when I needed it.
Also, when our eyes met in the car, I remembered Oneness. Intensely familiar with my own wounds, shared suffering is a streamlined, direct connect with Source. And as in the title of the post, on the way to the ATM, I dropped it: One divided into separateness again. Doubt crept in. You, in the passenger seat, are different from me. Would you take from me? [Maybe she would... which speaks more to her being in a different place than to her being different.] Than we returned to One with the sharing of resources and the space of the ride. And again back to separate, to fear; when I shared my number without a clear 'yes' from inside and when I heard and saw the repeat calls. When I spoke what was true for me, a clear 'no', I came back to One. Which seems contrary, but when I honor who and where I am, I am Home. And Home is where we all reside when we remember what and where It is.
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