Going to the Light

Michael Bolton's quote is from an interview featured on The View, July 18, 2023

On a couple of trips to Vancouver, we had contrasting experiences that left us feeling cheerful, bewildered, scared, relieved and connected. These experiences illustrate something important which I’ll share with you at the end of this post.

In the heat and haze of summertime, we are still called as human beings to live, react, interact and conduct ourselves with consideration, aren't we? There is no exemption for suspending common courtesy or manners just because we're hot or we've had a difficult time, or because “we always do it this way”, is there? Even though we breathe fire smoke, swelter in the high humidity, and don't feel like being in crowds, does this justify indecorous conduct? Today, have we lost the baseline for basic considerations like care, understanding and niceness?

Before you travel down the road paved with nostalgic memories of the way things were, I'd like to point out that I love parts of the way we relate to each other right now, post pandemic, like having a spontaneous conversation that's right from the heart. Maybe we do this more after the seclusion we collectively experienced. We were walking back to our car in Vancouver when a man and what looked like his daughter walked toward us. The young girl had a Jeopardy cap on. Since both my partner and I are huge Jeopardy fans, we both spontaneously greeted her with an enthusiastic “Jeopardy!” The young girl told us proudly, “My mom was a contestant on Jeopardy. “Congratulations and well done,” we said followed by “we watch it everyday.” This interaction was happy and left us feeling warm-hearted and cheerful. Even in the heat, everyone can take a moment to notice something about the other person that can lead to a genuine and uplifting experience.

I like to think before I open my mouth that I don't always know what the other person's day has brought them. Are they very close to the end of their patience rope? Have they suffered a loss? Are they full of inner angst? I believe that noticing one another, not to judge, but to see, to observe, to understand at some level could be a start. Sounds like the baseline for decorum is something we need to be aware of and perhaps even cultivate.

Here’s another Vancouver incident. Waiting at a bus stop, a young man wandered into the area. There were a few people standing at the stop including me. Immediately, I noticed he was walking in a kind of halting manner, his eyes darting quickly back and forth. I noticed him but avoided eye contact. Others in the group around the bus stop did look at him with eye contact and he lurched forward menacingly toward each of them, scaring us all. Was avoiding eye contact an understanding reaction on my part? I like to think it was, as the young man clearly didn’t like people looking directly into his eyes. What kind of life was he having and how could I have contributed to a more positive experience in a positive way despite my concerns for safety?

Another type of interaction on our trip to Vancouver involved our car and left us shaking our heads in disbelief. A very expensive SUV had parked within 2 feet of our car that was parked in a handicapped parking spot. Chris, my partner, was barely able to open his door and get in while I held the door to make sure we didn’t dent the other car’s door. It was difficult and caused him some knee pain. I was packing up the wheelchair when the owner of the car came back, got into his car and was pulling out. I looked at him shaking my head, so he rolled his window down and asked me what was wrong. I explained, “We were barely able to get into our car because you parked so close”, and, I added, “we had to be very careful not to dent your car.” His response? “I wouldn’t have cared if you did. This is my second car.” Carefully, I maintained my composure and added, “that spot isn’t a parking spot.” “Oh,” he said, “I park here everyday because it’s convenient and I’m usually only here 5 minutes.” I must have looked incredulous, so he added, “is there something wrong?” then, “oh, I should have come back earlier.” I couldn’t even say anything in response as he drove quite cheerfully away. This person clearly didn’t have any empathy about how difficult it is for a person with mobility issues to get into a car and why there’s extra parking space given to those designated spots. My partner and I looked at each other with mouths open. All we said was “Wow,” and “I hope he remembers this interaction if, in the future, he actually needs a handicapped parking spot.” The encounter had a premonition-like feeling that it had an entirely different purpose for that man, but we were unlikely to know what it was.

This conversation was obviously not harmonious, nor was it uplifting. It left both of us bewildered at the other man’s complete denial or understanding of anything amiss on his part as he parked there daily. WE were the intrusion into his parking routine. What’s the baseline, the benchmark the majority of people recognize and agree upon as reasonable? Has this baseline moved, changed or vanished into thin air?

The next Vancouver interaction is a heart-warming one. We had gone into a mall because we had a few hours to wait before our appointment, the reason for our visit to the big city. We were wanting something to eat, too, so we made our way to the Food Court. On the way there, I saw a store we don’t have in our neck of the island and went in, paid for my purchase and left. We finally found the food court and an elevator that wasn’t out of order and had Booster Juice and Vietnamese Spring Rolls for brunch. Sufficiently satisfied, we went off to the bathroom and then to the elevator to go back to the car. The wheelchair is a large wheelchair and for some reason, I couldn’t wheel it into the elevator in time before the doors closed after people came out of it. We missed two door openings and I was starting to get really ticked. Suddenly we heard someone shouting at me, “Lady, lady. Your bag.” One of the food court cleaners was running toward me waving a bag. YUP, I’d forgotten to pick up my purchase after eating and she had looked all over for us to give it back. Fortunately, she found us. What a surprise and a relief. We thanked her profusely and then, amazingly, the next elevator was empty and we could get in and down to the level we needed.

Our whole reason, and the source of much worry for the trip to Vancouver, was our appointment. It went surprisingly well. The most difficult part was going around the block several times to find parking. All told we were in and out in 20 minutes. We were much relieved, and by this time, tired.

The last experience we had in Vancouver was not with a Vancouverite. A lady was waiting for her husband in a coffee shop where we were waiting for Robyn, Chris’ daughter, to return with the electronic items not allowed in the U.S. Embassy where our appointment was. Her husband was renouncing his U.S. citizenship. We got talking and suddenly there was a word spoken that linked us all. The lady said she was from Oklahoma. We all perked right up and discovered her grandparents lived in the same town my partner grew up in. His grandparents also lived there and they both remembered several landmark buildings. School days and the towns in the surrounding area were mentioned and we all laughed at shenanigans and rivalries, my partner and the lady easily slipping into their Okie accent.

Both she and my husband were so happy to have met someone from their birth state. It was a rare occurrence, it seems, and the lady said, more than once, that meeting my partner was the highlight of her trip and that it made her day. It was a connection that instantly had us happily engaged in conversation. The food court lady, thrilled to find us to return a lost bag, was a connection of relief. The Jeopardy cap connected 4 people who loved the game.

I don’t think it was the positive connections we experienced that revealed a baseline. The negative connections over parking and the person acting a bit strange showed us where our baselines were. They taught us how low we’re willing to go when we experience something we consider rude and unfair. They taught us more about understanding, about empathy, about walking a mile in their shoes. I concluded that every human chooses, whether they’re conscious of it or not, a baseline of decorum learned from their experiences, culture and the society they live in no matter what connection they have with people.

Then I saw Whoopi Goldberg’s interview with Michael Bolton on The View. To my surprise, Michael spoke about this very issue. He said:

“One weapon we have in our favor is keeping positive, going to the light, basically of everything, the light of the conversations you have with strangers you might meet once in your life.”

The weapon he refers to is a baseline of positivity and then further growth in that direction to keep going to the “light” in everything you do. From his new album, Spark of Light, and the song “Beautiful World”:

“We gotta love like we've never been hurt. We gotta rise like we've never been burned. And after all of the lessons we've learned, we're gonna make this a beautiful world.”

Well said, Michael Bolton and thank you to The View for the interview!