It’s quite a lopsided introduction, I thought, as I leaned back and gazed out the train window, the landscape blurring into one long mural, a snapshot of Spacetime. I couldn’t help but take an occasional peek at the woman sitting kitty-corner from me, reading my memoir, The Tricycle, as we made our way from New York to Providence. It’s a bit surreal, watching a stranger as they peruse your most intimate details. Like that first long night early on in a relationship, when you share all of your stories. Except only one of you is talking.
I had given her a copy when we returned from the cafe car, where we sought refuge after being admonished for chatting in the quiet zone. To be fair, we didn’t realize we had chosen seats in the “Quiet Car”, due to the unfortunate placement of the lone, very small, sign — it hung quietly above our heads, the same gray color as the ceiling, and neither of us had noticed it as we boarded. She had given me a sympathetic smile as I bumbled my way onto the train, giant suitcase in tow, overstuffed shoulder bags spilling computer cords and sweater arms, a repurposed shopping bag filled with books threatening to concuss someone if I turned around too quickly. It was not a graceful entrance. And I’m pretty sure, not all that quiet. But she was friendly, and helpful, and kind. And it was delightful to connect with a random person on a train.
Our brief conversation left me with an impression of her, what might have been the scaffolding of a friendship if our orbits overlapped. Made up of the things you learn about a person in your first chat, the facts of a life perhaps, but certainly not the innermost bits of the person living it. The stories that unfold over time and in context, the less-pleasant aspects of yourself that you share on your terms, the truth of your guts that you protect until some degree of intimacy, of safety, has been established — those things wait a while. Unless you write a memoir, of course. Then it’s like showing up in a thong bikini to an Apres Ski soiree. All of your emotional cellulite on full display.
As we pulled into my cousin’s driveway I was charmed by the procession of red tulips and yellow daffodils and purple hyacinth blooming in concert, curving around the front of her house in a welcoming smile that felt appropriate, because that’s who she is. Gracious and graceful in everything she does. Her home is bright and airy, with small collections of freshly cut flowers scattered throughout, little pops of spring that lift your heart and remind you that everything has its season, that even the smallest seed contains immeasurable potential and shocking beauty. That the birth of each singular blossom is real and true and important, even if no one is there to see it.
It is 200 years old, my cousin’s house. It has been a home, for two centuries. Those walls have borne witness to so much life, weathered so many seasons. They hold so many stories. And I was there to add my own to the library, with a book launch party for The Tricycle that evening, hosted by my inimitable cousin.
I felt my nerves beginning to tingle as I applied a little mascara, the skip of a butterfly in my belly. I had broken the seal with my first reading in New York, so the sensations were familiar now, the sharp edged jolts of adrenaline quickening my heart beat, reverberating through my bones to the very edges of my body. But it was soothing somehow, the sense that I was part of the river of life that flowed through this structure of timber and brick, infused with the tales of generations. I bent over the small vase on the table beside the guest bed, and inhaled the scent of spring, the promise of growth. Marveled at the mosaic of it all.
“I was a little scared to read your book, to be honest,” my aunt, a writer herself, said.
“Because… what would you say if it was terrible?” I asked with a grin.
“Well, actually, yes!” she laughed. Which is a fair point. I mean, that would be awkward.
In addition to beloved aunts and uncles, a collection of my cousin’s friends and colleagues gathered that evening — together, a sophisticated and worldly group of intellectuals, fiercely intimidating on paper, but in real life, warm and welcoming, kind and compassionate, interesting and interested. A group of deep thinkers, with the kind of emotional intelligence that belies the trope of the ivory tower, that taps into our humanity, and inspires meaningful reflection, spurs positive action. I felt buoyed by the energy of the room, reassured about the state of us, the future of us… It was a glorious evening all the way around.
Boston was my next stop, and it required a significant shifting of gears. I was meeting a colleague for a conference hosted by the Institute of Coaching, which had nothing to do with my book, and everything to do with my next chapter. More on my journey from physician to physician-coach later. For now, suffice to say, a lot of stuff happened, and I am better for it.
I should have known something was awry when I got a text from the airline asking if I’d be willing to give up my seat on the return flight to PDX. I didn’t give it much thought though, I’d been away from my children for ten days by then, the longest we’d ever been apart, and delaying my return even a little bit was an unbearable proposition. When I arrived at the gate, the seating area was packed, and a long line of bleary-eyed passengers snaked through the crowd from the gate-agent’s desk — another clue that I looked right through, focused entirely on getting home to my kiddos. I did notice, however, the family with two young children in that line, all of them clearly exhausted.
Mom held Baby in her arms, swaying back and forth in the universal mother’s dance familiar to anyone who has ever been charged with comforting a fussy infant, while Dad lay on his back, playing a vigorous game of Airplane with Toddler. Happy giggles prevailed until she was brought in for a landing, which immediately prompted a flood of outraged howls. I watched as Dad patiently and lovingly resumed the game. Over and over and over again.
I just wanted to give them all a hug. And not one person in that bedraggled crowd sighed, or rolled their eyes, or mumbled something to their companion about how annoying a crying baby on an airplane is. Nope. People were smiling, commiserating, sharing their own stories. A community of strangers.
The man sitting next to me on the flight was not annoyed to be in the middle seat for the six hour duration, he was just grateful to have been granted a spot. And his sense of humor was intact — a fact I was increasingly impressed by as he told me the story: a saga of mechanical issues and hours of delays, until the pilot finally said flat-out, “I am not not going to fly this plane.” Then more hours waiting for their baggage to be released because there was a glitch and the flight hadn’t technically been canceled, and more hours after that waiting for new flights and hotel vouchers, which weren’t even worth it by then, because it was already the next day. So, “Phew, I’m just happy to be on my way home,” he said with a laugh.
“Thank you for that perspective shift,” I said, “I was feeling a little irritated that this flight is two hours late, but now I just feel lucky, and happy to be on my way home too!”
I found myself thinking about the forest during that flight. Contemplating the power of perspective. When you walk among the trees, it’s easy to see each one as an individual entity, sprouting wherever luck happened to drop it and doing the best it can with whatever resources are available. The seed that is blessed to find itself in a sunny spot, tucked into rich soil with abundant water and few pests, will grow to great heights. Others are less fortunate, rooted in the shade in infertile earth, thirsty, and weakened by disease. Survival of the fittest it would seem. But if you dig a little deeper, you find a miracle. An intricate web of impossibly fine tendrils, enveloping the roots of the tree, merging with them. Stretching out then, and connecting them to all the other trees in the forest.
This mycorrhizal network, the “Woodwide Web” as some call it, enables the trees to communicate with each other. To send distress signals, request nutrients, warn of impending attack. It facilitates transfer of water, carbon, and nutrients from the stronger to the more frail, and in so doing, improves the health of the whole.
We have much to learn from the forest…
Hope. That is what I brought back with me to Portland. Because from the moment I set off across the country, every encounter I had and every anonymous scene I witnessed, reinforced my sense that a new wind is whispering. It was a surprise, and a gift, this fresh perspective. This burgeoning belief that underneath our polarized, entrenched, oppositional veneers, there is some small part of us that is waking up, remembering what it is to meet a stranger, and see a human being.
It’s up to us to choose now, because anything can become normalized over time.
If we let it.
I wish I had been at that book launch party. And I have had very sympatico experiences with learning to look deeply at a single leaf or tree in an abundance of leaves and trees that my brain will slot into its Leaf and Tree file -- unless I pause. Having read The Tricycle, I am not at all surprised by your beautiful, reflective writing here. Thank you for sharing.