I’ve watched with equal parts panic and helplessness as the flames of the recession first licked, then engulfed and have now consumed, my business.Friends and family say all the right things “Hang in there”, “You did it once, you’ll do it again”, “Whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”. And they all mean well, I honestly believe that.
And I honestly believe, what they all really mean is “Thank fcuking god it’s not me”. Because that’s just human nature and hey, I get it. I really do.
When they were filming Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg flew Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Vin Diesel, Edward Burns et al, to Ireland. They spent two weeks in a kind of stripped down boot camp, led by an old barnacle-hard Irish drill instructor. Tough old SOB. Kind of guy that opens beer bottles with his ass.
Tom Hanks said that after 48 hrs of no-sleep, marching in the rain, living on c-rations hell they were, well, pretty much fcuked. They were hurt, bruised, frightened and to a man realized they were pampered movie stars who just wanted to be back in their own beds.
Around a pitiful campfire on a wet night, the instructor asked them to imagine being in war with one good friend. One man they counted on and loved like a brother while bullets flew too close, and killed men next to them.
Then he said, “Imagine he dies. Now tell me, how would you feel?”. And they thought and thought. Until one at a time, each of them mustered the courage and honesty to talk about the loss they felt, the grief they’d experience. The utter frustration and anger they’d feel about losing their own. Their brother-in-arms.
And the instructor looked around the circle, and said “That’s fucking bullshit. What you goddamn feel is happy it wasn’t you”. And to a man, they realized he was right. Then, they really felt bad.
So I get it when people say “Dude, you will get through this man, I know you!”. That’s cool, it’s what you say. It’s what I’ve said. But I wonder what it takes to tell the truth?
While back my wife bought two lamps. Cool, modern Ralph Lauren, leather with top stitching. Real expensive, but she found them at a sample sale for like $200 instead of $1200.
Recently we decided to sell them. Not because they didn’t go with our present décor, but because we needed the money for food. But we’d taken them to a consignment shop in this charming, rich little town thinking we might get a better price for them.
We didn’t. So I put my five year old in her car seat and schlepped us the 20 miles across town to pick them up, figuring we’d go Craigslist with them. Ella was tired, and whining in the backseat as I tried to read directions off my Blackberry in the fading light.
Trying to steer, read font the size of half-ants on a screen the size of a Ritz cracker while not missing the *&^%$@!+ that was it turn onto route 7, a little amber light caught my eye.
The reserve tank. I was running on fumes. Which in and of itself is not so bad. What’s bad is running on your reserve tank and not having enough money to get gas. And having another 20+ miles to go with a sleeping five year old in the car who’s crying because it’s dinnertime and the money you don’t have for gas, is also the money you don’t have to stop and feed her.
I finally found route 7, and eventually the rich, manicured town that refused to buy our lamps. I carried Ella into the store, met immediately by the cool, disapproving glare of the owner. Apparently she had an unwritten policy forbidding her to extend kindness to father’s who brought their crying children into her store instead of say, leaving them in the car which was parked a block away.
She pointed to the lamps. Plural. I’d forgotten one was taller than me. Great, I had to carry Ella which meant it’d take me two trips. One for each lamp, Ella slumped tearfully against my chest.
I could feel something like pride make a small cracking sound inside my chest. “Okay, sweetie…here we go”, I tried to comfort Ella as I picked up the lamp which now seemed to weigh every bit as much as it’s true retail cost.
I balanced Ella, lamp and shame while nudging open the store’s front door. “Dana, what are we doing?”. “Oh, we have to get these crazy lamps home sweet-pea, we’ll be there soon, okay?”. I wondered quietly without breaking into tears how much gas is in a reserve tank.
And I carried my little girl who meant everything, and a lamp which shouldn’t, but did at the moment, mean a hell of a lot to me, down the block, into the wind and finally to my car. “Can we go now?”, Ella said into my neck.
And I swallowed back something like a childhood memory of walking down the street with my dad and somehow knowing not to ask for toys in windows so he wouldn’t have to make up a story about the money he didn’t have.
“Almost there sweet girl, we just have one more to get…”. It was dark, and Ella was warm against me and the walk back already felt long. I lifted Ella up to get her on my other hip, turned around and there stood the owner of the store. She reached out, “Here’s that other crazy lamp”.
She smiled, turned, walked away. I stood there, quietly. And blinked. And very gratefully said, “Thank you”. I thought about the look on her face the entire way home. The amber light of the reserve tank stayed steady, like a little homing beacon all the way into my driveway.
We sold the lamps a few days later on Craigslist. We have some food in the refrigarator. But I have a much bigger problem. I experienced real kindness. Unconditional kindness. But it took a running-on-empty, hungry child, broken business drained bank account before I was humble enough to recognize it.
And if that’s what it takes, I mean really, really takes to be human? To live the kind of truly spiritual life I tell people I do, but don’t? Then I don’t know if I can do it. If my heart has to be that broken to let out what little good there is in me, I don’t think I can take it.
But what if I can? Take it, that is. Maybe I can live broken hearted enough to experience life and put groceries in the fridge and gas in the car. And I wonder. Every time the reserve tank light suddenly flicks on, I wonder. Will I ever run out of gas. And if I do, does that make me a bad person?
Or, does it mean I’m lucky enough to not actually be running on empty, but to be running on humility? And if I can just hang in there, eventually, I’ll make it home.
