Small Kindnesses

by Danusha Laméris
from The Writer's Almanac

I've been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say "bless you"
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. "Don't die," we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don't want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, "Here,
have my seat," "Go ahead—you first," "I like your hat."

---

All of which has me thinking about the person who waved me through the stop sign ahead of my turn, the other driver who gave me a thumbs-up instead of a wave as I let her merge on the highway, the child who said "hello, mister" when I passed him on the sidewalk, the elderly neighbor who drags my empty garbage can up my driveway while we're all out at work, the colleague who placed a jar of fresh jam on my desk after we had talked about her berry picking, the friend whose letter arrives in my mailbox, the friend of my daughter who thanked me so politely for dropping him off at his house and for going all of two blocks out of our way, the woman who told me how lovely my email was excusing the late shipment of something I had ordered, the secretary who told me to have a blessed day, the woman who teared up when I asked if her niece was recovering from surgery, the dog's tail as I handed her a piece of cheese, my daughter's mumbled "I love you too" last night before bed, my wife's gentle kiss on my forehead when anxiety eats at me, and the memory of my father somehow telling me without words that there is more good in this life he has left than bad and I might as well notice all that wonder.

Just One Thing?

I'm supposedly listening to an album. The Cars' first album. Friends and I were talking about it last night and then I was going through my records and saw it there. It belongs to another guy who doesn't have his turntable any more but kept his albums. Turns out that The Cars' first album is good. It's from a whole range of music I discounted in my youth because I wanted to seem superior to pop. I'm a bit less foolish now.

But this isn't about The Cars, it's about listening to an album, the thing I'm supposedly doing. I listened to the first and a half but a book on my shelf — The Art Of Noticing by Rob Walker — caught my eye and I picked it up. I had read eight pages before I remembered listening to the album. The record was still spinning, music still played from the speakers, but was I listening?

I put the book down, intent on listening, but kept thinking how this was something I wanted to write. I booted the computer into the writing program and typed until the record ran out, then got up, flipped it, and wrote while the music played.

There are two old Zen things I have just wasted two songs trying in vain to find. The first, I'm pretty sure is a Zen saying, but the second is something else entirely.

The First: When drinking tea, one should only drink tea.

Focus on one thing. Be in the moment. Meditate on it. Really listen to The Cars first album instead of reading or writing. I've failed at this, but there's this second thing.

The Second: A monk watched his master drinking tea and reading the newspaper. Master, he asked, you said when drinking tea, one should only drink tea? The master paused, then said, when one is drinking tea, one should only drink tea. And when one drinks tea while reading the newspaper, one should do only those things. With that, the master went back to reading the paper, steam rising from his cup and disappearing mysteriously in the morning air.

I'm going back to listening to The Cars now.

Scuffing

At a coffee shop waiting to meet a person, I heard someone else say my name. It was a guy I worked with when I was in college and he was in high school. We always got along, helped by a shared fondness for Springsteen's Tunnel Of Love and singing while we were supposed to be stocking shelves, filling propane tanks, cleaning, or helping customers with plumbing questions. I felt myself open into a smile and reached to shake his hand.

We talked like semi-old men. I asked about his girls, and he said that he had just been telling one of them about our old boss. I said, I've seen him around town a couple times. I didn't mention his red baseball hat that marks him as exactly the kind of man he was and always will be. I just said I'd seen him.

"He's still alive?" my friend asked, feigning shock. I nodded and admitted that I had avoided conversation. I hadn't even waved. He hadn't seem to recognize me or chose to act as though he hadn't.

My friend said he had told his girl about maybe the one bit of wisdom our boss had ever knowingly imparted to anyone.

It was back when my friend was walking around the store in untied work boots, clunking and scuffing along as was the style then (and maybe now too). Our boss called from his office, come in here. My friend went, expecting to be told to clean out the shed, vacuum the housewares section, or restock the pesticides, but no, our boss said, _don't let me hear you scuffing your boots like that. You sound lazy."

Our old boss had been wrong about many things, but both my friend and I agreed if you sound lazy, you might as well be lazy, and then forget about you.

When I taught kids who were all but labeled stupid, I told them to try and sound smart. If you sound smart, people may think you're smart, and that's almost as good because it gets you in with smart people which makes you smarter. On the flip-side, if your go-to words are fuck, nigga, and bitch, you sound anything but smart and the world will gladly treat you as such.

I heard arguments for the culture of those words, but they're the same arguments for scuffing boots. No matter what, these things project our identity and are how others project identities onto us.

My friend and I smiled at the story. The person I was meeting arrived. I shook my friend's hand again and he went on his way. The person I met had the feeling I was more capable than I really am. I've projected confidence. After our meeting, I walked out of the shop and across the street, my shoes tight against my feet, not scuffing even a little.

Why Do This?

After a few months off, I've come back here and it feels good. That should be enough, right? But of course I discount that feeling and overthink and worry that I should build a bigger audience, find ways to make this blog more important (whatever that means), and find some larger meaning. I've been writing regularly since 1987. I was going to say writing seriously, but that sounds like I've made a career and also sets off alarms about building something else instead of accepting what I'm already doing.

Whatever my worries, every so often someone reminds me why I do this, what effect I'm having. Last night it was a friend from college who had been catching up on my postings. He was reading "Learning Is Messy", a piece I wrote in July after leaving teaching but still being very much in a teacher's mindset. I was also stuck installing a damn doorbell. My friend thought it one of my funnier and more publishable pieces.

It felt good to hear the compliments — I'm a sucker for such things — but here's the thing that's really good: I got a clear reminder that writing connects me with people I love and need. It helps me meet new people. It reconnects me with those I would otherwise lose. Just last week, an old friend subscribed to the newsletter and though we didn't talk, it was like seeing her smile from across the room, across years. Lovely stuff, that.

The reason to do this — and by this I mean anything worth doing — is that it's good and leads to good things. That should be obvious, but I need to be reminded every so often. If you do too, then that's something mre reason to do this. I might as well write on.