Phoneless, Fat, and Self-Righteous

There’s an uproar brewing inside me—a full-blown tempest in my soul—deserved unrest.

[I am] such stuff as dreams [and brokenness] are made on and [my] little life is rounded by sleep—thank you Shakespeare, Freud, and Jesus.

Prospero, Shakespeare’s magician in The Tempest, has caused spirits to disappear and uses the moment to remind his daughter, Miranda, and her fiancé, that life can end quickly too.

Freud and Jesus address matters of brokenness, and give me hope for healing while walking through this life before my latter “rounded by sleep” time occurs.

The idea for this post occurred to me in the bar at the Double Tree Inn, where I’d stopped for the night in East Syracuse, New York. I’d driven three hundred miles from the non-fiction writing conference I’d attended in Ohio and wanted downtime to sift through my thoughts on writing and life. A cold beer seemed the appropriate way to ease into an evening of reflection.

Eight patrons sat around the horseshoe-shaped bar, three women, who were together, and five men, including me, who were strangers to each other. I was the last to arrive, placed my order, and began to scribble notes on a cocktail napkin. When the bartender placed the beer in front of me I realized that the others, including the barkeep, were attending to their cell phones as diligently as they were to their drinks and appetizers. Not even the three women who sat together were engaging in conversation.

I took shameless pride in being untethered to the screen on my iPhone, which I’d left in my room, on airport mode, buried under laundry in a duffle bag. No one noticed the “I’m better than you” smirk on my face as I gloated and scribbled smug notes on the napkin. I enjoyed a second beer then returned to my room where, behind closed doors, I immediately opened my bag, retrieved the iPhone, opened it, and was disappointed to discover no one had texted or called me. When I reread my scribblings several days later the arrogance they displayed didn’t surprise me—I could still feel its presence—but a growing sense of embarrassment accompanied the haughtiness.

The original direction for a short essay on being tethered to our devices changed several days ago as I parked my car at a park ‘n ride, the starting point for a solo bike ride through farmland in the Champlain Valley. It was hot and humid, for which I was prepared. I was not prepared, however, for what occurred as I made final preparations to take off toward Lake Champlain.

Among the dozen or so cars in the park ‘n ride I noticed a shiny, bright red Cadillac with New York license plates. The two passengers, a young teen in soccer attire and an older obese man in casual dress, were busy searching the trunk of the car, and seemed agitated, presumably because their efforts were fruitless. My pre-exercise regimen was interrupted when the large man approached my car.

“Excuse me,” he said, “Do you have a jumper cable? We can’t start our car.”

Before answering I focused on his sweaty brow and enormous girth. Disgusting, I thought, have you no pride!

“No, I don’t,” was my curt reply. I then proceeded to clasp the straps on my helmet.

I watched the man walk back to his car where the young girl had waited hoping, I suspected, for a positive response. When it wasn’t forthcoming they both retreated to a small nearby tree, which offered barely enough shade for her.

Once again I was privately embarrassed by my “I’m better than you” way of thinking, and though I couldn’t recall whether I had cables or not I called across the parking lot to the two of them: “Let me check my trunk to be sure.”

Judgment, pride, and self-righteousness are never as foreign to me as I’d like them to be. I balanced the bike on the curb, unhooked the bike rack, and searched the trunk of my car for a pair of jumper cables. There were none.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I walked toward them, “I don’t have any, but is there anything else I can do for you?”

The stranger, who’d been the object of my derisive thoughts, replied: “No, I’ll call AAA. We’ll manage, and thanks for checking.”

Instead of taking off on my bike, a pleasant but arduous ride through fields of corn and grazing cattle, I stayed and circled the parking area, cruising the half-mile loop in case they needed further assistance. This was partly because the wellbeing of two stranded strangers on a hot day mattered to me, but I also wanted to keep them in sight while I thought through how easily I can be drawn into preconceptions about people, judgmental thinking, and self-righteousness.

I’ve returned to the park ‘n ride on several occasions since that Sunday afternoon. I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that I’d like to have Prospero’s magical powers to make my imperfections vanish. With that fantasy comes the reality of gratefulness for events that occur wherein I have an opportunity to practice the teachings of great healers, Freud and Jesus among them.

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