Currying favor

It’s impossible these days to walk down a street or supermarket aisle and not be accosted by someone selling something or signing up names for a petition. I don’t know why they believe it’s okay to aggressively interrupt people stressed more than enough as it is, people just trying to focus to get to their office or their doctor’s appointment or the diaper shelf so they can get home before the babysitter leaves. I’m certainly in favor of the Red Cross, gay rights and Greenpeace saving the whales—I love what they do. But when their agents disrespect what I have to do enough to step into my line of forward motion to cut me off as though I have no vital agenda of my own, I don't want to share the love.

The clipboard clippers who step out to stop me are unfortunately delivering a message Pema Chodron was trying to send when she told a group of us that after the shocking shoot up of students at Kent State, an Ohio National Guardsman met the press and said even though the hands at the end of their outstretched arms clenched only flowers, the sight of people marching toward him in deliberate confrontation was naked aggression. That's how these interceptors look to me. And why I am abrupt passing by with signs of dismissing them. I am trying to deliver the message that their tactics are not okay and probably aren’t saving any whales.

I am by now pretty set in this way, so I was taken aback the other day when I breezed by somebody parked behind a food table half blocking the entrance to the first aisle of a local supermarket, and was asked if I wanted to try Afghan food. A quick glance revealed stuffed flat bread and curried lentils I already happily consume. “No!” I said, speeding by. But memories of how good they taste made turn me around. “I’ve already tried it. I buy your stuff. You make great food.” I took off for the bread bar but heard a voice behind me shout: “Then come around and I’ll cook more for you.” That guy sharing the love stopped me right in my fast tracks. The Afghans shouldn’t be at war, I told myself. They should be at the dinner table. Stop petitions to stop the war. Let’s all just sit around eating bolani and curried lentils and savor Afghanistan.

~Sandy Garson"Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
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