The universe has friended me!

I do not get up in the morning expecting to turn into the next chapter of It's a Wonderful Life, but it does seem the universe has "friended" me. At the height of holiday hoopla, its blessing goddesses logged on and sent a post to Kennedy Airport. Actually, to the taxi line outside Terminal 8.

At 10 PM in 20 post-snowstorm degrees, I was standing there in the queue like two dozen other travelers, shivering, gripping my bag, trying to ignore the touts aggressively hawking their unlicensed car services. With a few battered Crown Victorias and an occasional soccer mom van between, one bumblebee yellow Prius after another pulled up and ejected turbaned Sikh, bearded Muslim or dreadlocked black-skinned drivers chattering on cellphones while they grabbed suitcases. The fur coated blonde in front of me got one of these obnoxious blokes who make the suspicious car services appealing. My turn came ...to a shiny new Transit connect van with windows.

The driver of this actually comfortable cab turned out to be a neatly dressed middle aged, cafe au lait skinned American, not attached to anything electronic. He didn't have a blaring AM radio or nattering intercom. All was calm, all was clean. He proceeded cautiously through slushy lanes and ramps, then flowed quickly but not recklessly down the Van Wyck. I apologized for making two calls on my cell phone, one of them to the apartment awaiting my arrival. Otherwise we didn't speak...until the Triboro Bridge when the $7.50 toll sign made me blurt: "Yikes! I thought the Golden Gate Bridge was ripping me off at $6.00. ... Do you get a discount for being a taxi or having one of those transmitter things?"

That's how conversation began. We rolled down the FDR comparing basic costs of living and trade-offs in San Francisco and New York. And traffic problems of course. All too soon I was at my destination. "Thank you," I said, handing him the fixed fare, bridge toll and tip. "I wish you Happy Holidays. And," I added, jacking up the handle on my wheelie, "I hope I find a driver like you when I have to leave next week. It's going to be dawn and I know how hard it is at that hour to find any driver, let alone one who will take you to an airport." Before I even left home, the ex-New Yorker in me had been worried silly about this.

"When are you going?" he said.

"One week from today at dawn back to Kennedy."

"I'll pick you up. Give me your phone number and I'll call you the day before to confirm."

I let go of the wheelie handle. "You're kidding."

"No," he said. "I'll call you if I can do it."

 I have friends who think I'm outrageous or ridiculous for getting myself a cab driver I can call upon anytime in Kathmandu, Nepal. Now, it seemed, I found myself one in Manhattan. Not Kansas but New York.  My own personal cabbie. The thought made me, a not 1% person who doesn't have a car service, giddy. But I did remember to thank the universe by dedicating the merit to all beings who can't get where they want to go.

I myself went on to where I had to go. Surprisingly, everything went very smoothly, without obstacles, frictionless as techies say. At least it did until that last morning when the check-in email for my flight the following dawn appeared on my smartphone screen and unzipped all the old get out of town stress I'd packed away. I tried to drown it in an extra large bowl of cafe au lait, sweeten it with a chocolate croissant, but it stubbornly hung around in the pit of my stomach, threatening to ruin my last day.

As I was arriving for an appointment, my phone blared.  Not recognizing the number, I quickly silenced it and shoved it deep into my bag--my way of punching spam callers in the face. About an hour later, when I reached into my bag for the phone, it was flashing signs of new voice mail. From the mysterious number. Really nervy spammers do that, I thought with disgust, but I tapped it anyway.  "This is Richard," the message began, "your cab driver. I can be there tomorrow morning. Just call me back with the address and exact time you want to go."

And at 5:30 in the morning, like in fairy tale dreams, that special cab miraculously turned off the deserted avenue and pulled in front of the building. "Good morning," Richard said, stepping out to take my bag.

I was in the middle of a miracle, a Christmastime miracle and I might have humming the Hallelujah! chorus, except 5:30 AM has never been my finest hour. At that point in time, I am a poster child for dysfunction. So the night before I'd stashed in my coat pocket the fixed fare, the toll and a fat tip for the extraordinary service--in the event he really did show up. I still worried about being stranded; maybe this was all a joke. But now as Richard abruptly made a U-turn, having suddenly decided to take the Brooklyn Bridge to avoid tolls, I panicked that the stashed amount was going to be wrong.

I think I did this because I am dysfunctional, actually dyslexic, with numbers. I have been known to wildly over or miserly under tip merely because I can't add up straight. In the back of that cab sailing over the Brooklyn Bridge, I was worrying like crazy about the math. I took the folded wad of cash out of my pocket and counted it. Maybe, I thought, I should give more. Trade the $5 for a $10. After all this guy is my private car service. He came before dawn, right on the minute, no hassles, no blabbering intercom or blaring radio. And it is Christmas.

I opened my wallet and took out the few remaining bills. It was dark outside and in the cab. My eyes were half closed with sleep. As you know, if you've ever heard foreigners complain, our greenbacks all look alike: $1, $5, $10, $20....you gotta look at the face on the front to distinguish. I put the $5 from my pocket back in the wallet and replaced it with a $10. I did wonder why I was bothering to do this, wondering why it is I can be reckless when it comes to giving, a little too much sometimes into sharing. I decided, as I always do, it's better than being stingy by mistake and creating negative karma. I think it's a girl thing. So even though I'm at a point where every penny has to count or else I'm going to miss payments, I felt very merry about giving a generous tip to this driver. I looked forward to seeing the joy in his face, and before I forgot, I texted thanks back to the universe by dedicating the merit to all those who don't have enough.

When we got to Terminal 8 departures, Richard took my bags out of the back and wished me a Merry Christmas. "Same to you," I said and handed him the folded bills. To my dismay, he didn't open and count them. He just said: "Thank you," stuck them in his pocket and walked back to the driver door.

I got over the disappointment by getting through security fast, somehow blessed by PreChek. I got home on time. A friend picked me up, saving me a $60 fare. The trip had been as perfect as anything in a dream. I was riding high, feeling all ho ho ho the day before Christmas.  I unpacked, then realized I needed to run to the grocery store before it closed. No problem, I thought. I've still got the last $50 bill in my wallet because I never spent it.  But it wasn't there. Only a $20 and some $1s, just enough to get what I needed. I insanely tore apart the suitcase and my pockets and my purse desperately searching for that $50 bill that I never spent.

 I was so disgusted, I got on my own case really really hard for being too blind and stupid at that hour of the morning to see the difference between a $50 bill and a $10.  Why did I even think I had to be exceedingly generous and replace that $5? The original amount would've been plenty. What was I thinking? I need every penny I can get to get on and I'd let a $50 slip away. Dunderball had tipped Richard almost double the fixed fare.  And didn't even get a thank you.

For days I yelled at myself.  I tried to get over it by reminding myself I saved the getting home fare upon arrival. I saved $4 not buying a Starbucks latte at the airport. I preached to myself about Patrul Rinpoche who threw all this gold into the river so he didn't have to worry about being robbed.  Eventually I calmed down. I needed to focus on getting over the New Year's threshold. I needed to concentrate on doing positive things that would summon positive energy to push me into 2014. That was the important stuff.

I made a batch of lucky peas and a batch of corn pancakes, corn representing the wish for gold.  I figure you can never do too much to get lucky. I emailed good wishes around the world: to Mongolia, France, Germany, Nepal. Maine, Canada, Arizona... . I donated what tidbit I could to charity. I poured bubbly because you should never miss an opportunity to bubble. I waded into the flood of Viber, text, email and Facebook wishes for me to have a banner 2014. I sat in front of my shrine and prayed to Chenrezig to soothe all the world's suffering. I beat a drum to beseech the black skull-crowned Mahakala to remove all obstacles and three times sang the prayer for rebirth in the pure land of joy and wisdom. I went to bed at 12:05AM praying that 2014 would buoy me over the troubles of 2013.

The ringing phone woke me at 7:30. On New Year's Day! Who does that? Nobody I know, I grumped. Indeed the number was nobody whose number I know but, in the fizzy spirit of the hour of the holiday, I answered. "This is Richard, the cab driver. I just wanted to wish you the happiest of new years. I just wanted to thank you so much for being so kind to me. I hope all goes well for you. And if you come back to New York, just call me and I'll come with the cab wherever you are."

When I officially got up, I made coffee, opened my email and found a message from London addressed to the tiny charity I run, Veggiyana. "We've made a miscalculation in the CD profits we are sharing," it said, "and find we owe you an additional $3,000."

I ate another huge bowl of lucky peas, feeling like this could be a wonderful life.












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