Category Archives: flexibility
Tonight, I learn a little something about rescues
Manual Transmissions and Halloumi
- I have never driven in another country.
- I am driving a manual transmission for the first time in over 25 years and
- I have no way to contact anyone should I get separated from the three car convoy heading to a house I don’t have any information on.
Who Was Actually in Hell?
I got this text message as I was sitting in a sanitized lobby, waiting for a client meeting. As sure as I was that I was surrounded by juicy and intriguing stories, this was of no comfort to me today. I was not here to pry these secrets from the people walking by, practically sweating their words from their pores. I was there to discuss a project that, in the big scheme of things, was completely insignificant. Those delicious secrets would stay wrapped up in ties, slacks and shoes…the uniform that would remind everyone where they were after all.
I was on my way to a meeting, in heels and business clothes, when the truck I was driving began smoking and died along the side of the freeway the day before. It was about 10,000 degrees on the asphalt and there was no easy way for me to remove myself from the situation on foot. I hid the key in the truck, called the insurance company to arrange for the tow and then my sister to come take me home (Tina was in a meeting over an hour away). This is apparently not how it goes. Leaving your vehicle opens you up to all kinds of issues. Which is why, a full day and a half later, Tina is sitting for nearly three hours in the lobby of an impound lot waiting for the tow truck to finally arrive.
The woman in here has been yelling at me the whole time I have been here.
I have no idea why Tina thinks I would love to be in her shoes, apart from the fact that I am wishing like crazy that I could spare her the torture of her situation. When I get the text message above I cringe and cannot imagine how I am going to manage to keep my composure through the next three hours of meetings…meetings about nothing.
The woman here is threatening to go to lunch before the tow truck gets here.
As I wait, I am getting these texts AND a myriad of phone calls from the insurance company, who is arranging our tow (why was the vehicle on the side of the road again?), the tow truck driver (does the lot require us to have an SPD license?) and a dozen or so recorded messages continually adjusting the time when the driver will be at the lot. No matter how many time I give them Tina’s number, she is at the lot with the truck after all, they continue to call me. This keeps me in a state of high alert.
Mean woman starting to feel sorry for me.
At dinner, Tina tells me about the afternoon and I understand why I got the first message from her. She was sitting in the middle of a colorful story, characters running through the scene, dropping dialogue that would be hard to produce convincingly on a stage.
Lot Manager (glaring): Who’s that you’re talking to?
Tina (timidly in the corner of the room): The insurance company. They say they have been trying to call you.
Lot Manager (narrowing eyes): Well, I’ve been sitting here the whole time and the phone ain’t rung, so they ain’t called me, have they?
Tina: Can you talk to them on my phone?
Lot Manager: I ain’t talking to no one that don’t call me on this phone!
(Tina confirms number and asks them to try again. Phone rings in the office)
Lot Manager: Hello? Well you know I gotta have that ______ form before they can pick it up. It don’t matter, I still gotta have it. That just don’t matter, if I don’t have the form, I can’t release the truck. (hangs up the phone)
Over the two and a half hours that Tina shares an office with this woman and assorted drivers, she begins to learn about them. She witnesses one side of gentle private conversations the lot manager has with a child on the other end. She hears the same woman defend one of the drivers who is apparently not treated well by the others. And, as she fingers one of the two bibles perched prominently on her desk, she casually tosses some unexpectedly gentle nudging into the conversations.
Driver: He don’t share nothing of his and he comes in every day and just helps himself to our cokes. He brings just enough for himself and looks at you like you crazy if you ask him to share…but he just helps himself.
Lot Manager: Has he ever been any different?
Driver: Not a single time.
Lot Manager: Well then, you gotta forgive him, don’t you?
Tina’s right. I would have loved it. I would have been scribbling notes like mad on scraps of paper had I been there. As it was, I was absorbed in her telling of the story, even in the scant detail of someone who does not hold a story on her tongue like the delicious melting of dark chocolate. I can taste enough of the detail to wish it had been me there. To wish that those two and a half hours had unfolded for me, layer by layer, as it had for her.
xo,
Kim
A Miraculous Shift in Perception
I sat on one of thirty or so hard gray plastic stools at the back of the temple meant to catch the overflow of the faithful. I knew the minute I stood on the outside of the door to this sanctuary that I would join them, though no westerner appeared to be among the worshipping. I still do not know where this bravery is coming from. I keep wondering if it has something to do with all the times when I was little and chickened out when dared to do something…like I am making up for all those dares now. Brian McElroy, if you are reading this, I would totally swing on that rope swing over that mean old man’s backyard ditch if you dared me today. No way would I let you tease me about chickening out for an entire two years that followed that little incident.
But this does not feel like something I am daring myself to do. Not like the zip lining in Belize. Not like the drive to get on the White House Staff during the Economic Summit when it came to Houston. Not like buying a bus ticket in Singapore to go into Kuala Lumpur all by myself. I felt pulled into this place. This place on Waterloo street, in Singapore that houses the holy relic of one of Buddha’s teeth.
This place is considered one of the holiest places in the world, let alone Singapore. Tourists pace around the courtyard, not daring to go in, but wanting to take pictures of getting close to it…of the colorful and ornate interior that is easy enough to capture without actually entering. They will let you take pictures anywhere in here, but I store my camera as I light a joss stick, pray for peace and place it reverently in the sand outside the temple door…I know how to do this now.
Inside there is a sign indicating that it is proper, but certainly not required, to make an offering of a candle and/or flowers to the Buddha. I make my way to the stand at the side where a gentle lady takes my money and hands me a candle wrapped in flowers…assuming I know what to do with it. I do actually, but only because I just saw someone else make her offering before taking her seat amongst the faithful.
This building has five stories, the top four house museums, a gift shop, gardens, a tea shop and the golden protected sanctuary where the sacred relic is kept. But for now, the chanting draws me to the wildly ornate inner chamber…to the chanting of the monks.
Todays’ recitation comes from the Sutra, verses 33-36. I don’t know this at the time, of course. It is only later, when I wonder what it was that moved me so much, that I decided to look it up. The appropriateness of this message to me right now, in this moment is not lost on me. The universe is divine and there are many paths to God. Here are the verses, translated:
33. If you want to completely liberate yourself from fear and end all internal formations and doubts, You must know that if you haven’t pulled out the arrow of desire, then you haven’t understood yet that this body is suffering.
34. Among the highest things that people call the most divine Nirvana is the highest. You must cut off all ideas and attachments and do not be deceived by words.
35. Knowing how to refrain or not to refrain that is the highest practice of letting go. If in our heart there are thoughts of practice the shell will be cracked.
36. Of all offerings, that of the Dharma is the most precious. Of all kinds of happiness, that happiness based on the Dharma is the greatest. Of all strengths, patience is the most powerful because it can put an end to attachment and bring the happiness of Nirvana.
Pulling out the arrow of desire…patience putting an end to attachment…my western mind struggles with these concepts, even though I feel the truth of it in my heart. But I don’t know any of this message as I sit in the middle of people who, like me, are sitting on small gray overflow stools. But who, unlike me, are following along in their own book of the Sutra (at least that I what I am guessing they were as it was all in Chinese characters) and sing-songing along with the orange robed monks who floated through the room at intervals delivering critical components to the service that I did not understand, as they chanted. I bowed when everyone else did. I turned to face another direction when everyone else did. But mostly, I closed my eyes and let the sounds of the hour and a half service pour over me and then through me. My heart understood something my mind could not.
And after twenty minutes or so, my mind rested and stopped trying to figure out if I was in the right place. I stopped worrying that I did not really belong there. I stopped wondering if the people there judged me for intruding on their sacred service. I know so little about Buddha, but what I felt in there was acceptance. I was creating my own separation, my own doubt, my own judgment. And I stopped.
And when I did, I could hear the chanting differently. What had frankly always felt sleep inducing and a little like droning to me, suddenly held passion and fire. What had felt cold and emotionless, now had life, warmth, intensity. How had I missed this? How is it possible that I had shut myself off from the experience of this with my own restrictive perspective?
The entire temple was stunning. In total, I spent more than three hours there, yet it felt like almost no time had passed. I walked through the gardens. I explored the museum. I turned the prayer wheel and I meditated before the Buddha’s tooth. But nothing could touch the experience of just being part of a flow I have been a part of that evening. Once again, my experience of a temple in Singapore defies my expectations and opens space in me that I didn’t know was there.
Xo,
Kimberley
Sustainability and a Cup o’ Joe
Tina and I read this book a few months ago. It was truly an inspiring read. This is a parable for how flexibility is crucial for true sustainability. Michael Gill Gates literally reinvented himself from scratch…with help from an unlikely source given his background and connections.
Embedded video from CNN Video
It is not a book that will having you pouring over his turns of phrase…and you may find the name dropping a little much, although I have to say it really gave me incredible context for his transformation given the privelege he enjoyed from birth.
It is a quick and thoroughly enjoyable read. Pick it up. You can get a used copy on Amazon for 2 bucks and some change.
xo