Spilled Tomatoes

My life is simple. I homeschool two of my kids. I am raising a teenager who goes to public school. I am married. I have a bunch of different things I'm qualified to do, and I do them for free or for money occasionally, but the main things I'm working on right now are my family, and the books I'm writing. I don't go to a lot of events, but I frequently go to the grocery store and the coffee shop.

Yesterday I went to the grocery store to pick up some supplies including lasagna noodles and sauce. I'm making it tonight for my husband, whose birthday we are celebrating. He's 44. As I entered the foyer area of the grocery store where they have some on-sale clothing items displayed along with a cooler full of guacamole and other refrigeratables and a display of organic blueberries beside red strawberries grown the way people say is conventional that I hope, by the time my children grow up will be rare-enough to considered to be labeled "grown with harmful pesticides" and to be hardly bought by any forward thinking adult or anyone with concern for their children, I had cause to pause. An inner cause. So I stood there staring at boxes of stuffing I knew I wasn't going to buy, allowing numerous people to go ahead of me. A few minutes later a radiant woman with crystal sky eyes entered and smiled. "What a lamb!" she said. She looked to be in her early sixties and she shone with a purity and kindness that pierced while being very sweet. "That is a lamb hat, right?" I was wearing my yoda hat, which has been mistaken for Shrek on previous occasions, but never for a lamb. I immediately observed that the woman's essence seemed very much like a pure lamb. "No that's you!" I said. I told her my hat was Yoda and we stood there blocking the doorway smiling into each others eyes. "Can I hug you," I asked. "Well yes," she said. And we hugged, a real genuine hug. The woman version of a bro hug. The kind you'd give to a close friend you hadn't seen a long time. "Thank you for you for your sweetness" she said. I thanked her for hers and the proceeded to enter the main shopping area. For me, shopping is like going to the playground, not because I am a shopoholic but because of the opportunities the environment affords to interact with people and spread joy. For example, their was the employee whom I asked, "How are you?" He said "Pretty good. Wish I was out there enjoying the snow, though." I told him they should really make the entire store floor tiltable, then cover it with snow and ice, for sledding and skating throughout the aisles. He love that idea. Then there were was the East Asian family wearing tall fur hats like the one my local cross guard wears. I made direct eye contact with and grinned widely, until they smiled back, tentatively at first, then boldly, like once they realized it was okay, that I truly had no agenda other than sincere and joyful human connection, they realized it felt really, really good to smile. I loaded up my cart with the items I needed, and then made my way toward the front of the store to pay for my loot and get home to my family. I felt the nudge to get in Aisle two.

"How are you?" I asked the woman ringing up the items for purchase. She replied, "I can't complain." I am a huge fan of personal sovereignty and taking responsibility for our choices. Also, I am a fan of helping people realize how awesome they are. So I said, "Well I COULD..." She chuckled. "Well I could but I'm not going to." I smiled. She asked, "How are you?" I am fascinated by this question. "How are you?" I used to bemoan that most people don't really want a genuine answer. And then I started attracting people who could actually brook authenticity, but I also realized A) answers in public need to be short B) I want to give an answer that is life-affirming and that creates new realities, rather than reinforcing any old ones that may need a bit of compassion, but certainly don't need to be fueled with added logs to the fire. I don't like to keep my challenges, so I only talk about them if doing so actually helps them to become blessings for me or someone else. "The answer to that question is complex, but I'm going with good" I said loudly and proudly. Okay, I know I said my life is simple, but simplicity and complexity are not strangers, you know. Take a snowflake for example, or a crystal. I always have some aspect of me that is good. I am good when I embrace my challenges as opportunities. I am good when life shows up magically for me. I am good when I realize my soul chose the experiences I am having - even the difficult ones - because it is refining my character. I am good when I can use pain I've been through to empathize with others. I'm good when I notice the beauty in the world, and in people - in how easily people come out of their shell and shine with a simple genuine compliment and sincere smile from one soul to another. I'm going with good when I use the tough stuff to enter a deeper level of self-mastery. I'm good when I'm driven to surrender - or to discover an insight that might help others.

In front of me a man glanced over as his groceries were being loaded into a paper bag and complimented my at. "It is Yoda, right?" I told my kids about the excursion later and they were like,  "You should have said, no it's supposed to be a lamb." "Yes, I said, grinning. I use Yoda to bring awareness to awareness of the divine feminine to the divine masculine. I don't preplan it - just pops out. "As cute as those blue spirit ears are, sooner or later Yoda's going to have to reincarnate - as a woman. Because God knows we need him on the ground." In retrospect, I'm not sure which pronoun would have been best there. I have always felt we need a better neutral gender pronoun. They, them and their" just don't do it for me. Of course I'd use them for someone who wanted those pronouns, its just I think we can do better. Pronouns aside, the man's eyes twinkled as he nodded and said, "I couldn't agree more." I then turned to the woman and said, "I guess I should swipe my card and pay for those groceries." She kind of nodded and shrugged. Then I remembered a funny interaction I'd had with one of my children. All three kids and I were hanging out and I said, "Well, I should probably start writing." And one of them said, "It's good to should yourself, Mommy." I shared this little anecdote at the register and the man said, "Don't you just love when your kids hold you to what you teach them?" "Yes, I said, I consider that I've raised them well when they do." I finished paying for my groceries and was just about to head toward my car, when I noticed the avocados again in the foyer and saw that they were on sale. I felt the call of the avacodo. I felt around for two that were ripe, so I wouldn't have to wait, and then wait too long and waste them as I often do in my dance with the process of avocado ripening. I decided to go back in and get them, and to boot, I saw a little package of cherry tomatoes, thought of my daughter, who adores them and snagged them. This checkout was pleasant but uneventful. The action didn't really start until I stepped from the curb into the parking lot, now blanketed with snow so you could still see a little of the pavement, like an oreo cake covered in sugar. As my boot made contact with the snow I slipped the tiniest bit, the plastic latch on the tomato container popped open, and while I regained my balance, a waterfall of little baby-sized balls leapt from the plastic cube in which they'd been previously safely nestled and rolled out onto the snow-covered pavement like pool balls that have been struck. Only one got squished enough to squirt seeds. Another was badly bruised. But most were just sitting there on the ground, waiting for me to decide what course of action to take. I mused, "I though go inside and ask for a new box." But I got an intuitive no. "I could just take the loss, you know, swallow the mulligan and go home with the remaining baby reds." I got an intuitive no on that too. I just hate it when I'm trying to follow the best and highest path and I'm getting "nos" on all seemingly available options. So I stood there looking stupid and feeling bewildered until a woman existed the store with her own bags in hand and looked at me with concern. "Oh that's too bad," she said with genuine feeling. "Yeah, I said," I just feel so bad to waste them.

"Oh well you could pick them up and just wash them." Such an obvious, beautiful solution, I just hadn't seen it. "You're right!" I said. She put down her bags. "Here, I'll come over and help you." And there while the gentle snowflakes covered the pavement and softly landed on my spilled tomatoes, a kind woman changed the course of my day. It took almost no time, but the connection was living and beautiful. I thanked her deeply and we both went away smiling ear to ear.