Vachon Imagined

The other day, I was standing in a checkout line when I asked an employee for help. She looked at me as though I had just handed her a lemon to suck on—only somehow more bitter.

Immediately, a fire lit inside me.

Thankfully, through much practice, I asked her a different question.

“Do you need help?”

That, to me, is the justice we all talk about but are not always good at implementing. Taking in what we are given and choosing what we give back in return.

Not because they are opposing forces, but because they are the same force moving through us. The difference is not what arrives. The difference is what we choose.

People judge us by those choices. Not by our intentions. Not by how hard we are trying. Not by the private battles we are fighting. They judge us by our behavior.

And perhaps that is not entirely unfair.

Behavior is where our inner world becomes visible.

The blessed ones are not those who are given peace. They are the ones who keep peace no matter what they are given.

This is a journey back to the place before “AM” begins and “I” remains.

“I” is life.

“AM” is action.

The two are inseparable. Without life there is no action. Without action there is no world, no physicality, no self-governance, no choice, no self-determination.

As I walked away from that interaction, her attitude lingered. I wanted desperately to tell my husband what had happened. I wanted to replay it, examine it, justify my irritation, and give the moment a second life inside my mind.

But instead, I chose silence.

Not the silence of suppression, but the silence of listening.

I listened to the thing inside me that wanted to ruin my day, my afternoon, my coffee with my husband.

And quietly I said:

I see you.

You are welcome here.

And somewhere beyond opposition, beyond right and wrong, beyond the place where juxtaposition exists at all, I believe I gave that young woman the same thing.

A spirit beyond time that says:

I see you.

And I love you.

No matter who you are.

No matter where you come from.

No matter how you behave.