I realized with terror when I stepped back and surveyed my heart weeks after the event that I would have strangled that kid if he stole my quarter.
He was a homeless kid trying to survive.
So was I.
In one moment, I dropped precipitously off the other side of the cliff of privilege.
The day before, I was swinging my handbag, contemplating digging out a quarter to give to the poor homeless child with his hand out toward me.
The next day, I was on the same side of the divide of privilege as him.
This is what happened.
And more importantly, this is what I learned.
I was a teenager, traveling in Spain with a friend the same age. This was the 1990s, when our “Let’s Go!” travelers information book read that “Women travelling alone in Spain are assumed to be seeking sexual adventure.”
We weren’t.
We were high school students on a Rotary exchange, testing our wings a bit by stepping out on a one-week travelling adventure without the Rotary families responsible for keeping us alive as the fledgling birds that we were.
After the guy slowly extracted our backpack from within my astonished arms and strolled away, I yelled, “There he is! I’m going after him!”
A nearby stranger put her arm on my shoulder and quickly consoled me, “Don’t chase after him. He has a knife.” Was she an accomplice? Was she right? My brain raced, and my body tensed in a flight, fight, or freeze stance. What should I do? I searched my friend’s eyes, wondering her thoughts, and her eyes were already downcast.
And in that millisecond, the decision of what we should do was made for us because he had already disappeared into the crowd, enclosing around him.
That bag contained all of our “Traveler’s cheques” (which is how we did money back then before those nice little ATMs spit out bills in the local currency), our passports and everything else we needed to survive and travel in a foreign country. We had to wait until after the long weekend and “Spain’s national boat day” holiday before we could expect help from our local embassy representatives.
We were up the creek without a paddle, as the saying goes.
Where would the river take us?
The rest of this story is for next time, but fast forward to a few days later when I shakily put the remaining quarters into the “Take your photo!” machine to make emergency passports. I was shaking so much that I dropped the quarter. Thoughts like, “Where would we sleep tonight?” were churning like waves of a violent sea inside my mind. We hadn’t eaten anything except wormy cabbage in three days.
“What are you DOING!?” my friend angrily admonished at my failed attempt to put a coin into the little slot. “That’s all the money we have!” she yelled angrily.
Grabbing the remaining coin from my hands, she glared at me before attempting to deposit it.
Drop, roll . . .
She was also shaking so severely that her fingers wouldn’t cooperate with her brain. Another coin rolled down the street as we both frantically lunged for it. At the same time, the homeless child ran with outstretched, desperate fingers towards the money.
“My kind, gentle demeanor is only a façade,” I realized with horror as I sipped an ice tea poolside months later and contemplated this event from the comfortable distance opulence and security affords.
I seriously thought I might strangle that street kid if he stole my quarter, an amount of money I would have gladly given a dozen times over the day before, as I looked down my nose at this “other” and prided myself arrogantly for this generous act of “Goodwill.”
“I am an animal with bared fangs, drooling and ready to rip another to shreds from one breath and the next,” I realized with terror in the weeks, months and years following this event.
And your civility may be a façade too, covered with a freezer full of excess food, keys to a warm house to sleep in tonight, and relationships in your town that will open the doors for you when you need help.
But what if you look into your bag one day and find it empty of these advantages?
Welcome to who you really are.
Stay tuned next time to discover why this truth, though terrifying, has the power to set us free.
Photo Credits – Heart Arrow by Nick Fewings on Unsplash, The Other Side Of The Cliff by Daniel Lincoln on Unsplash
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