I was due to meet her at City Winery in 2 minutes and the restaurant is 10 minutes away. Drats, the stress of my tardiness started to make my stomach jiggle internally in that feeling pukey kind of way, that darn second coat of mascara. I forced myself to slow down and take a deep breath. A second deep breath helped me quiet my tensions and the reality came back to me that I was on my way to meet one of my favorite people for dinner. We needed time to reset on life things and all its complex shards that take residence in our story lines with or without our consent.
This was the girl’s dinner I have to hammer into the assiduous agenda of the everything elseness vying for time and attention I don’t have. Tonight gave me date like anticipation. She is, after all, one of the women in my life who I have an insatiable girl crush on. We’ve walked the depths of one another’s steepest valleys and have thrown back glasses of rushing bubbles to celebrate the moments that take our breaths away. Now she was texting to say she was there and I was not having luck flagging down a cab. Yikes. And then he pulled up. “Thanks for stopping,” I exhale as I jump in. “I’m going to City Winery in the West Loop.” He’s a deer in the headlights now and my intolerance slowly begins clawing its way to my consciousness. “Do you not know the West Loop? Restaurant Row?” I continue. “He nods his head now and confirms he has no idea of the neighborhood.” Now I am forcing deep inhales to hedge the urge to let the verbal pokes flow. “The West Loop is a very popular area in Chicago, as a taxi driver you should familiarize yourself with the area.” He nods in agreement. By now I’m beginning to notice he is dressed rather shabbily. A gray hoodie that may not have been washed in quite some time. His hair unkept but not terrible. He had a quiet demeanor about him and something compelled me to engage him further. “Have you been driving cabs very long?” “Just one month, he explains.” He had just moved to the US from Sudan.
“What’s your name?’ I continued. “Mohammad, he replied.” My friend texted to see if I was almost there, that stomach jiggle started again. Deep breath, I remind myself. “Mohammad, I explain…you are going to have to learn to drive faster than this if you want to be a good cab driver.” He giggled; I iterated again that it’s something Chicagoans take very seriously around our user experience. “Mohammad, I hope this isn’t an ignorant question, but are you familiar at all with ‘The Lost Boys of Sudan?’ “I watched an incredible documentary on the stories of their journey and I am humbled and challenged by the strength of spirit the men exhibited in the face of unfathomable adversity. Do you know of them?”
He explained he knew their story and shared detail on how his homeland had changed, evolved more since that time. His family is here with him and he is a practicing Muslim. His shabby aesthetic faded into almost complete invisibility by now. The next 15 blocks of that cab ride became my enthusiastic live tour of the neighborhoods, what they were called, what they were known for and any other important detail I could think to fill Mohammad in on. I was swept up by the sweet spirit of this under the speed limit driving cabbie who loved his family and his God. I wanted to deposit anything I could to help Mohammad be a wildly successful cab driver. Who was I in this cab? I like her…this person who was connecting now with the soul of this familiar stranger.
Another text had come in, and I was now almost 15 irritating minutes late. I was now also acutely aware that Mohammad and I were supposed to meet that night. His presence and life had somehow become the breath I needed to call me back to my present self and walk with my feet on the ground.
“I can tell you are a rule follower Mohammad, and that’s a wonderful thing in a lot of ways. I can tell you are a man of good character and are clearly a rich man, my friend. I’m so glad we met.” We were laughing like old friends as I paid and we thanked each other for the investment of attention and truth. With my last deep breath, I smiled in the anticipation of seeing my friend and had a renewed gratitude to be reminded of the things in life that are real and true and most important.
I was no longer aware of anything else or more and the chatter in my mind had slowed down to the present moment;
and that was Mohammad’s gift to me. I turned as I jumped out… “Now Mohammad, I like you. But my friend…you are going to have to learn to drive faster!” We laughed out loud and parted ways.
It occurred to me that we were strangers in ways innumerable. Bigger and more true however, was the realization that Mohammad was just like me. Doing his best with what he has, and putting one foot in front of the other on this glorious road to adventure I feel privileged to be on.
Social awareness, Living in the moment