Yay not being a douche!

I realize that the title of this post is a bit off-brand for me, but I couldn’t think of anything sugar-coated to really sum up my morning.

Around 11am, I headed off to my usual coffee spot to get some work done. On my walk, I greeted the guy who owns the antique store, the waiters at the local outdoor diner and the man who owns the men’s clothing store. We talked about how we both have bad knees and I asked how his is holding up with the storm coming.

When I walked into the cafe, there was one man in front of me — 30’s hipster type, not particularly off-putting or daunting, just standard Montclair Freelancer Man. And then I heard him say something odd but couldn’t make out what it was. All I knew is that it was rude — no, beyond rude, it was some sort of attack. Everyone around him stopped and stared. He puffed up his chest and locked eyes with one of my favorite baristas. She stood dumfounded at what to stay. A few moments later, he stormed out.

“Whhaaaat was that about?” I asked. She looked startled.

“He stared into my eyes for a really long time in silence and then asked why I was charging him for a refill. Then he wouldn’t stop staring. I didn’t know what to do. It freaked me out.”

The other baristas and I helped her shake off his weirdness. Meanwhile, that a-hole went on about his day.

I headed home later, the weirdness of the guy behind me and, it seemed, behind the barista as well. I crossed the street and found myself in the pathway of a woman about my age hurrying somewhere. We did that awkward which-way-are-you going dance and when I smiled and said, “Excuse me,” she rolled her eyes and made a childish huffing sound past me. Something in the air today, I thought.

On the rest of my walk, I pondered what life must be like to carry anger and fear around on the surface that way. No matter where it comes from — pride, righteousness, exhaustion — that behavior must all go back to anger and fear. And however it appears, it’s rarely about the person receiving it, if ever. Still, do these people even know how much they’re missing out on by projecting their anger everywhere?

Quick note: Please know I am talking about people who have the ability to seek help for mental health issues. I’ve struggled with problems for years — in some phases of my life, serious ones. If my anger or anxiety gets out of control, I seek help and I realize I have that I privilege to do so. It is within my power, and therefore if my responsibility, to not redirect it toward the rest of the world. In this post, I’m speaking about the regular schmo carrying their rudeness about like a badge of honor.

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Whenever my stress hangs around for long enough, I start having Plainfield nightmares. Plainfield is the town where I grew up until I was 11. It was less than safe and far from pleasant. Last night I dreamt that that there were people outside the house, people I couldn’t see–I usually can’t–banging on the doors and windows trying to get in. I try to lock the doors, but somehow I know I’ve forgotten one lock at the other side of the house and spend the dream sprinting from place to place, trying to lock them all in time. In last night’s dream, a giant wind whipped through the house, keeping me from closing everything without the wind blowing them back open.

My last blog post was mid-Camino writing. As always, an unforeseen rhythmic change in life derailed my usual patterns of writing and habits of self-care. I took a month-long job in an office with a three-hour round-trip commute, Ben and I moved apartments (which was far from drama-free), and I’ve hit one of the longest freelance dry spells I’ve had since this all started.

Also, I broke my toe on Sunday. There’s nothing like hobbling slowly through Manhattan during rush hour when everything looks like a possible toe-smashing device. A bunch of Amtrak-bound girls donned in bachelorette gear came at me with rolling suitcases last night in Penn Station and I almost balled up into the fetal position.

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Photo via Unsplash

Last night I had a dream about climbing a snow-covered hill on the Camino.  I could see a group ahead of me, Christina and some other familiar faces among them, all cresting the hill and out of sight.  It wasn’t snowing, but there were at least six inches of thick wet slush on the trail, weighing down each step. Suddenly, a strong wind lifted me off my feet and carried me, not unlike a bird caught in a crosswind, off the trail and into an adjoining field.  I saw my fellow pilgrims getting further and further away, continuing on as I stood far from the path.  Just up the hill from my landing place, was the extension of a long, endless cafe.  The building began at the crest of the mountain, back on the Camino itself, but stretched out all the way to my part of the field, like a long one-floor corridor with old dusty windows and wood-framed doors.

When I walked up to see inside, rows and rows of unused, antique cafe chairs and tables lined the corridor, clearly untouched for years.  It had a spooky, forgotten quality, and I worried in the dream that I might see something unexpected in the shadows of the dream cafe.  But suddenly, in the distance back by the trail, I saw the cafe’s lights begin to flicker on, showing signs of life for the first time in what was clearly a long time.

As quickly as the first gust came along, another gust of wind lifted me back to the Camino and I enthusiastically began to climb to the snowy hill to catch up with my fellow pilgrims.  The incline became so steep that I began digging my hands into the snow, pulling myself up the hill.  But I wasn’t angry or afraid at this point, just fighting through the all-too-familiar exhaustion faced at the end of each Camino day.

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