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He Told Me He was Ready to be a Father #RidesharingConfessional

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As an Uber driver, driving the same person is rare. It’s happened to me exactly twice. The first time it happened is a ridiculously strange story I’m still trying to figure out how to tell. The second time it happened was on a rainy, January day when the year still felt like a blank journal.

He wanted to try to cram a six-foot carpet into my poor little Mini Cooper. We wedged it through the trunk and into the back seat. He climbed into the front and thanked me. He wore work clothes and talked about how he happy he was to be making double-time-and-a-half. I thought I recognized him, but if it was the person I thought it was he didn’t look the way I remembered him looking. If you know what I mean.

Anyway, it was him, and in fact I wrote about meeting him a few weeks ago because the first time I drove him made such a big impression on me. He was the same African-American guy I drove right after the election, the same one who was feeling fearful after the results came in. He told me he still felt uneasy. I asked him how his year was going. He smiled, big.

“Well, we have had some news since I saw you last. My girlfriend’s expecting,” he said. “I’m going to be a father.”

He told me he was taking on all the hours he could. He remembered when his brother was little, eight years younger than him, and he had to raise him because his dad was always at work. He used to get up early and help him with his homework. He taught him how to play sports. He kept him in line.

“I’m ready,” he said, smiling. “I’m ready to be a father.”

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An Honest Reflection on Self-Employment, Canceled Contracts, and Hope

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Ride with me for just a moment on this roller coaster called self-employment, in which I try to provide for two adults and six children. This is how it often goes: I live a life of relatively uneventful days and sleepless nights. Poppy is five months old and highly skeptical of the benefits of sleeping through the night; Leo likes to come and say hello early in the morning; Sam wanders into our room in the middle of the night and sleeps on the floor. I do not set my alarm clock. I rarely work outside the house.

This is how I make money: If I can land two book projects per year, we’re a little short. At three we are doing okay. At four we worry if we have put enough back for taxes. We have sometimes gone months with no income. I only tell you this so that you understand the thin sliver of a line between a life where we eat at restaurants and a life where we don’t fill up the gas tank the entire way.

This is the life of this self-employed, freelance writer. I am not complaining. I am just telling you how it is.

* * * * *

We approached 2017 with very little confirmed work. We always know the month when the money will run out if I don’t land any new work. For a little while, The Month was January, 2017. And it marched ever closer.

We don’t look directly at The Month anymore. When I first started freelancing, The Month was like a spotlight in the eyes, far off but still blinding. It’s difficult to live that way, constantly shielding the eyes, and we learned to look away, to look at the here and now. This is the best way to live.

But as we approached The Month – January, 2017 – I couldn’t help but notice my pulse going up. I started driving for Uber to buy a little time. The flexibility is nice. The people are interesting.

Then, relief.

A job. A verbal commitment. We would meet the week after Christmas to finalize the deal, sign the contract, receive the deposit. This was one third of what we needed to pay the bills in 2017, and it was a relief. The blinding light of The Month dimmed. Between that job, Ubering, and other odds and ends, 2017 was well on its way to being covered, financially speaking.

Then, the sucker punch.

A two-sentence email. The customer changed their mind. They’d had second thoughts.

I am not complaining. I am just telling you how it is.

* * * * *

In 2010 or 2011 or any of the early years after I started writing full time, this is the kind of news that put me in full resume update mode. I’d start perusing job sites. I’d make a few desperate calls to friends. And for a few short hours last week, I was back there again.

Why do I try to do this for a living? What kind of a loon am I, believing I can make a living as the sole earner in our house by writing? Wouldn’t a regular income be better, even if it meant long hours away from the family, even if it meant doing something I didn’t love doing?

Why did I think this good thing could happen?

This is the question we ask ourselves when it feels like the bottom has fallen out. Most of us have been there, in one form or another. This is the question the single person asks when yet another relationship fades without fanfare, the question the entrepreneur asks when the financing falls through, the question the couple asks when her period arrives again.

These are the questions we ask ourselves when we are losing hope.

* * * * *

Don’t feel ashamed if you’ve misplaced your hope. It happens to the best of us. Sometimes this planet, with all that happens on it, can feel like a God-forsaken lump of dirt hurtling through the universe.

But also remember this. Hope is not simply something you keep your eye on. “Don’t lose hope!” people say in those saccharin voices, but hope is not something that can easily be kept track of. Hope is not like a set of keys or a tooth brush.

Hope must be wrestled to the ground. Having hope takes serious effort. It’s a slippery little devil, and if you don’t insist on grappling with it, it will slip away from you.

* * * * *

Deep breath. Exhale. Deep breath. Exhale. Deep breath. Exhale.

* * * * *

It’s 2017. 2016 may have taken your lunch money and kicked you to the curb. 2016 may have disappointed you in a thousand different ways. 2016 may have filled you with doubt and uncertainty and cynicism.

But it’s not 2016 anymore. Wrestle hope to the ground. Prepare to be surprised for good. Don’t give up.

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In Which I Feel Unexpected Affection Towards Someone I’m Driving #RidesharingConfessional

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Most mornings, when I’m going to drive, I peel myself off the floor where I’ve been sleeping beside Leo’s bed. He’s not been sleeping well at night. I creep out of the room, make some delicious Passenger Coffee (Union blend), throw on some clothes, and climb into my cold car. At 5am, the city is quiet and crisp, a new dollar bill. The street lights are sharp, like stars.

I pull up to a produce warehouse and wait for my fare. He comes out: an African-American kid, maybe 20, hood pulled up, hands deep in his pockets. He gets into the front seat.

“Morning,” I say, confirming his destination. “You work through the night?”

He nods and shivers, and his voice is kind.

“Morning, man,” he says. “I’m tired. And I’m freezing.”

I wonder if his work place is refrigerated, seeing that he works with produce.

“I’ve got heated seats,” I say, chuckling, reaching forward and pushing the button to turn on the heat in his seat. “But it’ll probably put you to sleep.”

“I can sleep anywhere.”

He grins from under his hood and I can feel the connection between us. He’s tired and cold, like me. He’s working hard, for himself or someone else. Third shift, man. Third shift sucks.

His destination is fifteen minutes away. After three minutes, he’s asleep, and there I am, driving this kid home from work. His breathing is heavy, his mouth wide open, like one of my kids, and as the sun rises behind us, over the highway, I feel an almost desperate tenderness towards him, the same kind of feeling I feel when I wake up in the middle of the night to take one of my own kids back to bed.

We get to his apartment building, and I can see the river. The sun rises over it. He startles awake, rubs his face.

“Sorry, man,” he says, shaking his head. “Wow, I was out. Right here’s good.”

I pull over, wish him well, and he gets out. And I go on with my day.

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the beautiful flawed hurting mean angry exquisite world

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I wonder
if this world has heard the expression
“to hell in a hand basket” or if it
even cares that a hand basket
especially one of wicker or wood or
straw wouldn’t hold up well in the flames
not to mention the smell it would carry
if you were somehow able to bring
the basket back home with you
after such an excursion.

But then, in the midst of this train
of thought, I hear you crying and I go
to your room and lay myself down beside
your crib like an offering,
the both of us not sleeping, the mid-day
sun burning bright lines into the blinds
the fan whirring the air into distraction.

There is another baby now, I tell
you. “Baby?” you ask. “Poppy Win?”
“Yes,” I say. “Poppy Lynne.”
Our eyes meet. You have the only other set
of brown eyes in the family,
just you and I, and I wonder if eyes
that are the same can see each other better. I wonder
if it is your lashes weighing down your lids
or if sleep is coming back.

I lift a book above
my head and try to read in the dim light, try
to outlast you. The book is sad.
The book is magnificent.

No one stops him. No shells come whistling in. Sometimes
the eye of the a hurricane is the safest place to be.*

It is too dark to read so I try closing my eyes
for a time, try to accustom them to this darkness.
When I open them again the words are clearer. I wonder
if silence is like that, if it helps us to hear more
clearly when we are surrounded again
by the noise.

You are clearly not buying it.

I scoop you up
take you back out to the world, the bright world, the
beautiful flawed hurting mean angry exquisite
world and I give you a small glass of water and you
smile, wet-chinned, brown-eyed and I say

It’s okay.

You nestle your head in the valley
of my neck and I say again,

It’s okay.

But I’m not entirely sure who
I am trying to convince.

Next week I’m releasing a free ebook of poetry called We Might Never Die. Sign up HERE to make sure you get the word when it’s available. Or, if you’re impatient, you can get the paperback HERE for $5.99 RIGHT NOW.

*italicized section from All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
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An African American Man, Donald Trump, and Listening #UberChronicles

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A few weeks ago, I picked up an African American gentleman while I was driving for Uber here in Lancaster. I don’t initiate conversations with passengers – I always find that to be super-annoying as a passenger, when a driver won’t shut up. So I normally say a sentence or two and if they take it from there, then we’ll talk, and if they don’t, well, who doesn’t enjoy a quiet car ride? The sound of music? The rush of the road under the car and the intermittent flash of street lights as you drive along?

We started chatting, and he was soft-spoken and kind, but we had a fifteen-minute ride, so halfway through our conversation dwindled and he turned his attention to his phone. We were a few minutes from his destination when we passed one of the Republican headquarters here in the city. Now, the last thing I want to do is bring up politics with riders. Seems like a pretty fast way to get a 1-star rating. But before I knew what was happening, I asked him a simple question.

“How are you doing since the election?”

We were at a light, and I looked over my shoulder to make sure he wasn’t going to punch the back of my head. The expression on his face was heavy. He looked as if we had only just then actually seen each other for the first time. All before had been viewed through masks.

“It’s been tough,” he said, shrugging, as if he had only then decided to be open with me. He cleared his throat. “My girlfriend is white, and we’re planning on getting married. She woke me up at 2:34am and told me Trump won Pennsylvania. She was crying.”

“Sorry, man,” I said. We were almost at his house, but I felt like we had only hit the tip of the iceberg.

“She asked me if a Trump presidency would mean we couldn’t marry each other. I told her of course it didn’t mean that. I didn’t tell her it did mean things might get a whole lot harder for us as an interracial couple. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again. I pulled to a stop in front of his house.

“Thanks, man,” he said, with genuine appreciation in his voice. He paused, then reached up into the front to shake my hand. “Thank you.”

I had done nothing but ask a question and listen.

* * * * *

It would be easy for me, for any of us, to tell this young man that his worries are silly. Of course Trump isn’t going to outlaw interracial marriage. Right? Of course they can get married. Stop being so paranoid.

It would be easy for me to ignore any concern that my friends who are Muslim refugees have, that they will now not be joined by their families waiting in refugee camps or war-torn countries. It would be easy for me to brush their concern aside and offer up a platitude, reminding them that God is in control. What will be, will be. It will all work out.

But.

These are real worries people have. It doesn’t help for any of us to negate each others’ concerns, to say, “Well, I was worried eight years ago when Obama got elected so get over it.” I think now would be a good time for us to consider Psalm 147, to focus more on binding up people’s wounds instead of trying to convince them their wounds don’t exist or are superficial or are the same wounds we had once upon a time.

Can we start asking questions and listening to each other? Really listening? And then walking away without protesting or offering easy answers?

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What All Refugees Have in Common

My new friend and Arabic translator.
My new friend and Arabic translator.

I sit in my car on an unseasonably warm day in November, and I’m across the street from CWS. Church World Service. They work with partners to give hope, opportunity, and relief to refugees and immigrants relocated to central Pennsylvania. I sit there across the street from their office and stare at the golden leaves. The days are shorter now. The darkness comes early.

I walk across the street and into the lobby, into the chaos of people trying to find their way in a new place. There are people from every country you could imagine there, some speaking to each other in languages I don’t understand, some waiting quietly, pensively. One man talks on the phone, urgently, looking at a small piece of paper and reading numbers into the receiver. I spot my friend, the man who will interpret for me, and he smiles. He stands up. We shake hands. It is good to see him again.

We aren’t there long before my friend from CWS comes out to retrieve us. We follow her through a maze of offices and hallways, corridors and meeting rooms. She tells us of their expansion plans. She is clearly excited for what it means for CWS, the extra space, the added capacity. We sit in a conference room, on a sofa, and we wait.

I can’t tell you the details of the story I hear, not yet, but trust me when I say you cannot sit on a sofa with a refugee from a war-torn country and walk out into that fall day unchanged. If you would take the time to listen to their stories, these beautiful, strong, persevering people, you would see there are common things to be found in all of them. Not the details – those are always different, always varied. The common things you find are these.

They always look older than they are.

There is a kind of softness worn into their eyes, a sadness that tells you they have seen many things, and a glint like light on metal.

There is a strength and determination somewhere around the shoulders, a bent-but-not-broken arch in their spine.

There is a childlike eagerness to make new friends – sometimes you have to work to see it, but it’s there.

I thank the man before we begin our meeting for the courage it must take for him to share his story in a strange country, when he does not know what this story-telling might lead to. I thank him for his willingness to explore the possibility of writing a book with me. I tell him not to get his hopes up – book writing and publishing are no sure thing, and it may very well be that nothing will come of our time together.

My translator tells the man what I say. The man smiles and nods and answers in Arabic. My translator nods, smiles also, then turns to me.

“He says, It is impossible for nothing to come of this. He is glad you are willing to hear his story, and no matter what happens, you are friends now. That is all that matters.”

Indeed. If only I were so quick to call people “friend.”

Maybe, in times such as this, listening to each other is the first and most important step.