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February 11, 2004
When I was growing up, my mother was the spitting image of Amelia Earhart. A real beauty, Amelia was the first woman who flew solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1928. It took her 20 hours and 40 minutes. Amelia was a real gift to this country: Assistant to the General Traffic Manager for all of U.S. Aviation; a much sought after public speaker; married to George Putnam of the Putnam publishing dynasty; a popular writer for women's magazines. On May 21, 1937, Amelia took off for a round the world flight. She made it to New Guinea by June 29th and was never seen again. Her disappearance became a mystery that people were driven to solve. Maybe she really ran away with her navigator, maybe she was still living in New Guinea, maybe she had simply landed somewhere in the United States and was living under an assumed name. For my mother, this need to solve the Earhart mystery meant that every once in a while, especially when we were overseas, someone would stare at her, come up to us and ask her if she was Amelia. (Even though she was the spitting image of Amelia of forty years ago. The time difference didn't seem to matter.) Mostly she would say no. But every once in awhile she'd say with a twinkle in her eye, "I was Amelia Earhart, but I'm not now."
Last Monday when I was looking for a little Valentine's gift for mom and saw a book titled, "I was Amelia Earhart", I knew I had found the perfect gift. Since I only vaguely remember hearing about the book I skimmed it to make sure it was readable (it is) and tripped over the single sentence of 2004: "There is a time known as the between."
Wow.
There is a time known as the between. What you and I do with that time determines how our life goes. Here are some examples of between times: when we're waiting in line at the post office; at the airport; in the dentist's office. When we're sitting with a sick child who can't sleep or waiting for the dog to come back into the house. When we're waiting to see if he/she will call. Between time is the space where we react to the surprises that make up these ever changing lives we call ours. Between time is also the space where we react to someone's unkindness…..or kindness. It matters enormously.
A couple of weeks ago my friend Eric gave me a wonderful article from a martial arts magazine. It's topic was something called "golden moments" . Golden moments are those instances when we get to decide if we want to escalate a painful situation or not. When someone steps in front of us in line, what are we going to do? We get into an argument and someone shoves us. We're bigger. What do we do? In that moment we decide how we want to live our lives.
If we take the precept of doing no harm seriously, maybe we keep our mouths shut when someone cuts in front of us. Or at least we keep our fingers to ourselves. When someone shoves us, maybe we apologize, even if we're in a situation where we haven't done anything wrong. We know the apology will deescalate the situation. So we say we're sorry and let go of the situation before it grows into something we both regret. I am amazed at how quickly small incidents explode these days. A while back, on an early morning flight, we were all grumpy ….sleep deprived, caffeine deprived, squished in our winter layers of clothing. A man behind me told the man between us to hurry up. Everyone who heard him was surprised….the other guy was obviously moving as fast as he could. Plus there was no where to go. A golden moment.
At first silence. Then: "Fuck off." Another golden moment. But neither of them could let go. Before any of us knew it, they were actually shoving each other. (They couldn't hit each other because there wasn't enough room.) Within minutes the pilot was beside me yelling at both of them to sit down and keep their mouths shut or he would have them both arrested. It was really something to watch. Completely unnecessary. Yet it happened.
Meditation teaches us to pay attention to the between. Over time we learn how to take advantage of golden moments, how to take a deep breath and tell ourselves its ok, reminding ourselves that someone else's anger doesn't have to be ours. We can use golden moments to ask ourselves what we can do to help the situation, whatever it is. That way, the between becomes a secret reservoir of patience, and compassion. It gives us a way to choose how we are with everything that happens to us. It gives us the gift of immeasurable time and space. I hope my mom likes the book. And doesn't mind that it has one underlined sentence.
May all beings be completely happy.
