There were two lines, and I was prepared to join whichever one moved fastest.

At my left, the customer’s voice was loud and sharp.  “Two dollars and nineteen cents for THAT?”  The cashier did not make eye contact, but politely repeated the total. 

To my shock, the customer flung the cash at the young lady behind the cash register.  She didn’t flinch, gathered the money, rang up the purchase, thanked the customer, and I was next.

I expressed my amazement at what I’d just witnessed, and the cashier informed me coolly that sort of thing happens quite frequently. She has been trained to remain polite and professional without tolerating abuse.

This incident kept coming to mind long after I left the store, so I wondered what I was supposed to recognize or learn about my own behavior.

Well, I like the “remain calm and polite and professional without tolerating abuse” thing.  I installed that program immediately, and have had several opportunities to simply remain calm while someone else is figuratively flinging cash at me.

But I’m also capable of behaving like the irate customer. The inappropriate placement of blame, the inappropriate treatment of a fellow human being, the arrogance of assuming a position of rank in the social hierarchy that allows us to maltreat another…oh, yes, all of these are present in me.

Like the angry lady ahead of me in line,  I have not always accepted complete responsibility for the price of my choices.

 Buddha says,  ’”Take what you want, and pay for it.” 

 And, I remind myself,  don’t throw the money at the clerk.

An intimate friend described what I write here as “revealing your underbelly.”

Yikes.  Is that what I’m doing?

A person of my acquaintance put so many details of her private life online that I had to turn away from the trainwreck. She overshared to the point of revulsion.  Apparently unaware that she was revealing her lack of integrity, character defects, and psychological problems, she thought she was being “honest.”  The revelations are forever in the public domain now. That underbelly is UGLY.

When I was a radio talk-show host, I had hours to fill every day, sometimes alone. If no guests were scheduled and the phones were silent, it was just me, blahblahblahblahing. 

One day, police arrested a man who had been doing something he shouldn’t have been doing in the parking lot across the street from the radio station.  They found in his possession a notebook in which he had recorded thousands of personal details about me, gleaned from years of listening to my radio show.  One fact here, one fact there, and he had assembled a dossier on my private life that was close to a definitive biography.

I am reminded of this now.  Does my underbelly look fat?

My first thought upon awakening almost every morning: “Where am I?”

I travel so frequently that until I open my eyes, I have no idea whether I’m in the United States or not, whether I’m in a familiar bed or not, whether I’m alone or not.

If I’m not alone, I’m with my husband.

Last week we were in yet another hotel room, and I was struggling in yet another unfamiliar shower, trying to find a comfortable balance of hot and cold.

“I am having a hard time getting the temperature right,” I said through the shower curtain.  ”Counterclockwise makes it hotter,” my husband answered from the bedroom. ”HOW WOULD YOU KNOW THAT?” I hollered over the now-perfectly-adjusted shower.

“Because,” he said, “I take into account that you are probably going to need some help with things like that, so I pay attention to the details, so I can tell you when you can’t figure it out.”

I am directionally declined.  There are lots of things I’m really good at, but directions? Not so much. I used to be ashamed of having directional dyslexia. Now I’m quite comfortable telling people that I can’t read a map* or that I got lost for 15 minutes trying to get from my hotel room to the lobby. 

Since I was a tiny tot, I have had a near-mystical ability to put clothing on inside out or backwards, even when I pinch the tag between my fingers to make sure that’s what’s going in the back on the inside. I amaze myself with this trait. I honestly don’t know how I do it.

That shower adjustment? I know YOU can look at the dial and see blue with an arrow going one way and red with an arrow going the other and say, “Any idiot could tell how to make it hotter or colder.” Not this idiot.

What I did not know was that my loving husband has been quietly noting, for many years, how to help his spatially challenged wife.  I stood there in the shower, washing away a tear or two.

When I got out, I wrapped myself in a towel and then wrapped him in a damp embrace. “Counterclockwise makes it hotter,” I said, “Might be the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Many of my coaching clients have complained that they are not being shown love or respect in a way that speaks to them.  I remind them that people show love in their own way, in the “language” that they speak. 

Maybe you’re looking for a dozen roses when your beloved is offering a bouquet you haven’t recognized as love in a different language. 

—————

*  The best money I’ve spent in years: the iPad with Google Maps.  It’s big enough to see, you can instantly zoom in and out, and for the first time in my life I have some sense of where I am when I hold it in my hands.  Also for the first time in my life, I can be helpful as a co-navigator.  Emphasis on “co.”

How late should I be allowed to sleep in on a Saturday morning the week of my mother’s funeral after I have crossed an ocean to say goodbye?

I thought I deserved to be undisturbed in the 7am hour, but a neighbor apparently thought otherwise.  She was hollering, as dog owners sometimes do, for her pet to “COME!”  It sounded as if she were yelling in my ear, but she was outside the bedroom window.

“Pet” peeve of mine: if you have an animal, you owe it to the rest of us to train that animal to respond to your commands the first time.  (Your kids, too, but that’s another story.)

Blasted out of bed, I staggered to the kitchen in righteous indignation. “How dare she,” I muttered, seeing I was not the only one who had been awakened by this assault on the eardrums. 

Then I looked out the window and saw a grey-haired woman with an empty leash in her hand, looking sad and troubled.

I melted.

Losing a loved one is,  if you’ll pardon the pun, a bitch.

Suddenly I was able to forgive the rude awakening and empathize with her need to raise her voice no matter whose Saturday morning was disturbed.  One never knows what grief and burdens are causing others to behave in a way that offends or irritates us or inconveniences us.  I need that understanding right now myself.

My husband put on some clothes and went to see if he could help her find the dog.  He was greeted by the yap-yap-yapping of the prodigal pooch.  I resisted the temptation to refresh my pique.

I forgive as I wish to be forgiven.  Instead of seeing an annoying stranger in the yard, I see myself.

I am mourning.

My mother died, and it is as if a bubble burst and the tiniest particles are visible for a moment, then gone.  That’s how I’m experiencing the vanishing history of me.  Driving around the old neighborhoods is surreal – the places and the people are dramatically aged or gone forever.

The links to what was, to who I was and how I became who I am, are evaporating like the morning dew. 

And now we begin the sad sad process of dismantling the elements of what constituted a family homeplace, even though none of the four siblings lived in our mother’s last house. 

There will be no more “home” to go to, no anchoring spot for our little family. The furniture from the 1940s that our parents bought as newlyweds is still in use here. There are three bedrooms in this house, and the beds are the ones we slept on as children.  None of us will be taking this furniture.  Poof!  Another part of our family history will disappear.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had this experience.  When my husband’s mother died, we closed the home that had been the gathering place for siblings, children, grandchildren, cousins, friends.  No matter how much the survivors may try to recreate a sense of a family homeplace, there’s something irreplaceable when the mother and father are no longer living and the house is sold.

It feels as if all the tears I never cried when I left home, when I moved away so young and so frightened, are coming now.  That girl is gone, and her past is vapor.

I’ve just returned from a reception for the TEDGlobal2010 Fellows. These world-changing individuals are intimidating even to the Fellows who precede them. Every time we meet a new class of Fellows, at least one of the outgoing Fellows or Senior Fellows will say, “I’m glad I didn’t have to compete for a spot in THIS class! I never would have been chosen!”

After engaging in a wonderful conversation with one of them, she asked, “And what do you do?”  I answered, “Nothing.  I am doing nothing at this time.”  She looked incredulous.  “I am on sabbatical,” I explained, “And I’m not doing anything.”

After a lifetime of trying so hard to rack up achievement points, I have become completely comfortable telling ultra-high achievers that my job is “doing no work.”

I am beginning to integrate the notion that it’s OK just to be, without having to do.  I always thought that was a crock, a good excuse for lazy people not to pull their weight in the world.  But somewhere deep inside, I have begun to believe that we are enough, each of us,  just being who we are.

I couldn’t help looking at the little boy; he was seated directly in my line of sight at the next table.

He was looking at someone whose back was to me, and on his face was an expression of sheer joy.  What was delighting this child? Maybe just being with and looking at whoever that person was, or maybe something wonderful was being explained or promised.

All I know is what I saw – unadulterated happiness, the kind that only a child can radiate.  No faking, no holding back, no processing, no posing. 

I thought about how rare it is to meet an adult who expresses emotion so freely – myself included. When I was a television newscaster, I posed for thousands of pictures.  Think of all the photos you’ve ever seen of your local news team, and then imagine how many shots the photographer had to take in order to get the ones you see.  Multiply that times 15 years, add the number of people who say “Can I get a picture with you?” and of course, new shots every time there’s a new member of the news team.

The most experienced anchor among us used to joke at the photo session, “OK, guys, give ‘em Warm #7,” or “Let’s do Serious and Concerned for the next one.”  The first time I heard him kidding this way, I must have looked shocked (or judgmental, one of my specialties back then).

He said soothingly, “Don’t worry, it’s all about sincerity. Sincerity is the KEY.  Once you learn to fake THAT, you’ve got it made.” Everybody broke up laughing, including me.  But there was a grain of truth in that joke.  Adults learn to fake their emotions for perfectly good reasons.  We can hide our discomfort, our amusement, our revulsion, our indifference.  And such fakery is a binding agent, allowing pleasant relationships to form and flourish.

When someone asks,”How are you?” we have learned to give the socially smooth answer instead of regaling the asker with a litany of sincere complaint.

For one moment, I was jealous of that little boy and the purity of his expression.  And then I turned and arranged my features into an expression of interest in the conversation taking place at my own table.

I know there’s room in me for more expression of childlike sincerity. Without coming across like the Tom Hanks character in  “Big, ” I resolve to let it shine through.

When I was a kid in Buffalo, I remember tossing and whimpering through many a summer night, unable to get comfortable no matter what I did.

We had a fan.  I would set that noisy monster at the foot of my bed, pour a glass of water on the single sheet that covered me, and let the fan blow.  You would think that would provide a little relief.  It didn’t.

As record temperatures have made life uncomfortable – if not unbearable – for millions this summer, I’ve managed to spend a lot of time in air-conditioned comfort. But it’s been impossible to avoid the three-figure temperatures altogether.

My travels have taken me to some scorching cities, and I’m currently on the top floor of a hotel with no a/c.  I have a wet towel at the ready.

I know, I know, I sound like Old Lady Harnisch when I say that when I was young, air conditioning was a luxury and I didn’t know anybody whose house was fully equipped.  Somebody’s parents might have had a window unit in their bedroom.

We went to the movies to cool off for a couple of hours – it cost a quarter. (OMG, OLH in full effect.) There was a decal of a penguin on the glass door of Shea’s Seneca theater  saying, “It’s Coooool Inside!”

I’m the person who’s comfortable sleeveless when other people are wearing a quilted jacket.  I’m the one who will offer you the wrap I brought but am not wearing because I’m too darn hot. (Edie Falco  gratefully accepted at a benefit one night where she was freezing and I was steamy.)

Of all the things I appreciate about living in this time, ubiquitous air conditioning is in the Top Ten.  The past couple of weeks, I’ve listened to a lot of people complain about how hot and uncomfortable they are.

Hey, welcome to my world!  It is always interesting to see multitudes walking a mile in the shoes I wear every day.

Whenever others experience my discomfort, I become sharply aware that a lot of people are having uncomfortable experiences and challenges every day of which I am completely unaware, or to which I might not be very sensitive or sympathetic.

And that is not so hot.

“I’m not asking you to ENDORSE me, I’m asking you to INDULGE me,” said my husband.

We were in a familiar conversation pattern: he says something with which I cannot agree, and I respond with “logic” and “common sense.”  He becomes frustrated, because there are times when his motto is “This is what I think, don’t confuse me with the facts.”

OK, the truth is,  he really said, “I’m not asking you to ENDORSE me, I’m asking you to INDULGE me, and keep quiet.”

I can do that.  (Yes, I can.)  He deserves a little harmless indulgence once in a while.  Of course I would never keep quiet about something significant, nor would he want me to. But shut up about the small stuff? Fine.

Now, I am thinking of ALL the people with whom I can use this simple formula for harmony: you don’t have to endorse them if it’s OK with you to just indulge them…and keep quiet.

Did you see this? 

The geniuses at the MIT Media Lab  have come up with another stunning use of technology.  Soon, you’ll buy an app for your iPhone, add a $2 lens, and you’ll be able to give yourself an eye exam that tells you what prescription you need.  This isn’t going to do much for the average American today, but can you imagine what it will mean to people elsewhere in the world who have little or no access to a professional eye exam?

I’m headed for TEDGlobal in a couple of days, and as is my custom at TED, I expect to be gobsmacked by at least one piece of new technology.

At this moment, though, I’m thinking about all the people who currently earn a living in the eye exam business.  I’m thinking about all the journalists who compete for scoops with every cell phone and Twitter account on the planet.  I’m thinking about the people whose talents and skills are being rendered superfluous by technology – including me.  Before Google, my (junior) encyclopedic store of trivia and facts was an asset.  Now, anyone with a thumb can come up with answers as fast as I can.

That’s OK.  I don’t mind losing one of my Superpowers – because before Google Maps I could not tell you which way was up. 

I’m reminded of my friend John, an older gent, when I showed him my brand new personal organizer in 1993: the first Sharp Zaurus.  His eyes shone as I demonstrated all the tricks it could do, and he said, “I’m only sorry I’m not going to be here to see what’s coming.”

An eye test on an iPhone? Wow. I expect to be around a while, but no matter how long I live, I’m only sorry I’m not going to be here to see what’s coming!