“We are all just walking each other home” ~ Ram Dass.

I have had some interesting conversations while walking with different people during my life.  For a start I grew up walking.  Not like in the US where it seems you drive everywhere, at least here in South Florida, especially in the hot, humid, summertime.  Before my family moved from the UK to Jamaica, my older brother and I would walk to school every day.  If he found I was lagging behind he would initiate one of those games where he commanded me to take five running jumps, or ten large strides, so that the wolf wouldn’t get me.  Or something. 

It was when we moved to Jamaica when I was a child, that I learned a few phrases that were peculiar to Jamaica.  One was the offer to ‘let me carry you home’.  Although this only meant that the person would accompany me home, in my mind (a very independent child) the person was going to lift me up, and I hated to be picked up.  I was very particular, when people said ‘oh, you’re the baby of the family’ to correct them.  I was the youngest, no longer a baby.  Even more confusing was the offer to ‘let me follow you home’.  Why would someone want to walk behind me?  But no, it simply meant again, to accompany me.

On one such journey, my companion (a schoolmate) proceeded to enlighten me as to the truth about colonial activity in Jamaica many years before.  There used to be gold, silver and diamonds to be found freely, in the rivers of Jamaica.  But the white man came and stole it all.  He could prove it! His older brother had a book with pictures!  It was indeed a crude representation of the acts of looting and domination done by Europeans all over the world, but not far from the truth.  It was the first of my many lessons of ‘woke-ness’. 

When I was in high school, my best friend and I would walk home from school together, except that she did not live nearby, so she would walk me to my gate, then I would walk her back into town where she would wait for her father to pick her up.  Then she would walk me partway back to my gate, and I would walk her partway back…you get the picture.  We always had so much to talk about!

When one of my sons was about eleven or twelve, he was trying out for Optimist football (at our local park).  In those days the boys were grouped by weight as well as age, to make sure that the teams were well matched.  My son was over his qualifying weight, and so we needed to help him lose a pound or two by game day.  We used a combination of reduced carbs, increased salads, and daily jogs.  I have never enjoyed running just for the sake of running.  I always complained that I would prefer to exercise my mind by reading a book, on the couch! But in this case he needed company and so off we would set to do the ‘Library walk’, a path created in the neighborhood behind the Hard Rock Stadium, created to compensate for the disruption to the area during construction.  In order to help us get through the jog without getting bored, we decided to tell each other something that the other person didn’t know.  I had plenty of my childhood stories to tell him.  He told me about the time the school bus took him to the wrong school! And he had never told us!

One year my sixteen-year-old niece visited from the UK and we visited Epcot Center together, just the two of us.  In the summer.  Heat, sun, long lines.  Not the best time to visit, and way before they had designed anything like ‘express tickets’ to get you to the front.  Those lines were interminable.  As my niece got more and more bored and restless, we decided to pass time telling stories of our lives (we had lived on different sides of the Atlantic since she was born).  Quite entertaining and helped us to get to know each other better.

The quote at the top of this post may or may not have been said by the Spiritual leader and guru, Baba Ram Dass, the man who is said to have introduced Eastern philosophy and yoga to the Western world.  Whether he said it or not, it is a beautiful reminder that we are all on a journey from the beginning to the end of our lives, and along the way we get the opportunity to connect with others.  They may be family members, people with whom we share homes and wombs, or they may be friends, co-workers, or even strangers in a waiting room.  It is hard to believe that it is over five years now since the world had to grapple with the pandemic, had to learn to live in a totally new way.  And although we were on ‘lockdown’, having to live apart from others, or cover up in PPE for close encounters, I remember the strangeness of realizing that so many people in the world were experiencing the same strangeness, the same new way of being.

At times, with the current administration of the US, it feels as if we have been hit by a pandemic of another kind.  And just like before, it has a global impact.  The dismantling of government services; the elimination of jobs and the resultant upsetting of lives; the abrupt shutdown of medical research; the proposed cuts to entitlements; the introduction of tariffs; the armed, anonymous gangs that snatch workers off a bus and handcuff them; all of these and so many more cruel acts seem only intent on creating a climate of fear while accomplishing little.  Yet the Buddhist side of me wonders what the unintended consequences of these actions may be.

It already appears that countries near and far are closely watching what is happening here and choosing different leaders in their own elections, because of what they see playing out here.  We are taking the medicine and they are getting the benefit! And with this ‘trade war’, as our longtime suppliers sharply cut back on their shipments, will there be a positive environmental impact?  During the outbreak of Covid 19, carbon emissions worldwide dropped as a result of the greatly decreased activity.  The air and water pollution decreased, and there was a decrease in consumption generally.  However, the use of plastic products and medical waste increased drastically, which impacted the environment, and once normal activities were resumed, pollution bounced back.  Will the current situation perhaps alter the way the American consumer lives?  Of course, for those at the bottom end of the socio-economic ladder who are already living paycheck to paycheck, there not be much fat to trim from their budget.  But for many of us, it may be healthy to reassess our spending priorities, our excesses, our waste.  I believe it was Mother Theresa who advised us to ‘live simply, so others may simply live’.

On this Friday morning, I give thanks for the many people that I have had the opportunity to walk home with.  Along the way I have been blessed to share stories with many strangers, have made friends of travel companions. I have made friends on Facebook, sharing confidences with people I had not even met! So to all those who have walked any part of my journey with me, I give thanks.  We are all walking each other home.

Have a wonderful weekend, Family!

One Love!

Namaste.