Disclaimer: I’m realizing that I’m not turning into the beautiful, sophisticated poet of a writer I imagined myself to be at the start of this writing journey. I can be crass, I have strong opinions, I make too many poop jokes, but I’m also learning that I’m okay with it. So, I want to preface that if you are easily offended by human excrement, this may not be the article for you. For everyone else, I invite you to play, “How many ways can one say poop?” in this article.
I’m an idealist. I believe that if we all worked together, we could end world hunger, war, poverty, chronic illness, illiteracy, social inequality, sex trafficking, environmental destruction, and homelessness. And this is just the short list. It’s overwhelming to be an idealist.
That’s why I have a meditation practice; it helps me develop compassion. I need a way to forgive us for all the ways humans suck, at least for now. It also wakes me from my idealist daydreams to reality.
With more practice, it’s been easier to dance between my idealist and realist states. I’d like to believe that I’m grounded in both, but life likes to test me anyway.
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE MOMENT
One Saturday night in San Francisco, I returned to my house on the Panhandle to find a drunk man passed out on our porch. I wanted to wake him to say, “You can’t stay here.” But felt conflicted by his circumstances, homelessness was common in this city. He was merely a man who needed a safe place to sleep.
Rather than dealing with it, I thought it would be generous if I just left him alone. So I leapt over his unconscious body, locked the door behind me, and went to bed. End of story.
Except, it wasn’t. Early next morning, I expected to step out onto my porch to greet a beautiful sunny Sunday. Instead, though the man had left, he had also left behind foul play - urine, feces, soiled clothing, and a welcome mat that was rudely unwelcoming.
My roommate who had moseyed down for the morning paper, saw the scat, and just as quickly scattered away. Alone again with my porch dilemma, I went inside the house, thinking that maybe if I just proceed with my morning meditation, I would figure out what to do.
But after years of meditation, a deeper knowing already knew what to do. My inner idealist wanted my roommates, the neighbors, and their kids to be able to come out of their house greeted by a beautiful day. My inner realist knew there was only one way that their morning salutation wouldn’t be soiled, like in my case.
If someone takes a dump on your doorstep, you’d shake your fists at the sky, but then you’d clean it up. Duh. It was not only the obvious thing to do, but the only thing to do. At the time however, I was paralyzed by my shock and heartbreak.
Within a few breaths of centering myself, I was practically jumping off my zabuton. I donned on yellow rubber gloves and a face mask, then proceeded to bag up the welcome mats, clothing, waste, and bleach the excrement out of the porch.
The whole thing took me about an hour. Fifteen for the porch, and forty-five to cry my eyes out.
I cried for the man, for our neighbors’ kids. I cried for the plight of the homeless in San Francisco, and that I had to clean a grown man’s caca off my porch. While my inner realist consoled me, I cried and cried for the lost innocence of my idealism.
DEALING WITH THE DOOKIE IN FRONT OF YOU
I feel good about what I did that day, but it’s not like I need a pat on the back or anything. I didn’t save a child from an oncoming bus or lift a peoples out of oppression.
But I did see something that needed to be tended to, and I tended to it, instead of leaving it for someone else.
The karmic metaphor was strong, “Ideally, people use the toilet to take care of their own 💩, but when it shows up on your doorstep, you should really deal with it.”
That’s karma in a nutshell. It’s dealing with your own crap as well as other people’s crap to end the cycles of negative sh*t in the here and now.
And in the end, feeling kind of good about it, too.
I enriched my vocabulary today Maymie!
I think I counted 7 words for 💩? 💝