In my younger and more vulnerable years I spent a lot of time with my friend, Carol, smoking and drinking in various venues in Brooklyn. We lingered long and tipped well, so they were always glad to see us (“Norm!”).
Carol was then in the midst of making her first documentary, the superb Camp Victory: Afghanistan. It took her all around the world, particularly to Kabul and it’s environs. She met many interesting people there - renegades and ex-pats and idealists - and they would occasionally come through New York and drink and smoke with us.
One of these people was a woman who ran a children’s hospital in Kabul. Like many interesting people, she asked more questions than she ever answered. Specifically, she asked me about playwriting.
I was at the beginning of my career then. Though I was having some success, I was without an agent. She asked me how I got my plays to theatres and festivals and residencies. I told her that I simply sent my work to the relevant people and hoped for the best.
“You just send your work out into the world to be evaluated by strangers?” she asked. “God, that’s so brave.”
I lingered in the glow of her praise for a moment before the forehead-slapping irony of her statement hit me. A woman who ran a children’s hospital in Kabul thought I was brave? For mailing things?
She did, though. I was able to do something that she could not imagine.
Recently I taught a playwriting class in Philadelphia. I didn’t know much about my students going in, though they proved to be a marvelous bunch. I got to know them better as time went on, and even more at conferences with them at the class’ end.
One of my students told me she spends her entire work life trying to help people who desperately need it. She teaches yoga in prisons, and writing workshops for the homeless and abused. Yet when she spoke of my class – which, to me, consisted mainly of giving a few exercises to help students access material that was already begging to come out – she said, “You are such an inspiration!”
I’m an inspiration? To a woman who does more to help people in a day than I do in a year?
I try to take compliments the same way I do people wanting to buy me something (a drink, a cup of coffee, a meal). I just accept it. It always annoys me when someone argues when I try to buy them something, so it would be hypocritical of me to do the same. So I just say thank you. I accept the gift.
Still, being called an inspiration is a little tough to swallow. It feels like by accepting that compliment you are endorsing the view expressed. But there is a phrase in Zen – “you never know who your teachers will be.” This is another way of saying you never know who will inspire you. I learned that lesson in spades a few weeks ago.
I had just been laid off from a job I held for 8 years. There were a few days between getting the news and my last day of work. Those days had to be spent at the office.
The guy who sat across from me was a fairly recent hire. Over the last six months, I had gone from intensely disliking him to mildly tolerating him. A few people had come by to give condolences and say encouraging things, but the guy across from me said nothing. I was happy about that. I didn’t need his sympathy. I didn’t want it.
Then, on the day before I was to leave, he came over to my cubicle and asked me where I lived. Surprised, I told him. He said that he was driving to a family event out in Jersey and wanted to know if where he was going was near my home. If so, could he carry something there for me?
He proceeded to tell me that he was not going to be there for my last day and wanted to say goodbye. He said I was a great guy and a pleasure to work with and he was sure everything would turn out fine for me. It was awkward, because we didn’t really know each other. We had never spoken seriously about anything. Even his big body seemed awkward, blocking the entrance to my cubicle, his long arms dangling uselessly at his side.
Still, I was grateful for him taking the time to come over and say those words. I was particularly grateful because he knew it was going to be awkward and did it anyway. It made me think of all the people who had been laid off in the last few years that I had never said goodbye to. I told myself I didn’t do it because it would be awkward for them. The truth is it I didn't do it because it would have been awkward for me.
I’m still not sure what I think of that guy who sat across from me. If we met in life, I doubt that we would ever become friends. But there’s one thing I know for sure – he’s an inspiration to me.
