This Wednesday I was taking the train to meet my agent in San Francisco. A few days earlier, I had gone to the Santa Clara station to plan my trip, but the old station office was now closed down. There was no one there to answer my questions. I didn’t know the train schedule, how to buy my ticket or get to my destination in the city.
I felt alone, stressed, and confused until I asked my friend Simone who lives in San Francisco, who emailed me links to the Caltrain schedule and Muni information.
Wednesday morning I drove to the Santa Clara station, parked my car, and headed under the underpass to the northbound train platform where I paid for parking and bought my train ticket. With a sigh of relief, I sat down on a bench on the empty platform, waiting for the 11:18 train.
Suddenly a young man ran up to me, wearing a gray t-shirt, jeans, and blue baseball hat. “I need help,” he said. “I have to go to the San Antonio station and I don’t know how to get a ticket.” So I led him down to the ticket machine at the end of the platform, showed him the zone map and which buttons to push. Then we walked back to the bench, sat down, and shared our stories. He was on his way to a job site, working construction. I was going to meet my agent in the city about my book proposal. Both of us were a little nervous but smiled as we both felt better.
“What kind of books do you write?” he asked.
“Books about mindfulness, stress management. . .”
“I could sure use some stress management today,” he said. “I forgot to charge my phone last night. I didn’t get the call this morning, and now I’m late for work at a new site,” he said, while frantically searching the GPS on his phone. “There are two sites and I don’t know where to go.”
I told him that taking long, deep breaths cuts the stress reaction, putting us back in balance, and that research has shown that looking at the beauty of nature expands our awareness, helping us find better ways to solve our problems. So we sat there for a moment, taking deep breaths, looking out at the tall redwood trees in the distance.
“My name is Diane,” I said. “What’s yours?” “Carlos,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”
Then he texted his manager, asked which job site he should go to, and smiled as he got the answer. With a loud whistle, the train roared into the station. We boarded, looking out the window as the miles flew by until the train stopped at San Antonio. As he rose to leave, Carlos reached out and shook my hand and we wished each other well.
We are not alone. All of us are brothers and sisters on the journey. We can get lost when we feel alone. But when we reconnect, the gift of community dispels our anxiety like the sun breaking through the clouds.
You can connect with your community right now by taking a deep breath.
- Close your eyes as you remember a time when you experienced the gift of community.
- Where were you? Who was there?
- What did it look like? Feel like?
- Smile as you breathe in that sense of community right now.
- And as you open your eyes,
- Remember that the gift of community is right here, right now
- Not only within you but around you
- Whenever you reach for it.
You are not alone.
Namaste,
Diane
photo:Caltrain JPBX 922 at Santa Clara Station by DF4D-0070 Wikimedia Commons