Dear Friends,
I was walking at Alki Beach in Seattle the other afternoon. I like to enjoy small snippets of walks with leash free hands once and a while. Walking a rambunctious 4 year old Australian Shepard along with a 4 month old Golden Doodle can be quite the challenge. So having a break and walking without them allows me to take in the energy of what is happening around me without my attention being pulled (literally) in two different directions! As I was walking along, I was feeling the vibrant sun on my face, and the breeze from the sound was delicious. It was wonderful to watch the families and children playing on the beach and seeing others walking along enjoying themselves as I was.
I happened to notice a man walking in front of me, an older gentleman, probably in his late 70’s. He had a cloud of heaviness around him. I could feel he wasn’t in the best of moods. I didn’t spend much time observing him, but just happened to notice him as he was walking in front of me by about 20 feet. As I was walking along the path, there was a young man playing percussion on several different items such as glass jars and plastic buckets. He appeared to be having a good time. The rhythm he was playing was repetitive but not loud and was pleasant to me.
When I came back on this same path, I walked by this same young man and interacted with him. I felt drawn to telling him that I enjoyed hearing his playing and thanked him for it. I noticed he was packing up his things to leave. He gave me a bright smile and said thank you and how much he appreciated me saying this. He said that another person just came by and told him to stop playing and that he was bothering everyone at the beach. That brought me a bit of a chuckle as it was very clear no one was paying much attention to him but rather were involved in their own good time.
I contemplated on this interaction as I walked away. It was very clear the only person that was disturbed by the playing was the older gentleman. I thought about how warped our perceptions of things going on around us can be when our energy is not in balance. I thought about how a few days before I was in a bit of a down mood after not sleeping well and received an email that bothered me. Luckily I talked to myself and decided to wait until the morning to read it again and see how I felt about it. The next morning the email felt very benign to me after sleeping better. The truth is we can never know what the intention is truly behind any email, text or any interaction. However, what we can know is how we decide to respond to whatever is being said, or communicated.
The young man playing drums had options on how he would respond. He created two very different experiences from me and this other gentleman regarding his playing. I have a feeling that I was given a nudge from spirit to provide him the positive feedback so that he wouldn’t get hard on himself and stop playing. The first thing he said to me after saying thank you was that he was not a “real drummer and was just learning”. I could feel him taking in a bit of the older man’s energy and I encouraged him to keep playing. If I had not come by and shared that with him, perhaps he might have stopped drumming altogether for fear of bothering other people and “not being very good”.
love that reminder Rosemary, seems like some days we are surrounded by upset , angry and sad people, and even as strangers we can take a moment and perhaps change their day.
Thank you Marilynn for your sharing!