White-Girl Walkabout, Part Five: Noticing the Delights

I began my trip wearing a hat to hide my blue-and-pink hair at the airport.  Just as I can feel triggered when I see very-right-wing conservatives wearing red MAGA hats, I was afraid of triggering those same people with my blue-haired indicator of more liberal ideals.  I journeyed away from my “Us” territory into “Them” Land.  Those were biases I had to consciously work to balance as I traveled.  If I wanted better manage my anxieties, I needed to be more objective, and a bit less emotional.

Dr. Laurie Santos, Professor of Yale University’s most popular class in history, “The Science of Wellbeing”, urges us to “look for the delights”.  (Her classes can be accessed for FREE on her website.  Highly recommended!) Dr. Santos defines delights as those little pleasant moments that we often take for granted as we rush through life.  They can be as simple as hearing your favorite song on the radio, pausing a moment to recognize the feelings of the sun on your face as you walk outside…that sort of thing. 

After the chaos of barely-connected connecting flights, bed bugs, and toxic fumes, I took my hat off and emerged into the city of Dayton, and began to frequent the local coffee shops and board-game stores, finding that “my kinda people” are very much alive and well.  Fred and I played some games at a great store called Epic Loot and instantly made friends as a couple approached us and asked “Want to join us in a game?”  We laughed and joked as if we’d known each other for years, and we’re still regretting not getting their contact info!

At The Coffee Hub in Centerville, faces were friendly, and the shop encouraged environmentalism by offering discounts for customers who brought reusable cups.  I sat outside at a café table in the shade, pleasantly greeting a grandmother and teenage granddaughter as I scooted by them to the table behind.  Just that little greeting, warranted a farewell from them as they finished their coffee visit.

Wishing I could be at the beach back home one afternoon, I sought out what water I could find.  A sort of industrial-looking “pond” for run-off water in a parking lot wasn’t close to a beach.  But there were ducks in it.  So I sat and cleared my mind and watched the ducks swim.  They gradually got so used to my presence that a curious little duckling began to approach me, under the watchful eye of her mother.  Just as I was doing on this journey, the duckling ventured out of the comfort zone of being by mother’s side in order to approach me.  Little by little, she ventured further away from mother, and closer to me.  And I reflected that my own journey away from my comfort zone was exactly what had led me to this shared moment with her.

So, I connected with people much like me, and some ducks.  But does that really count as going outside of my comfort zone with other people?  Perhaps not so much.  But as I began my journey home, bolstered by the challenges I had already faced, I found that I was more looking at what I have in common with people than in ways that I differed from people.  I found myself more interested in, and less afraid of, bridging those gaps and connecting with people.  The woman in the airport with the Christian hymn-ringtone may not have shared many of my idealogical values.  But we were both travelers, experiencing the stresses and uncertainties that often accompany the airline experience, and I found myself easily offering compassionate words as we discussed the delays to her flight that she was struggling to navigate.