I knew it was going to be a busy week, so I decided to stock up on groceries at The Park Slope Food Co-op
immediately after dropping my young Chatterings at school.

Forty-five minutes later, I’d accumulated an admirably large and healthy haul–two carts worth in fact–of whole foods goodies, including two fifteen pound pumpkins we needed for our stoop on Halloween.

At the cashier’s desk, I surveyed my two carts and said to myself: This is silly…I can pack pumpkins and bags onto one cart, and avoid making two trips to the car.

So this I did, despite the nagging thought that I was overburdening myself and the cart.

“Do you want me to lift the pumpkins for you?” the young and kindly cashier asked.

This jarred me. Why would she say that? my chattering mind wondered. Did I look like an old lady in my vintage plaid Sixties coat? I thanked her but said no.

Groaning under the weight, I started pushing the load uphill two blocks to where my car was parked. As if in slow motion, the bag containing two bundles of beautiful rainbow chard tipped onto the street.

Drat. I was hoping that wouldn’t happen. Of all things. I’ve been trying to eat more leafy greens.

“Can I help you with that?” a sweet young man on the street asked, and then, as if to give me full permission to accept his kindness, he said, “I really have nothing else to do at the moment.”

Now this is weird, thought chattering I. I really must look pathetic.

“Oh, I’ll manage!” a lilt of false happiness in my voice. “Thank you for offering.”

He didn’t look back, thank goodness, because just a few yards up, a whole bag of groceries toppled down with a smack. Some Chinese black rice, a rice I’d never purchased before that was said (on the package) to be fed to emperors, was now visible on the pavement. Hmmm, not so fit for emperors now. And then–oh man!–when I stooped down to pick the bag up, I saw what else had been broken open–a big glass jar of Vegenaise, that soy-based, egg-free mayonaise substitute.

Full-fledged disaster now! Gloppy Vegenaise everywhere, spattered with glass chips and oozing out in little daps on the sleeve of my vintage granny coat as I tried to clean everything up. Ouch! Then I even cut my finger on a shard of Vegenaise-y glass.

Chattering Mind, all aflutter, made it to her car at last but then was forced to reflect on the numerous, very human missteps. Ridiculous person! Stupid girl! Loading on too much in the name of saving time and effort, then not accepting two offers to help.

Ahhhh…and then the acceptance. When things like this happen to me, and I pay attention, I hear a divine voice telling me to place my burdens elsewhere, not always choose the path of greatest effort. And then the criticism begins to subside. I can now ask myself rationally: Why didn’t I accept the help? My ego and pride are in my way too much of the time. Would I have preferred to have been ignored by the various bystanders, and still drop the Vegenaise, thereby confirming a belief that I am helpless, overstrained AND alone in this world?

The late Hope Ridings Miller, a wonderful journalist in Washington D.C. who used to live in my apartment building and who died as a very elderly person last year, once told me that there were two things she’d come to know as an old lady that she wished she’d known earlier: First, people are thinking about you less than you think they are (this is absolutely true), and second, people want to do things for you that they CAN DO.

So I ignored her wisdom in all ways, but at least now I am reminded of it, and I did learn something: Vegenaise makes a wonderful handcream. After the extensive cleanup, my hands were so moist they nearly glistened.