This afternoon, as I stepped out of Trader Joe’s heading for my car, a robust, shining African American man came out at the same moment, flung his arms open wide and said ‘What a beautiful day! Again! I’ve been saying that for thirty-five years and every single day it’s true!”
And then he got serious.
“My name is Chen, by the way, and do you know that I have felt so good here in this California, that I’ve thought, I’ll go home and make amends with my family! I’ll go back home to Detroit and bring all this goodness with me, but you know what? It never works. I have done that THREE times and I am done. NO more. There’s a saying that family is where the heart is, no it isn’t! Do you know anyone that feels like they belong in the family that they were born in to? No! It’s friends that matter, except for my grandmother.”
Pause…..while Chen was delivering this monologue, I stood there…I was too spellbound to try to contribute one word, even though I vaguely thought that this was not a conversation and maybe I should participate, but I didn’t.
“Do you know what my grandmother said to me? She would lean over me and she would say ‘I am going to pour myself into you and what you do with that is up to you.’ THAT was big, because that means that I need to think about things before I do them because she is in there. I sell weed. I sell it and always give the speech that your weed brothers are your family, not your other family. These brothers will have your back and you will have theirs. And I know my grandmother likes that. And I tell them to be good.”
Then in an in a flash he said “It was real nice talking to you on this beautiful day, M’am, I could tell from the moment I saw you that you appreciate a beautiful day. Good-bye now.”
And that was my Trader Joe’s parking lot experience for the day.