Reminders from a Lyft Driver

Strangers Aren't Strange After All

Ariel and I went with the rest of Oakland to the Saturday Farmers Market at Grand Street on

Saturday. She wisely opted for Lyft instead of fighting for parking. It was a fantastic scene of food, food, food being loved and enjoyed by everyone. Serious farmers making serious dollar growing fairly local and organic food of every sort. It was the first time I ever bought Portabello mushrooms from the actual grower. And the place was packed.

Taking Lyft back, we were driven by an Asian American young man who jumped right into a great conversation with us. Highlight? His revelation that, through Lyft, he had discovered that strangers were pretty darned interesting.

He had grown up with the message that he shouldn't talk to strangers, and he had lived by that. On his first day as a Lyft operator, a lifetimes' worth of conditioning was utterly challenged. It was now his job to sit in a small space, let total strangers into it with him, and talk to them. But, miraculously, it was safe, and he had obviously grown to thoroughly enjoy it, judging from our engaged and wide-ranging 15 minute chat.

We pondered how much TV, newspapers and movies, the sensational 'drama', had blinded us to the general goodness of humanity. How a good deed and a kind word never made the six o'clock headlines.

How relevant for my trip. As loved ones have worried, out of love, about my safety in a dangerous world, I have chosen to remember that I have rarely met a dangerous person in all my years. That the world is full of people who want to love, talk, help, connect. I am one of them. And I want to meet as many others as I can. I want to take the time to fall in love with the world- again? for the first time? Take the time to look and see and stop and open.