I crumpled a nasty note.

At 3 a.m. this morning, a car alarm in our parking lot went off.  It was loud, even more so in the middle of the night.  It continued to go off at ten-minute intervals until 8 a.m..  I had to run to the grocery store early,  so I wrote a little note for the windshield.  It was simple, not unkind and to the point: you may need to get your car alarm checked out, thanks.  I think the person who owns the car may live in the apartment building a block or so away, and maybe they didn't know it was their car keeping everyone up all night, or maybe they live close, and assumed it was someone else's.  Regardless, I thought the note a reasonable move.  As I went to put it on the windshield, I noticed that someone else had already left a note, it was also short and to the point, but rather, in fact, very unkind.  I'm not writing this because I think I'm awesome for refraining from expletives in my note.  I took the terrible note off and crumpled it in my pocket and put mine on the windshield.

Maybe it wasn't my right to do that, but then again, maybe it is just the thing I should have done.  As I drove to the store, I wondered whether it was the right thing or not.  Someone had obviously taken pains to write their feelings in large letters, with a big, sharpie marker, and I disallowed them the chance to really get some revenge.  I took the note off though because I feel like lately I've seen too many instances in which we forget to treat one another as we would like to be treated.

A couple of months ago I got an email from someone who had ordered a portrait, but wasn't happy with the preview I sent them.  They wrote back a terrible email that was a couple paragraphs longer than necessary.  The writer went out of their way to tell me just how bad I was, etc...After reading it, I had nothing else to write back but, "wow.  I'm really sorry, here is your money back."  I wasn't shocked at the fact that someone was displeased with my work, I was shocked at their response.  It was as if in their writing, they'd forgotten that I was a human with a brain, a heart, a family, my own problems, that was going to receive their harsh words.  I felt terrible the rest of the day.

Two nights ago, I was at the fabric store.  The woman working didn't speak great english and so when the man in front of me asked for 8 yards of fabric, she only cut him 3.  He was dour.  How could anyone have done him such a wrong?  He made a point of telling everyone how silly of a mistake it was, how he'd asked for 8 yards!  not 3!  The lady cut him some more and the whole time he seemed perplexed at the monstrosity of such a grievous misdeed done to him.  These things flashed through my mind this morning when I took the nasty note off the car.  I thought maybe it would make up for the time I hung up on the insurance lady when she couldn't and wouldn't help me.  I thought maybe I could spare someone, (even if their car was so annoying), the sinking feeling of terrible energy directed at them in the form of sharpie-markered words.

 It reminded me that we are all precious and fragile creatures and there is no room for superfluous vile behavior and words in this world.  Most things we think we need to get worked up about could be re-thought and re-worded.   I am far from achieving this quality 100%, I know I can do better.  Let's be good to each other.