An experiment with Joy at the local gorcery store

After a wonferfully inspiring 4 days at the Health Justice Gathering at the Gesundheit! Institute, I wondered what my next step was. Long hours of driving and a flat tire that resulted in a good three hours delay at the mecca of "monoculture of the mind" (Wal Mart) left me in state of hazy gloom.

With one stop before getting home the grocery, I began to think about the little clown nose I had in my pocket...what if.....

My experiment wth Joy:

Why was it so hard to do this? I could barely get out of my car once fitted with the red nose, completely afraid of...happiness? silliness? myself?

Once into the store, I had not made it more than 20 feet toward Aisle 1 when a gentleman shouted out,"Hey, your nose looks like mine felt last week." This started a 30 minute conversation, in the backdrop of the week's end-of-aisle special on canned snow peas. He shared lots of incredible things with me- his life as a "mentally different" person, his views of the VA healthcare system, his struggles to pay medical bills and get medications, and his Buddhist philosophy that this was one of those "events of synchronicity."

We hugged, I breathed deep, and thought to myself how nice it was to feel joy, sheer joy, long before I had started picking out my vegetables for the week.

But it didn't stop there, because right after a few awkward glances from folks amidst the greens and fruits (which is completely explainable by the fact that this is an higher-class, college town where we are to be dignified, serious, and adult-like), I heard the fish/meat worker say, "Say, is Rudolph still in town?"

Now this began another foray into the world of beautiful conversations with strangers. This man, Mr. Izel, was full of happiness and not afraid to show it. I made sure to ask him his secret tincture, in case any of my patients needed a dose of it, to which he told me it was hugging his wife and children each and every night.

After a reasonably uneventful trip through the cereal aisle and frozen foods, I made my way to the checkout line, where spontaneously four other grocers came over to help me check out, drawn to the spherical nasal appendage by some innate desire to laugh and enjoy the company of another. I insisted that my nose gave me magical powers to bag my own groceries, thus freeing them up to talk with me as I worked. I can't quite remember all of the things we laughed about, but I do remember one of them mentioning, "You look like that Patch Adams guy"

How many times have you walked out of the grocery on cloud nine (not including those days when your favorite ice cream was 50% reduced!)????

How many times have you allowed yourself to be a free-of-charge magnet for conversations, laughter, and even for those struggling with Uptightness Syndrome, an under the breath sigh of "Huh?" ?????

I invite you to try this, but not at home...in the grocery, in the department store, in he hospital, or just for an entire day (which I plan to do as experiment #2 tomorrow)

Some other reflections from this experiment:
* Children were very attracted to the nose, with an ability to smile immediately, without checking to see who was watching them as the adults did
* Again, I found it very hard to initiate the experiment, and would have continued in this state of discomfort unless someone has drawn me in, and given to me in the way that these first two gentle souls did...did they realize that they were healing me as they talked and laughed with me?
* I realized how self-conscious I was throughout the grocery adventure, and could begin to relate to what it must be like to have a deformity or to think I had a deformity, and then to have to bare it for all of the world to see...or what if I simply didn't like the way that I looked and had to live with this self-created, but quite powerful, image of everyone staring at me wherever I went?
* My actions were most sincere when I reminded myself that I was doing this to bring joy to myself, and less so when I began to get carried away with the notion that I was a "joy agent" for others

In love, with gratitude for allowing me to share,
Lovemeister