for the love of nums
I call this Beetdown Juice because it totally beats down any cold virus or funk you might’ve picked up during that daily grind. Plus it’s punny, soooooo.
Ok, so allow me to set the scene. Monday morning. Thrust right back into the cruel, seemingly endless work-week and early mornings and carpool lines after two full days of glorious rest and recreation. Mondays get a bad rap for good reason. But on this Monday, I was taught a great lesson, the kind of lesson that only perspective can teach. I’ve been putting off an oil change for a couple weeks three months now, because I kept telling myself I am too busy, I don’t have the time. Well today, I woke up and begrudgingly decided to make the time. Another pain-in-the-ass errand, I thought, rolling my eyes, bemoaning my busy life. Monday blows.
I arrived at the dealership at 10am and was pointed toward the “waiting room”, where I was expected to actually……wait. What the eff? Wait?? I scanned the room: some vending machines (*eye roll*, nope), a counter topped with bottled waters and coffee (*frowny face*, ughhhhh, I don’t drink coffee, why is there no teeeeeeeea?!) and a few round four-top tables, all of which were occupied to some degree (annnnnnd it’s time for the *obviously inconvenienced face*, WHERE am I supposed to sit for this “waiting” they speak of?!).
I watched a documentary last week about how modern humans – in large part due to advances in technology and now, social media – have, to our own detriment, become so disconnected from nature and from one another that we are increasingly depressed and losing our sense of purpose. Instead of walking into a room and seeing people as the opportunities for interaction and human connection that they are, we barely see them at all or avoid them entirely. We’re losing our intimacy, our empathy, our fundamental human capacity for communication and community-building. That was basically the epitome of me this morning as I lamented what a horrible, rotten Monday this was starting out to be.
That’s when a woman sitting alone at one of the tables motioned for me to come sit. I smiled politely, sitting down beside her…and immediately pulled out my cell phone, as is my habit during rare lulls in activity and the business of daily life. I guess I’ll scroll through Instagram.
The woman, who looked to be in her fifties or sixties, was having none of that. Clearly when she invites you to her party, she expects you to actually mingle. As she moved the conversation along from one topic to the next, I sat listening, giving just enough of a response as to not appear rude or disinterested, but still clutching my phone, waiting for the inevitable pause that would allow me to return to my regularly-scheduled programming. And then I realized, here is a perfectly delightful person, sitting right in front of me, just trying to participate in one of the most basic rituals of the human experience: connection. So I discreetly stashed my phone – and my attitude – away in my purse.
And for the next half-hour or so, we talked. We talked about how she can’t get anyone from AT&T to come fix her home phone-line, and how she used to be a photographer, and how she lived in Philadelphia for 30 years before moving down here, and how beautiful the finger lakes are, and how there’s this museum in the middle of Vermont that houses a great, big ol’ paddle boat. We talked about her stage-four cancer, and how tired she is because she just finished a round of chemo a couple days ago, but how grateful she is that she hasn’t lost her hair.
I felt humbled. I felt like an asshole for letting something as small as having to wait on an oil change send me into a self-pitying funk. So when the service manager came to take her payment, and I watched her pull out her checkbook, I pulled him aside and asked him to charge it to me. I couldn’t fix her phone, or take away her cancer, or follow her home and make her a detoxifying veggie juice (I may have considered that one though…), but this I could do. I could make her feel the healing powers of human connection, just as she had unwittingly done for me the moment she invited me to sit beside her. And after a couple teary-eyed hugs and some profuse thanking and God-blessing, she was off.
About an hour later, as I went to pay for my own service, the same service manager slid my invoice across the counter. “And your total comes out to $7.19,” he said. I looked up at him confused, as it was supposed to be a $40 oil change. He simply smiled and said “We’re just paying it forward.” (Annnnnnnnnnd cue the blubbering tears…in the middle of the dealership.)
So in honor of the woman who reminded me that there is no high like human connection, today I make detoxifying veggie juice*, the very same recipe I implored her to rush home and try.
Now that’s a good Monday.
*This is the juicer I use.
| Prep Time | 5 minutes |
| Servings |
to 2 servings
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Ingredients
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