Last Friday I made a quick dash into the grocery store to grab a couple things. I was still in a post-election fog – this is not to suggest that the result was that surprising, but that its full impact would need time to unfold over the following days, and continues to unfold still. I was standing in the produce department trying to make a decision about potatoes: what kind of potatoes to buy, should I only buy the individual potatoes I needed, or should I buy a whole bag, a whole bag is more cost effective, but also potentially wasteful if I don't use them all – I spiraled on and on and on. Beside me, an employee was replenishing the red onions. He lifted a huge open box to tip it over into the niche, but he lost his grip at a crucial moment. Dozens of red onions noisily rumbled from the box to the floor, rolling in all directions.
I looked at the employee in sympathetic horror and I heard myself say, “Oh noooo,” like a cartoon character. The employee was a slightly-built man who looked to be somewhere north of 50. He didn’t acknowledge me at all. He let out a quiet curse in Portuguese, and took a deep, exhausted breath.
I put my basket down and started picking up onions and returning them to the box. I didn't really think about it, it just seemed like a normal thing to do. As I stooped and collected, a petite elderly woman in a gigantic sweater came over and began picking up onions as well. Then a tall thirtysomething guy wearing one of those reusable silicone masks also joined us. Then another, even younger person swooped in, speedily fishing the last stragglers out from underneath the produce fixture.
It took barely any time at all. What would have been a lengthy task for one person to manage was done in a matter of minutes because several people pitched in.
We didn't speak a word to each other. I don't think we even made eye contact. The employee didn't say thank you. We saw a thing that needed doing and we did it. We saw a problem that would be faster solved by collective action and we solved it, and then we all went back to our shopping, no back-patting, no joking, no self-aggrandizing banter. On some level, we'd silently agreed we bore some basic social responsibility to help. So we did.
Once it was done, and everyone had walked away, I stood next to the potatoes and spent a few moments fighting an urge to cry. Over onions.
I have so much I could say about this, about the way we accomplish things as a community, about the necessity of being willing to work alongside people with whom you may have ideological differences, about the opportunities we lose by not meeting each other where we are, about the gift of just seeing a problem and taking action to solve it, about not waiting for someone else to fix things, about not looking for someone else who can fix things, about not waiting for someone else to save us. But others have said it before, and better. For a minute there, I remembered that there are lots of people who will step up when an opportunity to do something presents itself, and we don’t need to know anything about each other to work together.
It was just a thing I needed to remember. Maybe you do too.
