On Monday, I had what I would say was one of my biggest public tantrums. And it happened at a place called Friendly's. Mommy Goose and I were there with the kids, having gone to a great workshop at an art museum. And the service was awful. No two ways about it. We'd stop the waitress to ask for various things and she'd just say "soon" or "I'm not ignoring you," until it got to the point that she would turn her head all the way around as she passed our table. I had to ask her twice to please take our ice cream orders, having already been at lunch an hour, which is about 45 minutes longer than preschoolers need. She did take the order. And nothing happened. Mommy Goose timed it. At 10 minutes, with kids growing increasingly restless and moms growing increasingly concerned about a meltdown, I followed her to the front to ask where our ice cream was. "It's coming." It didn't. 10 more minutes found me standing in the kitchen in full view of the dining room telling the waitress I would wait for my ice cream right there in the middle of everything. The manager, standing not 10 feet from where I was talking and gesticulating (talking, not yelling), ignored me completely. So I called him over and told him how unimpressed I was--first, there were no wraps, then no chocolate ice cream, and then it took 20 minutes for our ice cream to arrive (actually, it took 23, because there were a few minutes after my tirade). THEN THEY GOT IT WRONG!!!! Bud didn't get strawberry sauce and had only 2 M&Ms on his candy sundae. Sis's "cone head" cone was on Bud's sundae. We made it work but the kids were disappointed and exhausted. We'd been in Friendly's for one hour and 45 minutes by the time we got out.
I was pissed.
But I didn't rant again because we had gotten what we had waited for, sort of. The waitress was subdued, the manager had disappeared. I tipped her because I imagine the fault is not entirely hers (the manager just seemed like a slimy weasel. And I can just imagine he's incompetent.). There were no apologies, no free dessert, no comped anything. We won't be going back. To that Friendly's. Or to any Friendly's. It's not and doesn't make me so.
Then, to cap it all off, Sis's purple balloon floated away from her in the parking lot, reducing her to tears, and almost me too. But after the experience we'd had, I just couldn't go in and ask for another balloon. Embarrassed and ashamed at myself? Sure. Just ready to put it behind us? Of course. So I told her we'd get her a balloon from our supermarket and loaded her in the car.
Just then, a woman approached us. With a purple balloon in hand. And gave it to Sis, saying as I gratefully thanked her that she would do it for any child because it just makes kids so sad to lose a balloon. I think she was behind us, leaving the restaurant, when Sis lost hers and so went back inside to get another. I don't know if she'd seen the deterioration of me and our meal.
And it was the perfect lesson in graciousness and kindness in the face of disappointment and less-than-perfect. I mulled it over all the long way home. Because, you see, I rarely lose my cool the way I had (though, of course, it could've been much worse--I didn't call anyone names or yell, just stated what we needed. Now.). I'm usually quite patient and forgiving. (Though, awful service in restaurants sometimes really, really bothers me). But something about the absurdity of lunch and the coup de grace of the ice cream got to me. Even as I realized how spoiled that made me and the children seem. Because of course, there are bigger things to worry about. And usually I'm not flustered by having to wait. But come on, 20 minutes for ice cream?! Part of me still feels taken advantage of and disrespected. Especially because I had paid for the privilege.
Even though it really is the only reason we got our ice cream (and by then, I'd wished I'd ordered some!), I'm still sorry I got up and made a scene, even if Mommy Goose tells me that only the staff and the table next to me (also waiting for ice cream) probably noticed. I don't like scenes. I want to be the balloon lady.
And so I had another chance today. Because, you see, the guys who mow our lawn cut down all of our sunflower plants. Probably accidentally, just from sheer not paying attention because the plants were tall and obviously circled in stones to indicate they were special. And now they've been completely cut down to the quick. "It's so sad," Bud said. Sis begged to get more. And even though the mower guys were still in the area when I realized what had happened, I didn't follow them and throw a fit, make a scene. What is, is. (I guess unlike the ice cream, there was nothing I could do to bring back our sunflowers to life.) I hope that means I've regained some of my equilibrium. Or maybe, like Momma Zen, I have given up on patience only to find it.
But one of the strands running through my mind, and the thought that still follows me, is about attachment, in the Buddhist sense of the word, i.e. that suffering is caused by attachment. I had wondered, in reading many of Momma Zen's posts, how you could be a parent and not be attached--it seems the very definition of parenting to be attached (in fact, that's what a whole parenting philosophy is called). Okay, so I'm not attached to ice cream, but I am attached to my public personae of good parent (threatened by the possibility of a meltdown about ice cream) and calm, rational person, as well as the happiness of my own kids, all of which were challenged by Friendly's service. Then, I was attached to those sunflowers because I remember the day we bought them from one of the school teachers, how excited we were to plant them, how I had looked forward to watching them grow. And now I have to let that all go. Similarly, a week or so ago, Albus our cat broke one of my glass doo-dads, a big, heavy Texas dish given to me by my mom that I liked to keep things in. He knocked it off the dresser and it hit part of the radiator and shattered. Mama cleaned it up and said we could get another. Just like Sis had asked for more sunflowers. But I don't need another glass Texas dish. Or even sunflowers. I need to feel the feelings I have, of sadness and loss (even in these minor cases. Yes, I'm aware that everything I've mentioned seems so . . . small . . . in the grand, universal realm of things), and to get through them. Having a new dish or flowers or getting back to my rational self doesn't erase or undo what happened. I just have to not be so vested in those things. Which then means, I guess, that I don't need replacements to make me feel better (though, I like having rational me back, though I am more aware of the tenuous state of my temper some days). I just need to let it pass. And I think that must be what Momma Zen meant when she wrote about attachment:
It simply means that when the ebb and sway of life carries us along, we can let go because we see all of it in a different way. . . . Non-attachment is the nature of life itself: it keeps going. Non-attachment allows us to love one another and life as it is regardless of whether we like it right now or not.
But even just beginning to understand that, I'm still not unattached.
Because if I were, I would have let it all go and not be rehashing it on this blog. Just like the story in Zen Shorts, our children's book with Buddhist stories. One day an old priest and a young priest came to a swollen river where a woman couldn't cross. The old priest picked her up and, though he carried her all the way across, she abused and harrassed him. He put her down on the other side and kept going. Hours later, the young priest turned to the old priest and asked how he could stand to be abused by that rude woman. The old priest replied, "I put her down hours ago. You're the one still carrying her around."
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