My stock answer to how I’m doing of late has been,
”
Busy.
”
When I find myself responding this way to my mother’s
question
– apparently she’s the only one who cares how I’m doing – more
than three times a week, I feel it is my duty to myself to take a
few minutes to sit back, clear my head of any extraneous mental
rubbish and smell the flowers, to be terribly cliche.
My stock answer to how I’m doing of late has been, “Busy.”
When I find myself responding this way to my mother’s question – apparently she’s the only one who cares how I’m doing – more than three times a week, I feel it is my duty to myself to take a few minutes to sit back, clear my head of any extraneous mental rubbish and smell the flowers, to be terribly cliche.
It’s at times like this when I remember that life is more than the daily grind I find myself becoming wrapped up in.
To demonstrate my extensive worldly knowledge of life and why we should reflect more often on the real importance of it, I use the example of a Swedish truck driver I met while hitchhiking through Europe.
At the time, I was volunteering with a non-profit organization that gave aid to people in underdeveloped countries throughout the world and my job was to hitchhike through Europe (with two other female volunteers) and disseminate information on the program.
If it sounds a little shady, it was, but I didn’t know that at the time – I was 19 years old and full of youthful vigor that I was going to help save the world.
The crushing realization that that was never going to happen is another story.
But I digress – back to the truck driver.
My companions and I were trying to get across the border from Denmark to Germany and the German border patrol wasn’t making it very easy on us.
We finally hitched a ride with a Swedish truck driver who was headed toward Hamburg, which was where we had a place to stay for the night.
This particular truck driver wouldn’t have been my first choice, but when you’re tired, hungry and in a foreign country with no immediate means of transportation, you take what you can get.
Before I go on, let me briefly describe this truck driver.
He was probably in his mid to late 40s and was severely overweight. He had three teeth that I could see, interspersed through the front portion of his mouth – he could have had more in the back somewhere, but if they were there I couldn’t see them.
His long, greasy hair hung half way down his back. I don’t know how it did it, but it hung in two distinct sections, like he had worn it in pig-tails for so long that it just naturally grew that way on its own.
To top it off, his receding hairline was so bad, his hair started growing in the middle of his skull, like he had started to shave his head and forgotten to finish it.
The trip from the border to where he eventually dropped us off (on the side of the Autobahn, at night, in the rain – yet another story) took more than an hour. The memory of the conversation that ensued with this man is something that brings a smile to my face whenever life gets a little too hectic.
Between spitting his Copenhagen chewing tobacco into a metal cup he kept in the center console, he explained, completely unsolicited from any of his passengers, why his life was so wonderful.
What it boiled down to was this: simplicity.
He worked so he could provide the best possible life for his family, whom he adored.
His daughter was in school and, according to him, was the smartest student in her class. His wife was the most beautiful woman in the world.
The long hours and crazy drivers – and let me tell you, if you think San Benito Street has problems with crazy drivers, take a little trip to Europe and see how they drive there – meant nothing, because the true meaning to his life wasn’t in the amount of money in his bank account or the number of people who respected him to satisfy his inflated ego.
It was in the people he loved and the people who loved him.
And really, could anyone ask for more?
