May 9, 2019
I keep thinking about a man I saw in a supermarket on Sunday. He was with his partner and while they casually chatted and she picked items off shelves, he tidied up the store’s central display stand.
With remarkable efficiency, he took all the products out of an almost empty cardboard tray and arranged them neatly within a new tray of the same products. He then tossed the empty tray to the back of the display before moving along the stand to another untidy pile of merchandise. He continued chatting to his partner while his hands moved with speed and efficiency.
I was behind them when they got to the checkout and once again watched him create order on the conveyor belt out of all the products they were buying. I felt enormous empathy for this man and loved his partner for allowing him to be who he was.
In a chaotic, unpredictable, untidy world, it cannot be easy to be that man.