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January 15, 2003

Desperate for my first complete cup of coffee, I stood in a clutch of McDonald’s customers. Six of us milled in front of the counter, half hanging back in a quasi-line in front of the one open cash register. Six customers in front of the counter, six employees behind it and only one person taking orders.

A chubby woman directly in front of the cash register two-stepped to the right. “I don’t know what I want,” she giggled as she looked up to ponder the menu board.

It’s always the same menu! snapped the voice in my head. How can you not know what you want?

In front of the counter we stood on hold, reading the selections with her, except for a young man holding a Styrofoam container and repeating the third time, “But I ordered the Big Breakfast Deluxe, not the Big Breakfast.” Behind the counter the woman dressed in the mustard brown manager’s uniform gazed bleakly over our heads before turning her back to fish out a rack of hash browns.

Jeez, I thought amid the sizzle of grease and the alarm of the buzzers, it’s never going to be my turn.

Those few morning hours should be my time, the only time of the day when someone else is responsible, but the morning help had been a no-show. Instead of drinking a second or a third cup of coffee at home while I read or worked on some writing of my own, I was the one who mixed Dad’s medicine and waited for it to slowly drain down his feeding tube, bathed and lotioned him, did his range of motion with the legs he could not feel, diapered and dressed him, hoisted him into his wheel chair, combed his hair, gave him his glass of Ensure to drink while I threw my clothes on, warmed the van, worked the lift, and drove us to McDonald’s. I had barely combed my own hair. And when we returned home there would be beds to be changed, clothes to be washed, more diapers, not to count the time Daddy just needed company, a body sitting next to him at the table or by the bed with no space in my brain for solitude and reflection.

Dad in his wheel chair was at the table catty-cornered to the entrance where some of his cronies meet six out of seven days a week, for that hour from nine to ten o’clock sharp. While I hadn’t had time to bath or brush my teeth, if the folks in the McDonald’s breakfast crowd got their act together I might have time to read, or contemplate the spiritual nature of life, or at the very least, consume one whole cup of coffee before the rest of the day consumed me. I didn’t just need caffeine. I needed what little time that could be my own to be mine. I needed my turn.

A graying man who had been aimlessly off to the left drifted vaguely into line in front of me. Not fair. He needed to do his wait in purgatory with the rest of us. My inclination was to side-step him, do a little body block that would inch me forward and reward me with an extra minute or two alone at a table where I could close the world out. It was a Clara Pilcher moment.

Clara was a little old lady at a day treatment program where I worked years ago. She had been sent there from the nursing home next door for stealing food from the cafeteria. We were supposed to behavior modify her into being a more acceptable citizen, only we were constantly busy and our clients’ lunches were in easy access on a table in the front of our own kitchen. “Clara ate Ruby’s sandwich and she’s leaving with Ruby’s banana,” someone tattled as I was passing from my office through the kitchen. Clara and I met in the doorway, blocking staff members and other clients on the move. I towered half a foot over Clara, who had the pink pudginess of a spinster princess. No space between the door frame for behavior modification. “That’s Ruby’s banana,” I said. “You need to give it back.” “No,” Clara vowed. I am sure this exchange occurred more than once, and somehow both Clara and I were holding on to the banana. It was fairly firm and did not squish. I don’t know how many times I yanked up and she yanked down, while the crowd encouraged me and admonished Clara. They knew fair.

Suddenly I woke up.

I was fighting an old woman over a banana.

I let go.

Only the crush of the spectators kept Clara from toppling to the floor. I know she ate Ruby’s banana, and Ruby got a free lunch on the center. I don’t know how long Clara kept coming, or what we did about the bagged lunches. I know I vowed never again to wrestle an old lady for a banana.

For me it has been a metaphor with endless applications. That Wednesday, thanks to Clara, I didn’t body block the gentleman to my left.

I stepped back.

Not with graciousness, but with an aggravation that scoured like grit on my day. So what if by the time I got my coffee it would be time to leave. So what if I went unread as well as unwashed. So what if my life was filled with longer stops than starts, and there was always some idiot at the head of the line overwhelmed by the mystery of McDonald’s breakfast menu.

“See,” said the guy opening the Styrofoam container. “It’s not the Deluxe.”

Your only function is to extend peace, said the Voice in my head.

This message I had read many times in many books, a message that sounded true, that should be true, but somehow never penetrated the cowl of anxiety that must have swaddled me in the womb, so long it had been with me. But on this Wednesday a Voice that sounded like my voice, the one that herded my grievances and exacted scores with the dim tenacity of an English sheepdog, said, “You’re only function is to extend peace.”

And it made sense.

I laughed.

How simple.

My only function was to extend peace.

Nothing had changed, but a heaviness had fallen away from the counter section of McDonald’s. Everything was somehow lighter…the clatter, the movement of the bodies, even the quality of the air.

I stood in line and relaxed.

My mind tried to take up the threads of worry that I use to harness my life. All the needs and wants and shoulds and oughts would come later, but right here, right now, they were not my concern.

My only function was to extend peace.

Peace to the woman who had finally made up her mind. Peace to the line-breaker. Peace to the manager in her ugly uniform who directed her workers in a choreography with the single purpose of moving food from the back out front to us. Peace to the young man who didn’t get the Deluxe he wanted. Peace to me.

Briefly, in the midst and muddle of life, I woke up.

I knew it wouldn’t last for, oh, maybe the rest of my life. But this morning it was my turn. Our turn.

And I was glad.