Kindness at Chipotle’s Door … and more

by Jeff Bloom

I often find myself going to a variety of slow and fast food restaurants to buy food for my chronically ill son. And, for some odd reason, he tends to tolerate these foods better than many of the food we prepare for him. On one recent occasion, I was walking up to a local Chipotle’s, as an older woman was opening the door while talking to a Black man in a wheelchair. She was asking him if he wanted a regular Coke. I asked if I could hold the door, but they both shook their heads no and said something about staying outside. When I go in line behind the woman, we struck up a conversation, which started with her saying something like, “I just like to offer some kindness to people, especially if they’re not asking for anything.” Our conversation weaved through a number of related topics about how any of us could be living on the street in a heartbeat and how good it is to take a moment to offer help or kindness.

She went on to mention that she was from Chicago. My standard joking response is that Chicagoans in Phoenix are like cockroaches, to which she heartedly agreed, saying we have had to find some place to go to get away from the brutally cold winters. My best buddy here is from Chicago, as well as many other friends and acquaintances. Of course, even worse, there are many Philadelphians, like me, here, as well. The entire four or five minutes of conversation during this brief and unexpected encounter had the quality of both newness and familiarity. There was a shared openness that provided for a deeper and more substantial interaction. And, as Thomas Hylland Eriksen (2021) has described, we had a longer moment of “slow time” in the midst of a “fast time” world and restaurant. We actually talked without the pressures of having to go somewhere, do something, and/or get entangled on our smart phones.

When I left Chipotle’s, I looked around to make sure the man got his Coke. He had moved over to a bench at a bus stop and seemed to be contentedly drinking his Coke. We exchanged a few words and wished him the best, before getting into my car and getting swept back into fast time.

These moments of slow time and actually connecting with another person are more rare than they should be. Even more rare are those moments where we connect with someone who has been almost forcibly pushed into slow time on the fringes of society. It is so easy to look away and try to ignore the un-ignorable. I find myself doing this far too often, as well. But, there was one particularly poignant encounter about 20 years ago. I was sitting at my favorite coffee shop in Flagstaff, Arizona, where I did most of my writing, since neither my office or home offered the slow time needed to think and write. At that time, I was still smoking; and took a break with my coffee cup in hand, and stepped outside. Shortly after lighting my cigarette, I noticed an older, marginalized Navajo man walking towards the coffee shop. I quickly finished my cigarette and headed back inside while thinking, “I don’t have time for this.” — I don’t really know what “having time” is. — And, of course, the old man came into the coffee shop and sat down at the table next to me. What else was I to expect?! Of course, I had to take slow time and have a conversation with the person I was trying to avoid. We actually had an interesting conversation that covered all sorts of topics, including the social and political issues of the time and various topics about our personal lives. After about 20 minutes, I bought him a bowl of soup and gave him some additional money to catch a bus to Phoenix where a relative lived.

The rapidly dwindling resource of slow time provides opportunities to connect with others, develop relationships, as well as to muse about areas of interest or curiosity. Slow time also allows us to notice and appreciate the beauty around us, and maybe even connect to our world is ways we ordinarily speed by and don’t notice.

A hummingbird sitting on a chair by our front door… returning from grocery shopping, I had to stop, slow down, and silently interact with this Lucifer Hummingbird, who also entered into the hummingbird version of slow time. And, then there were multiple families of different species of dove using the nest of the previous pair to lay, hatch, and tend to their babies. They set up this nesting site on our back patio in a flower pot. They were in slow time, but well aware of fast time that we tried to avoid. In fact, I ended up taking the trash out the front door instead of the patio door, in order to avoid alarming them.

On the domesticated side, cats and dogs demand a certain amount of quality slow time. Such slow time moments are intended for petting, cuddling, and nurturing our relationships.