When my coffee grinder stopped working last week, I tried the manufacturer’s recommended fixes: I plugged it into a different outlet; disassembled it; shook out any French Roast beans that might have clogged it.
Nothing worked.
Next I chatted with Amazon. I typed—clearly, I thought—that I had purchased the unit two months earlier wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do, and that I had tried to fix it according to the teensy-type-size instructions in the teensy manual that had come with the grinder. The representative named Ahmed asked if I had done what the manufacturer suggested. Yes, yes, yes. Hadn’t he read the carefully crafted chat-note I had sent?
“I’m sorry to report,” Ahmed wrote. “The thirty-day return window has closed, You need to call the manufacturer.”
Apparently Ahmed hadn’t understood how busy and important I was! I needed to get back to the manuscript I was working on—the one about the healer facing her own need to heal. Steaming, I logged off, grabbed my phone, but dropped it. Bending to pick it up—maybe because things looked different upside down—I laughed. How could I create credible spiritual fiction without practicing the principles I was writing about?
Upright again, a Thich Nhat Hanh teaching came to me: let your words be like jewels. Minutes earlier, my words had wanted to skate off my tongue like blades on ice. I needed to soften them. I called the customer service number Ahmed had given me. When a woman named Tanya answered, instead of launching into my complaint, I asked how her day was going.
“A woman just yelled at me because I couldn’t refund her order.”
Not the answer I expected. Words like jewels, I repeated to myself. Diamonds? Cold. Emeralds? Harsh. Aquamarines? Ahhh, flowing, like water.
“That must have hurt.”
“Uh huh.”
“Maybe her husband didn’t like the oatmeal she made for breakfast,” I said. “Or her dog peed on her new white rug.” Not exactly aquamarine-like words, but Tanya laughed.
Okay, I thought, maybe now we can get down to business.
But instead of asking why I had called, Tanya told me she was twenty four. “When I was nineteen I had a trauma.” She didn’t specify the trauma. “I landed in therapy and the lady said I had split-personality disorder.” For twenty minutes she described her shakes and migraines, her counselor, thebooks that seemed to help, and her desperate return to her childhood faith.
Tanya’s need to connect was apparently more urgent than my need to grind beans for my morning caffeine fix.
“I’m sorry I took your time,” she said when she wrapped up. “Let me get your address and I’ll send you a new coffee grinder.”
When I hung up I thought about the gift Tanya had given me: not the coffee grinder, but the opportunity to learn a lesson I sometimes need reminding of: Tread lightly. Speak softly. Someone might need a kind word or a listening ear today.
I returned to the keyboard. The fictional healer I was creating on the page spoke her own jewel words. They sounded wiser and more genuine. I hoped they would open the hearts of at least one reader, the way my experience with Tanya had opened mine.
