Ben

I thought I’d share this story with you. 

This morning I decided to go to the beach for a walk with the dogs instead of doing my Sunday ZOOM yoga class with my local yoga teacher. Usually the beach calls me for a reason. 

I noticed this man standing on a rock looking out at the ocean. His jeans were pulled up. I thought he was wearing waders, high boots to walk in the water. I thought he was a man I recognized from last week who was in the tide pools conducting data collection. But a few minutes later I realized what I thought were tall rubber boots were, in fact, the dark color of his skin. He was barefoot. He was a different man. A dark-skinned black man whom I didn’t know. He came down from the rocks about the same time that I arrived on that part of the beach. He walked along the shoreline while I walked a little higher up on the beach throwing the ball for the dogs. We walked parallel for several minutes. He seemed deep in thought and focused on his walk. I wanted to make eye contact and say “hi,” but we were never in proximity to each other to do so. 

I was wearing my BLM-LOVE bracelet made by Grace. I chose the one with the deep purple, black, and turquoise. I have been wearing it ever since it arrived. I had this overwhelming desire to connect with this man and give him the bracelet, but he was walking further and further away from me. I also wasn’t sure I wanted to give away this special bracelet. 

The further away he pulled, the more compelled I felt to call out to him. If I didn’t do it and give him the bracelet, then I wasn’t honoring what the bracelets are all about. And this brought tears to my eyes and an ache in my heart. So, I yelled, “Excuse me, Sir!” I had to do it a second time before he heard me above the ocean waves. Finally, he stopped and turned around. We made eye contact. By this time my emotions were all over my face. He asked, “Yes?” As I handed the bracelet to him, I explained that my seven-year-old friend, Grace, had made the bracelet and that I wanted him to have it. He glanced at it for a moment and then looked up at me and asked me, “Why?”. I think he saw the tears in my eyes. All I could say is, “Because.” He looked at the bracelet again, more carefully this time. I am sure that at that point he saw the BLM and the hearts and realized the intent of the bracelets and the intent of the moment. Then he looked up at me and said, “I am Ben. What’s your name?” After I told him my name, he looked at me and said, “Thank you.” He said it twice. And then he walked away. 

As he left and continued down the beach, I thought of all the things that I could have said, all the things that I should have said. I hope that the action of calling out to him and gifting him the bracelet, one I had been wearing with LOVE and made with LOVE, was enough at this moment.