cups unbroken

There is a midrash that tells the story of a king with a set of fragile, glass cups. He knew that if he poured in hot water, the cups would expand and break, and if he poured in cold water, they would contract and shatter. So the king poured the hot and cold waters together and then poured them into the cups, which did not break. The lesson is that compassion and judgment are the hot and cold waters--either one alone would break us, and both need the other.

Thinking about compassion makes me think of my friend Stephanie. She's this beautiful Polish-Colombian girl with thick black hair and a fast-draw smile and excellent taste in coffee. We met in Oxford and as soon as I met her, I wanted to hear all her stories. She is whip-smart and always ready for an adventure. If I had to name something wrong with Stephanie, I would say she is too compassionate. When I hear that sharp voice in my head, criticizing the pretty girl or the man driving too slowly in front of me, I like to think what Stephanie would say.

Something today reminded me of Steph and the picnics we took on our trips. We had the most beautiful weather for almost all of our trip to Scotland. In Edinburgh, we picnicked in Princes Gardens, near a group of pot-smoking yahs and we read our newly purchased Vacation Novels. Another day we climbed up Calton Hill and watched some poor model in a tiny dress fight the wind as a photographer snapped pictures. It was so windy that when we'd finished eating we lay down in the grass, as close as possible to the ground, and talked about how our hearts were broken while the clouds shuffled across the sky. Steph is the only person I can remember ever just looking at the clouds with.

Steph and I during the first Oxford snow
In St Andrews we hiked back into Lade Braes, this creek-side walk. We found a place with mottled sunshine and sloping grass and ate stone fruits, fresh mozzarella, crusty white bread and individually-wrapped chocolates. There's this drink in Scotland, Irn Bru--it's the Scottish national soda, and I managed to live there for four months and not have it. So Steph and I bought cans of Irn Bru for that day in Lade Braes, and when she took a sip, she exclaimed--"This is Colombiana!" Colombiana is the same, sticky sweet bubble-gum flavored soda. "It tastes like home," she told me. On the way back to the flat it started pouring, pounding hail and whipping wind, and we sat watching the weather in Fran's flat.

Steph told me so many stories about her family and Colombia on our trip--how everyone dances, and when one of her siblings was married, she and her father were the only ones dancing with the new couple, because everyone else was afraid to join in. When Steph and I were traveling together, we were both claiming Scotland--her for the first time, me for the second or fifth or tenth time. No matter how much we talked about the men who'd hurt us, she refused to condemn what had been done to her.
"Steph, he was being a total asshole!" I'd tell her.
"Well, I guess," she'd reply.

I've been working to balance all of these things in my head. I like to think that during the trip to Scotland, Steph and I rubbed off on one another a little--that she cooled down my hot water, and I warmed up her cold water.