The Man in the Donut Shop By Linda Stowe
Today’s blog spoke about noticing the small joys in life, and I found myself thinking about that while prepping vegetables. What rose to the top was not a small joy exactly, but something more fundamental: I have all my faculties. I can think clearly, reason things through, and have enough physical ability to care for myself. That constancy underlies everything else.
I thought how all my life I have relied on my mind—my logic—and it has not let me down. Then, without warning, a memory surfaced from the 1980s, when I lived in Englewood. Some mornings, on my way to work down North Main Street, I would stop at a donut shop just south of Needmore Road. It was always busy, the kind of place where you moved in and out without much thought.
One morning, as I stepped inside, I had an eerie sense that the man behind me was going to rob the place. There was nothing remarkable about him. Still, the unease was immediate and physical, something I wasn’t used to and couldn’t explain. I turned around and left without buying anything, more to escape the feeling than to obey it.
Nothing may have happened. I never heard that it did, and I have thought about it off and on since. But the moment has stayed with me—not because of what followed, but because of what it suggested. For all my reliance on reason, there are times when something else speaks first.
~~~~~~~
I love this story. I love it because it reminds me of our extraordinary capabilities as human beings. Those times, when we are in touch with the energy that exists all around us. Sometimes our inner feelings overwhelm us. I think we should definitely listen to them when this happens.
As with Linda’s story? Maybe he didn’t rob that place on that day. But maybe he was stopping for a donut before he held up the bank next door. Maybe next week. I’m guessing her intuition was picking up on something. I’m glad she followed it.
I’m also glad that we possess this ability. When we are paying attention.
