The next time I met up with Harry was the following Friday. I went directly to his place after work. I picked up a pizza and some chicken wings on the way.
Harry was sitting on his front steps when I arrived. He was wearing a white golf hat and looked rather festive. He was sipping some sort of frozen drink, a margarita perhaps.
Anne arrived later. Harry and I were sitting in the living room when she came walking through the front door, a bottle of wine in her hand. She put the wine on the kitchen table and kicked off her shoes. Then she plopped down on the sofa next to me.
“Hey boys,” she said playfully. “Whatcha doin’?”
“Waiting for you,” Harry answered with a big smile. “What took you so long?”
“Who cares? Would one of you open that wine for me?”
Harry and I both stood up, looked at each other, then Harry sat back down while I walked into the kitchen to grab a corkscrew.
Anne looked around the room. “What are you doing inside? It’s gorgeous out.”
“As we said,” I called in from the kitchen, where I was rummaging through the drawers. “We were waiting for you.”
That wasn’t true – we weren’t waiting for her. At least I wasn’t. I had no idea she would be stopping by. But for whatever reason I wanted her to think that she was on my mind.
“It’s in the cabinet with the glasses,” Harry called in. I opened the cabinet in front of me and found the corkscrew. Then I opened the bottle Anne had brought and poured her a full glass. It was a Chardonnay. I took a quick sip before walking back into the living room and handing it to her.
“Here you are.”
“Thank you, dear,” Anne said and took a sip, then another sip, and then a few full swallows.
“Ah, much better,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Harry and I must having been staring at her, because she looked at the two of us and laughed. “Yes?” she asked with a tilt to her head.
Harry stood up and walked into the kitchen. “I’ll load up a cooler and meet you guys out back.”
Anne stood up and slipped her shoes on, then the two of us walked down the hallway, out the back door, across the lawn - which needed very much to be mowed - and up onto the mound. The lawn chairs were still there from the week before, and the two of us sat down.
“So how was your week?” I asked.
“Ugh. I don’t want to talk about it. I was in Dayton all week, and I don’t think I ever want to go back there again.”
“That bad?”
“Yeah. Well, I guess the city itself is okay. But they were five of the most boring, unproductive days I’ve spent in a long time. Probably forever. So I’m ready to let off some steam.”
I nodded. I noticed that she was wearing makeup, which she hadn’t the week before. She was wearing black pants and a red blouse with several top buttons undone, revealing a thin gold necklace.
I tried to look interested in our conversation, but I was mesmerized by her. Did I mention that she was attractive? More than a little. I tried to think of something else to say. My mind raced, but no words came to me. Luckily, she wasn’t at a loss for words. Apparently, she wasn’t as distracted by my presence as I was by hers.
“What is it you do?” she asked. “I don’t think you told me.”
I was relieved. “I work in R&D. For GE. I help design and improve electromechanical devices, computer assisted motion, stuff like that.
She actually looked interested. “Like what? Tell me about something you designed.”
I thought for a moment. None of what I did seemed interesting enough to describe to her. Luckily, Harry came walking out the back door at that moment. Anne and I looked over in time to see him stumble down the back steps, almost dropping the blue cooler he was carrying.
“Careful!” I yelled.
“Right,” Harry said without looking up. “Careful.”
Harry walked across the lawn and up the steps to the top of the mound. He put the cooler down and plopped into the chair between Anne and I. Then he opened the lid of the cooler and took out two bottles, handing one to me.
“Another beautiful Friday evening,” he said.
“Sure is,” Anne agreed.
Harry then told us about his neighbor whom he had noticed peering over the fence at him from time to time. This nosey neighbor seemed to think that everything anyone did was her business. She was the gossip queen of the block, and often she would stop Harry on the sidewalk to tell him about something inappropriate that someone had done to their house, their property, or their family.
Harry was amused by the old woman, and he told us how he loved the challenge of listening to her without judging her. Most of us, to be sure, would find such a person annoying and petty, and would probably do their best to avoid her. But not Harry. Harry saw her as an opportunity. An opportunity to practice accepting, and an opportunity to be helpful to her.
“At first,” he told us, “I thought she was just a miserable old bag who spent her time judging and criticizing everyone around her. But then I realized that I was judging her. But I didn’t realize it at first. To me, it seemed obvious that she was being ignorant. But eventually I saw what I was doing. I was judging her for being judgmental.”
“Wow,” said Anne. “so perhaps you were the one being ignorant?”
“I was judging the judger.”“So you weren’t any better than she was,” I said.
“Exactly. There I was, feeling that I was better than her because I was a more accepting person. I was comparing myself to her and concluding, without knowing it, that I was better than she was. And in doing so, I was doing exactly what she was doing.”
“That’s interesting,” Anne said. “I bet we do that all the time.”
Harry nodded. “Indeed we do. I find myself doing it a lot. And other people too. If you pay attention, you’ll catch yourself judging the judger.”
“Well, what’s wrong with judging?” I asked. “Who says I have to agree with what other people say or do?”
“Nothing,” Harry answered. “You’re free to judge or not judge, however you see fit. But this is a perfect example of how we tend to notice and find fault in other people for doing the very same things that we do. We just don’t realize it.”
“So why do we do that?” Anne asked.
Harry paused for a moment. “The answer is far more interesting than you would think, and not easy to explain quickly. But the short answer is that people mirror things back to us. We tend to draw to ourselves the same kinds of things that we ourselves express. So greedy people tend to draw examples of other people being greedy. Racists tend to see racism all around them. And you can be sure that the person who is always screaming about racism is a racist themselves. It’s the way it works. They are seeing themselves mirrored in the world around them.”
“I can see that,” I said. “But why does that happen? How do you draw those people to you? How does anyone draw anything to them? You mean like a magnet?”
“Exactly, just like a magnet. Think of yourself as a magnet, and whatever you express, or think about a lot, acts like a magnet that draws a matching expression to you. So my nosey neighbor must be obsessed with her own faults, because she is constantly noticing the faults of others.”
“Wow,” said Anne. “I’ll have to think about that some more.”
“It’s a very handy tool, I’ve found,” Harry continued. “Whenever you find yourself finding fault with someone about something, stop immediately and turn your attention back to yourself. What is this person mirroring back to you? What are they showing you about yourself?”
“Hold on,” I interrupted. “So every time I notice someone being an idiot, that person is mirroring that back to me? Does that mean I’m an idiot?”
“Well, we already know the answer to that question!” Harry said laughing. Anne smiled.
“But you know what I mean,” I went on. “I work with a bunch of imbeciles. Not all of them, but many of them. They drive me nuts.”
“Then you must be driving yourself nuts,” Anne said.
“Or more specifically,” said Harry, “You spend a lot of time thinking about your own faults, your own stupidity, and your coworkers are reflecting that back to you.”
“Do you?” Anne asked me.
“Do I what?” I responded.
“Do you spend a lot of time thinking about your faults?”
“Doesn’t everybody?” I asked.
“Most of us do,” Harry nodded. “And most of us find lots of faults in others.”
“And so most of us complain about other people,” Anne said. “I do it. I just spent a week with some very annoying people. I could sit here and complain about them for the rest of the evening. But, fortunately, my glass is empty. And I have to use the little girls’ room.”
Anne stood up and walked back down the steps and across the lawn. Harry and I sat quietly, watching. After she went in the back door, we looked at one another. Harry shrugged. I shrugged. We grabbed two more beers and waited for Anne to return.
