What I should have said, was, “Thank you for being here.”

What I should have said was, “How can I help?”

What I should have said was, “Would you like some company in your sadness, or would you like an accomplice in escaping it?”

Would “I’m sorry that happened,” been better? 

Maybe: “I’m here. Want me there or elsewhere?”

But I didn’t. I took the shortcut. The mean cut. The gruff mama bear bite.

“Come on!”

I wasn’t limping. I was sore. In these days where most conscious souls are assessing what worked for them, what needs to be sorted, or what they want for a better new year, I was crawling toward the finish line, woefully defaulting to snappish human.

The glass broke. It cut my foot. But it wasn’t my dear one’s fault that I stepped on the glass. I just didn’t know that I needed to be careful. And instead of asking what happened, why was there glass on the floor, I cut with a stray word. It really was a temporary sting to the bigger issue of not having information that has bearing on my wellbeing, but…

I have broken trust and had it broken over me likely since I was a child. But feeling both sides, know I have to do better. Until recently, kindness and respect has been the language of our land and our grown up home, but as soon as that ugly toad fell off my tongue, I knew. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but how do we reteach this old sow its loveliness if the glass in our foot is leaving a bigger impression on the skin of my ego than the actuality of the loving embrace of laughter we more often share?

Oh, that pendulum swings.

When I was a young actress on an Emmy winning TV show about the entertainment business, I was sorting out another moral dilemma when Richie, our producer entered the makeup room. My gruff makeup artist had just waved me from his makeup chair after announcing that he was going to have a quick smoke outside before I walked out to the audience of a couple hundred, (and many million more who would see it when it aired.)

I played a tightly wound, comedically mean but brilliant attorney, yet I, Jane, hated defending my own case. Still, I knew. I had to stand up for myself because showtime was in twenty minutes.

“Richie, what do you think of my face? See anything needing attention?”

“Is this a joke?” Richie smiled.

“Only if I go out and shoot like this.”

“Jane, how… only half of your face is done.” 

“Uh huh,” I nodded, “Right down the middle. It was as if the left side of my face didn’t exist. Not a lick of foundation on it. No liner, shadow, or blush. No mascara on the left side either, but the right side—perfection. I was new, but even I knew we definitely couldn’t shoot with red lipstick only on one side of my mouth, not even if we only shot my scenes from one side in front of a live audience, which we weren’t.

The second (make-up artist) quickly came forward and whispered, “Have a seat. Let me help you,” and she deftly filled in the blanks. And then, we just quietly went on, as if this was just another magical show night. 

My makeup artist wasn’t back the following week. I loved my new artist, but I felt terrible. He just couldn’t see it. A week later, he also didn’t see a curb and he’d died wrapping his car around a tree. Someone said maybe he had a drinking problem, but maybe it was deeper. A stroke? A psychotic break? But part of what has long troubled me was that I didn’t question his behavior to his face in real time. I was afraid of hurting him. Or angering him. But now, I see a bigger problem about what we see and what we don’t see, not only as the one with half a face show-ready or a half-truth, but as the one with the blind spot that simply didn’t see the other side.

What do I need in this new year? What do we all need now?

Fortitude? Compassion? Empathy? The moral agreement that we abide by a set of truths? How does that work when some are so sick? Do we face a half-truth and angle the mirror to say, “This is beautiful work?” Or do we step up to make it right?

While many in the world are crying through an echoing Auld Lange Syne — words that bear deepest mysteries from a land and language most all here don’t understand but feel the ache for sweeter, old ways profoundly, how we mine the deeper truths individually and collectively is worthy treasure to claim. 

What I should have said was, “I love you. Were you breaking the genie out of the bottle and left a shard to tell me I could, too?”