Eighteenth date? "I never heard you say ...."

Editorial note: I am writing this post the night of March 14, 2026. But it belongs somewhere in April or May 2011. I know that because it tells the story of a traffic ticket I got while cavorting with D in Faraway City, and I wrote a check to pay that ticket on May 14, 2011. So the event itself must have happened before that date, but not too long before. Looking at the times I was with D in Faraway City, I deduce that our Eighteenth Date is the most likely choice for when it must have happened. I have not yet decided whether to post this note itself in 2011 when it happened, or fifteen years later in 2026 when I am writing it.

Once upon a time—circumstantial evidence puts it at our Eighteenth Date—D and I met in Faraway City, to talk and drink and fuck like we usually did. Saturday morning we drove downtown because they were having some kind of fair. Also we wanted breakfast. But parking was hard to come by, because plenty of other people were going to the fair as well. Finally, as we diverted up a residential side street, D suddenly pointed and said "There!"

It didn't look to me like much of a spot. It was right next to someone's driveway, and I was afraid that if I parked there I wouldn't leave enough room by the driveway to be safe. I told D I thought I'd be too close, but she insisted: "It will be fine!" Mentally I weighed the risk, and figured we weren't going to be all that long. So I parked there, and we walked back to the restaurant district to find breakfast.

We came back a couple of hours later, and—sure enough!—I had a ticket. Fortunately it didn't cost too much. I had my checkbook with me, so I wrote out the check then and there and sealed it into the envelope, rather than risking that Wife might discover it when I took it home. (But I don't remember if I could find a stamp on short notice, or if I mailed it from home.)

Then, as D and I drove to the airport, she remarked—her voice beaming with gratitude—"Do you know something? That whole time you were dealing with the ticket, I never once heard you say, 'I told you so.' I'm so grateful for that!"

I don't remember if I said anything in reply. Probably I just mumbled and changed the subject. But in later years, this event was part of what made me understand that D herself was every bit as narcissistic as she accused Wife of being; it mattered intensely to D what people thought of her, so the accusation "I told you so" would have been far more lethal to her than it would have been to most other people. (I assume most people would regard it merely as a childish annoyance.)

The other thing I understood years after it was too late was what I should have said in reply. My thought is that, after all, D was using that event to weigh my soul, just as Marie weighed my soul after I lost my wallet to some pickpockets in Athens. But that weighing could, properly, have gone in both directions. What I should have said to D, if only I had had my wits about me, was this:

"You are right. I never said 'I told you so.' Do you know what else I noticed? I noticed that there were words you never spoke, either. The whole time I was dealing with that ticket, you never once said, "Oh Hosea, it was my idea that you should park there. Let me pay the fine!"

L'esprit de l'escalier. 

            

You know not what you say

People really don't think about what they say, do they?

(Wow, this is going to take a lot of background before I can even begin to explain what someone said tonight that hit me so wrong. I guess I better get started.)

The Setting 

You know that I attend a Buddhist Sangha once a week, practicing in the Plum Village Tradition of Thích Nhất Hạnh (or "Thầy" for short) and affiliated with a local Unitarian Church. (I have regularly called it "the UU Sangha" and I wrote about it recently here.) Typically we practice sitting meditation, a little walking meditation, and then we read a text or watch a video and discuss it for dharma study. 

For the past several months, we have been reading Thay's book Fragrant Palm Leaves: Journals 1962–1966. It's a good book in a number of ways, among them that it shows what Thay was like when he was a young monk, before he had acquired the aura of the World-Famous Great Teacher that surrounded him for much of his life. Tonight's reading finished the next-to-last chapter, and included the following story by Thay.

Last year I went to the British Museum. I was fascinated by the preserved remains of a human body buried five thousand years ago.... Every detail of the man's body had been preserved. I could see strands of hair, his ankles, each intact finger and toe. He had been buried in that position five thousand years ago in the desert. The heat of the sands had dried and preserved his body.... A little girl, about eight years old, stood beside me and asked in a worried voice, "Will that happen to me?"

I trembled and looked at this tender flower of humanity, this vulnerable child without any means to defend herself, and I said, "No, this will never happen to you." Having comforted her, I walked with her into a different room. I lied about something that Chandaka, the Buddha's charioteer, never lied about to Siddhartha.* [If you don't know the story of Siddhartha and his charioteer, you can find it here.] 

The Remark

After we finished our reading, we discussed it. One of our newer members—he joined just a few months ago—is a retired UU minister. I guess for now I'll call him The Reverend. He had already delivered himself of a short speech when we were all checking in, about the bombing of Iran on March 1. He explained that he opposed bombing other countries and that he considered his role now to be one of public opposition and activism.** When we came to discuss the reading, the Reverend immediately referred back to the story of Thay comforting the little girl in the British Museum. Then he said, "I want to take this as the text that I live by, from here going forward." He talked about how Thay spent so much time around small children: helping them, supporting them, comforting them, and encouraging them to see the beauty and the love in the world. And he concluded by quoting the very end of this chapter (a few pages later), where Thay writes:

I want to tell Steve not to worry about a thing. Tomorrow when peace returns to Vietnam, he will be able to visit Phuong Boi. Phuong Boi taught us what this love is, and Phuong Boi will share it with Steve in the language of wildflowers and grasses.... Flowers don't know how to hate. We will return to the circle of life as flowers, grasses, birds, or clouds to bring people the message of eternal love. Like the village children who, even in this time of war, sing:

"We will love others forever and ever, hand holding hand. We will love others forever."***

As the discussion progressed, many people said they found the Reverend's words inspiring.