What is it like...

My fingers hung over the keyboard, typing the words:

What not to say to an amputee.

You see, lists have intrigued me lately. The ones that inform us what to say and what not to say to each other. And now I am someone, I guess, who has more lists written about me.

So I googled what not to say to people missing limbs...and I found some interesting stuff.

According to one list, it is wrong to tell me that I inspire you. Because this somehow might make me feel Something-Not-So-Good. Now I found this an interesting rule. For myself, I don't mind when someone says that I inspire them; I rather like it. Other people inspire me, all the time, and inspiration just seems a lovely thing for our world. Right?

And then I read how upsetting it can be when others stare. I get this feeling, I do.

Recently, I felt a clerk's stare drilling into my back, as I walked out the door. So I took a deep breath and turned around. Smiling my biggest smile, I told him about my prosthetic leg. It was my first visit back to this store in a long time...and I explained my new walk, while balancing three wine bottles with a cane. He and I then had a conversation, his good heart dripping with care and kindness.

It was a delightful connection, really, between two humans. Neighbors to one another in that magic moment.

Now I often don't mind when people look at me. Let's face it, I am different looking now. Most people have two legs of their own. And I also figure most people are just trying to understand my leg thing, something that is outside our "norm." Not wrong, not common. Maybe it even makes people a little sad or scared, and that is okay too...as this weird experience has been very sad and scary and shocking for me and my family some days, too. We get it, we do.

A big caveat here: mean stuff, another story altogether...and we must call that #%&)@ out when we see it. Truly, my friends.

But a prosthetic rehab person suggested recently that we stop telling our children "don't stare" and instead urge them to say hello to the person who has engaged their young curiosity. Perhaps we and our children, instead of being preoccupied with rigid rules about what not to say to one another...

...ask this simple starter question, or something like it (kindly and with big hearts for sure):

What is it like to be you?

Of course we wait for each other's answer, with our best interest and good intentions.

And then we ask more, with courage for our questions. Silly ones, fumbling ones...well-intended but miss-the-mark ones.

We bring them all, placing them on an altar of desire for knowing the other and ourselves too. More than as caricatures of this or that experience or circumstance or even identity. So we speak out loud questions that embarrass us, make us cringe that we don't understand something...until grace sets us free to ask more.

We make mistakes in our conversations. Together. We will, we do, we must, yes. But Rumi urges us, "Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing there is a field, I'll meet you there." Then comes to us a knowing that if we do not find that field, and we do not dare to know one another more deeply...

...I will be alone, we will be alone, with our perfect manners and "rightness".

Alone with our lists.

So what is it like to be you today?