Drops of Gold #001 <-> “Just be real.”

NYC Subway boy hero

(NOTE: drops of gold will rarely be a “long read” story. This 10-minute read might just elevate your life as it did mine).

The most important thing I needed to re-learn about being a man I learned in the frozen rush of a NYC Subway moment from a four foot tall hero. Because in those seven minutes, I exposed myself to myself as a fraud.

This is a story of a young man who takes a stand for what he see and believes. Who takes a heroic risk, and in the process, just from being real, forces another to look inward to what is real. And this is a story, as this young teacher showed, to remember to inject levity along the way. Not so serious. All of life is a gift.

Perhaps in sharing this story, another is also inspired to step deeper into the person they came here to be. Perhaps that person is you.

I had moved to New York from San Francisco three months prior in December 2013, and was getting my sea legs in the chill of that bone cold winter.

I anticipated New York gifting me gravitas energy, I was also greeted by two other surprising kinds — a creative collaborative supportive energy, and a grounded mindfulness community devoid of any spiritual woo woo dogma.

I had quickly discovered that NYC either sees you, or it sees right through you.

Those I met were real and raw, and inspired me to shed my past narratives to become more real and raw. In that process, I was beginning to be seen for the real me, previously hiden comfortably inside. And yet until a subway moment forced an inward look, I didn’t realize the degree to which I was still a novice of self.

Time and again, NYC is the cold shower for my soul.

My awake up call.

What occurred on March 25th, 2014 over those seven minutes was my first of both…

My meeting in Harlem at Red Rooster to develop their branded apparel concluded mid-afternoon on a surprisingly chilly late Spring day. I squeezed inside the closing doors of the near empty 6 Train from 125th Street to head back downtown, no preamble of that “sliding doors synchronicity” about to knock the cover off my illusion of self more than any other day in my life.

Over four months of living in NYC, I had locked into a two-pronged subway ritual that continues today. I stand for utilitarian reasons. The vertical pole is my sliding nirvana to self-massage my omni-present left shoulder blade pain. The degree of the slide is predicated on the number of subway riders present — because at 45 degrees, I am quite a ridiculous visual. My second MO is, like most other non-present humans on a NYC subway, “ear buds in” to zone out to music.

That morning, I had made a decision that this day was going to be different. The day before, I watched a youtube video making the Facebook rounds, called Look Up. The gist of the video was that we get lost in our digital devices and miss the synchronicity and magic which may appear right “above” our lowered eyes. This hit home, as I am one of the ones addicted to his phone.

As I worked the pole, I instinctively raised my ear buds, then stopped short, remembering the video. I curled the chord and deposited in my pocket. I was going to be here. Be present. Be aware. I pivoted my head to observe my fellow riders, all staring zombie forward: A elderly couple, a homeless man, and a Hassidic Jew with his too loose pants buckled up over his nipples.

I went one by one, and in my mind’s eye, played my version of the Look Up game, creating space, breathing empathy into wherever they may be on their journey. Moments later, I was done. I looked up. Okay, I thought in underwhelmed nature. That was…

My “that was…” thought was interrupted by the subway coming to a halt, my head turning to the right to see 110th Street on the wall outside the subway window. Spanish Harlem.

Have you ever had an undeniable feeling in life of feeling a specific human energy before actually seeing or hearing the human behind that energy? This was one of those moments.

As the subway doors opened, a rush of negative oncoming energy, a tension, a toxicity, was followed by a dozen mixed ethnicity older teens dropping f’bombs, treating the subway entrance like a low grade rave. The homeless man was trying to exit. One teen intentionally bounced him, another kicked his cane with a “oops!!”. He finally squeezed his way off before the doors closed.

The teens formed a semi-circle in front of where I was standing. While it is not my nature to be threatened by any group, I was keenly aware of the surround. There was a ring leader. It was a she, standing a few feet in front of me to my left. One of the largest teens in the group, she was a 6-foot Puerto Rican with big frizzy black hair, big puffy jacket unzipped, flying open in rhythm with her arms banging on teens in her swath.

In search of a new target for continued verbal onslaught, she turned to her right to the row of seated humanity. What was left in the subway was the elderly couple and the Hassidic with his nipple-hiding pants. She focused on the “easy target” and bellowed, “Look at this joke!” inducing laughter from her group. Raising her right hand toward the Hassidic, she curled her bottom two fingers, her hand now in the shape of a gun. She turned her hand over in the fashion of a “kill shot”, derisively saying, “Brother ain’t got no reason!”, and fired two imaginary bullets with mouth sound effects. The group of teens laughed. It was an awful human moment to witness. I felt a sickness well inside me.

In that precise moment after the group’s laughter subsided, there was a perfect pocket of silence. A smaller voice, from my right, said, “Why you gotta be so ghetto?”

The voice was soft. Peacefully-spoken. Not aggressive. Just inquisitive.

All heads darted over. I followed the eye-line from the ring leader on a straight line over to my right to where the voice was coming from.

Nothing there.

I shifted my glance lower to see a full-head-and-a-half shorter black boy looking up at the frizzy head that had now snapped in his direction. The boy, while part of the group that entered, was clearly on the periphery, perhaps a friend of a friend tailing the group.

The air was thick. If you have been in a moving NYC Subway when something is going down, the description of a pressure-cooker may resonate. No place to run, no place to hide, the confined space almost forces a confrontative reaction.

The group of teens grow pin-drop silent, the ring leader’s surprised expression suggesting she was not accustomed to being challenged.

She aggressively takes one step forward, thrusting herself toward him in head butt motion. Intentionally stopping short to scare him, she flays her arms wide like an Avatar Pterodactyl bird, screaming down to his face in response, “Because we are!!”

The little boy doesn’t flinch despite her aggressive movement, keeping his arms by his side. And without a hint of bravado or aggression, he looks right up at her with softening eyes, and at breath volume, softly says, “No. No, we aren’t. Just be real.”

The teens egg her on in response, rapid fire one after the other. “Boy deserves an ass whoopin.” “Kick his ass.” “Whatcha going to do?!”

My heart is beating out of my chest. Am I going to thrust myself in the middle of this? If I do, what might be thrust into my back?!

In the next seven tense seconds that felt like minutes, I stood frozen, transfixed as a witness. Her eyes grew more wild with anger peering into his, as his eyes grew even softer, he neither an aggressor or shrinking back in fear or retreat. He just stood right there, in his ground. And I could have sworn he opened his hands wider by his side in submission, facing her.

She clinches her left fist, flailing her left arm toward the boy’s head. A slow sweeping haymaker punch, also intentionally landing short.

As the faux punch comes toward him, again the boy doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t raise his arms. Standing in a non-aggressive peaceful posture, he simply recesses his head and body backward and then back to neutral as if he was Neo from The Matrix, his two feet firmly standing his ground.

She turns her back to him, flailing an arm in his direction one final time, dismissively saying, “Aw, what the hell do you know anyway?”

And then a sequence of two events unfolded that words most certainly will fail.

The ring leader, now with her back to the group, was saving face with her Bestie, muttering under her breath. Her energy, literally, felt like it had popped. If she was a pressurized balloon, the over-inflation was just gone in that stand-down instant. As if she was revealed as the little man behind the curtain of the seemingly larger than life Wizard of Oz. I had never seen anything like that before in person. Her hold over the group in that nano-second just disappeared.

The group of teens stood motionless, speechless, expressionless. The feeling I felt was they were each trying to make sense of what had just occurred. The only motion I witnessed was one teen from the group leaning toward the boy, giving him a respecting fist bump on his shoulder.

And then, the most remarkable thing happened to break the silence. Not returning to toxic name calling, not anxious action. One of the teens punctured the silence with, ‘We playing soccer this Saturday. You comin’? Another chimes, Can’t wait for your sister’s Quinceañera. That’s going to be cool.” And so it went, flash conversations between the group about sports, music and life.

The collective energy of the group was no longer a collective of toxicity. An energetic shift had occurred in seconds, the script was flipped, and with the ring leader no longer holding the energy hostage, the collective was being…real.

It was not just about the words said, it was just a completely different feeling.

I looked over to my right, transfixed on the little brave catalyst. Standing alone, silent, Buddha-like, I was taken by the softness of his posture, four foot proud and tall.

His eyes meet mine, and he did not divert. It was like his eyes were saying, ‘Yeah, I see you.’

I took one step toward him, looked down into his eyes, and said, “I like your style.”

Still holding my gaze, without bravado, just a little head nod and hint of a smile, he says, “Thanks. So do the ladies.”

I had never laughed so hard without laughing due to shock. I picked my jaw off the floor, and said, “How old are you?!”

“Twelve.”

“What’s your name,” I could barely whisper, as I felt a chills cascade down my spine.

“Sam. I’m Sam.”

I was too blown away to emit another sound. The subway doors opened in that moment to reveal my 23rd street stop. I looked back at Sam, touched my heart, dipping slightly in a reverent bow to this mountain of a human. I walked off the subway into the nyc jet stream, a softened blur of human life darting by. I walked for a hour trying to make sense of what had just occurred, feet never hitting the concrete, while several tears did.

This story haunted me nearly every day for months in the most profound of ways.

It began as shame. I didn’t have the courage to act in that crucible moment when he did. Then it just became a lightning rod of challenge, empowerment, of inspiration. Challenge questions to myself abounded: Were my thoughts, beliefs and actions consistently aligned? They weren’t. Where was I operating out of integrity? I had become lost in my plot of clever social colloquialisms, and I realized I didn’t have a clear energy filter of what was real versus illusive. Where had I quashed what I felt was right, for fear that I would be slighted? Plenty of places, as I had spent a life concerned with likes — long before likes were a thing.

That subway moment ripped the cover off my bullshit, all my hidings, all my defense mechanisms, all my clever deflections, revealing what’s really underneath it all — an afraid little boy looking to love and be loved. That’s all I was left with. And in that moment, I decided to be afraid no longer. Fearful of expression, for what one might think of me. No longer. Which cleared the runway for me to begin to fly as real. So many lessons rushed from this moment…

I realized fear of ridicule is not real.

Modeling behavior to be liked, and liked-minded, is not real.

What is real is being a leader of one, even when you stand alone, against all odds.

Sometimes self-leadership can be lonely. Welcome to the gift of life.

All it takes is one person, one stand, to make it matter, and make a difference. To stand tall for what you believe to be true. Because you are real. And in those crucible moments, you just might inspire another, whose actions invite another, to also be real.

It’s not about the words. It’s about whether the energy behind the words is clean. That’s when the intention is undeniably clear.

That moment also spoke to me about what does it mean to man up versus man down: Manning down speaks to lurching with ego, aggression, as much as it might be of shrinking in a crucible moment where action is required. Manning up is being vulnerable strong. That is being awake, that is real power.

The expression goes, “one awake person is more powerful than hundreds who are not.”

Thank you, Sam, for making this expression real.

I still think of Sam often, reminded that we have no control over anything, no authority over anyone — but ourselves. The rest is just inspiration. All which invites me to begin again each day, allowing my destiny to match my purpose and my actions.

“Never forget your own significance. Respect a strength, never power. Never look away. Then pursue beauty in all its glare.”

Anh Vu, Poe

I invite you to share your thoughts about this story below, and /or a specific story in your life, where a kairos moment formed who you are today.

For those who wish to follow the thread, here is a short epilogue to this story …

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