Shoulds and Shoulders

I had a long argument today... Whilst sitting by the surcharging charging airport port, shouldertoshoulder with this pastor. Delayed flight and low juice kept us there, squared off; shoulder to shoulder. He with his Righteousness, me with my Right View. He with all his carefully tended and Sunday-stoked Fighteousness, me with my caringly intended and Hyundai-broke plighteousness. He with credentials, me with my inconsequentials. He with his Holy Spirit, me with my holey heart. He in the collar, me in a cat tee. Both with headphones: He on a FaceTime with family, me with my Bose®- drowning out the mechano-industrial buzz. We argued for 70 minutes: He laughing and story-sharing with folks in his living room. Me in my head with a shadow over my Heart. He railed against "Cardboard Cathedrals." He reflected on getting to Heaven on a "sugared diet." He said the Arts are the "Foam of Civilization" - the sweets after the steak. He remembered the rotundity of Pastor Violette. Never sharing a word or a view (or a point of view), we sat shoulder to shoulder. Now aboard, a middle manager in the middle seat repeatedly using my arm as a cushion for momentary instants. And then, the inevitable startling himself to a less-drooly upright. Followed by a temporary recommitment to upright vigilance. The couple in front, latched in by a seat belt extender, share a game of solitaire on a tablet. Its unwrit rules of Love make me think perhaps it's the one Moses lost... They are so aware and spend that awareness on compassion and that compassion reveals itself at least as often as I am shoulder-wetted. All-too-ready with a laugh, and a double-check on me if their seat shifts even the slightest. "Am I OK? I'd be happy to move it back. Really." Twisting their twin corpulessences from Economy row D to Economy's row E, which is me, to offer a snack and then a stick of gum or a tissue, if I so much as sniffle. The girl on the far side, an exemplar of postural consistency, has earbuds in- stares ahead, her complexion battered and her countenance an unwavering, unwaving Memorial Pool. Her opinion of anything, it seems: unfavoring, unsavoring. Her thoughts lost in her mental cookery: white rice, white potatoes. No salt, no seasoning. The sullen vapidity of unflavoring. She carefully (so carefully!) eases her adjustable armrest down between her and he in need of sleep- The better to avoid the societally enforced and awkward faux-explanation rite to the middle-aged middleman in the middle seat to her left- and-but-yet still ensure a dry shirt. I return to reading: something about a poverty park. In disrepair and worse... Neglect. City life. Standard report. Bureaucracy and battlings. But the next sentence (Thank you, The Times.) rockets out of nowhere, a lyric left to my head! I am rollicked and wracked with with with well not with City Desk prose. "Mrs. McQueen reared back and leaned against the universe." Then snap-back like a defiantly non-sleepy neck, to city council meeting reviews and man-on-the-street interviews. and me? I'm thinking of a man I know, 'bout expectations never met, 'named' Mamoru and whose name, like everyone, is surely someone else- lost or buried or hid or forgot. and me? I'm singing Sanskrit to the Sky.