Last night...

    I stuck out my thumb just past the one stop light on vashon island for the second time, and a white work truck that had been waiting at the red signal pulled through the intersection and over next to the curb where I was standing with a beautiful woman with whom I shared our first kiss minutes before. I opened the door and inside sat a friendly-looking man with glasses, a salt-and-paprika beard, and a faded baseball cap with a metal clasp in the back. "Are you going towards the ferry?" I asked, and he nodded. I quickly kissed my girl goodbye as I got in the passenger seat. "Just one," I mentioned to the driver. I closed the door, waved goodbye to my date (who lives close to where we were), and the white pickup drove into the night.
     "What's your name?" I asked the friendly stranger as we wound along Vashon Highway, the dark artery of the island.
    "Coffee heath bar?" he replied, and extended a freshly cracked pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream with a spoon stuck in it cockeyed. I accepted readily, ate a few spoonfuls, and I asked his name again, this time to no response. I ate more ice cream.
    "What do you do for work?" Some obscure answer about water consulting, then, almost as an afterthought, "...I also teach nonviolent communication."
   This intrigued me. Earlier that day I had been talking with Jean about that very subject. His friend Sarah brought it up when we met at the public house last week, and her words had resonated with Jean and he had been bringing it up in different situations. Now, here I found myself with a generous soul who again brought up, "...nonviolent communication. Its about looking past the words someone is saying, looking past the emotional content and reading into the deep dream and desire that everyone is trying to express, what everyone is really trying to say" he explained.
     "And what is that?" I asked. He went on to say that really the questions on everyone's mind are "How can you make my life more wonderful?" and "How can I make your life more wonderful?" All anyone wants is to be able to accept people and be accepted, be loved, and be heard he told me. I told him of moments when I might be talking with a friend and I might raise my voice. He told me that's just the desire to be heard. It brought me back to discussions with Jean about what Sarah had said, that one person has one point of view, another person has a different one, and if each person can understand the other point of view, and stand in the other person's shoes, then they can reach an understanding.
     As we approached the ferry landing, the driver continued talking and the thoughts connected in my mind. All that any human wants is to feel that brotherhood, sisterhood, that total love, acceptance, and acknowledgment from people around them. The anger, the sadness, and the fear that is transmuted when we communicate stems from a misunderstanding, from someone not feeling heard. If we practice nonviolent communication, we can perpetuate love and understanding and we can teach ourselves and others how to really be good to each other. Let me put an emphasis on "ourselves." It's so easy to write off somebody's actions as offensive or somehow contradictory to our values, but if we can look past that and see  into the dreams that we all share then we can work through those differences, hand in hand, brother and sister, all bound by love...
    The truck was now stopped, and cars were pouring onto the ferry. I had to get going. I thanked the driver from the bottom of my heart, shook his hand, and asked one more time, "What was your name, sir?"
     "Doug," he said with a smile. "Yours?"
     "Andy." I replied, and wishing Doug a goodnight I walked down towards the water. The gate had already closed between the road and the ferry, and I was the last one on the boat before It disembarked back across the sound to the Fauntleroy ferry terminal.