Step Four in Mastering Relationships – Support

“Alone we can do nothing; we must recruit friends!” 
                                                                                     Bob Trask

This final step of building meaningful and dependable relationships will tie Acceptance, Respect and Affection together with dependability of Support. The first three can be fleeting; we may accept or respect or have affection for someone today but lose them tomorrow. Support demands constancy, the knowing that others can depend upon our loyalty to Acceptance, Respect and Affection.

The acronym, ARAS came to me in the sixties when I was doing double-duty as a model, actor and entertainer in San Francisco and also driving a bus in the east bay. Each morning, my regular route took me through the poorest part of West Oakland where I picked up six African American women who worked as maids in large, affluent homes east of Oakland. I heard them behind me, sharing stories; occasionally with tears but more often with laughter. In the morning that laughter was free and infectious, at night it was a bit strained and weary. Every morning they climbed up those bus steps, tossed their change into the meter and, without looking at me, demanded a transfer. Though my bus took them directly to their jobs, I understood their need for the transfer tickets; they needed to feel they were getting all they could for their money. Such is the way of poverty; hang onto even worthless things if it is all you have.

These close friends sat behind me and talked of things that fascinated me. When they laughed it was impossible not to laugh with them. I began looking forward to seeing them; greeting them with a “good morning” or “good afternoon.” Yet they barely responded; dropped in their money and moved past as if I were a fixture. Then they sat and immediately blended into their rich chorus of talking and laughing. And oh  how they laughed; like the birds of a forest singing all at once! They made me smile.

I was totally dedicated to my music and acting; I lived alone and was often lonely; and when these women were together, something moved inside me and I felt connected to the new births, children doing well in school, or who had joined the armed forces. I also felt the deep anguish of a wife whose husband was in prison, of another whose two sons were in gangs, and another whose daughter was hooked on heroin. How, I wondered, could one get up in the morning, take a bus to go work in someone’s elegant home and then come back home to poverty and loss? Where did one get that courage?

I saw that one’s dress was two sizes too large, all were too heavy and when they came on the bus at the end of the day, struggling to make it up the steps, their nylons were rolled down and sunk into their calves, biting into varicose veins. Then I was again a boy, living in the projects with my own overweight mama with veins on her chubby legs standing out like purple ropes. These women were no different than mama, who died of old age at 46; and they too might die before their times. I felt the impact of their courage and their grace so strongly that I even thought of them on my days off. But it was a one-way relationship because they did not see me at all; they spoke to me only to get change or to demand their transfers.

One day, walking along a San Francisco street, toying with my feelings of rejection, I realized that I wanted to be accepted into their group but that I had not really accepted them as a part of me. So over the next week I did my internal work; making each of them okay with me exactly as they were. I was unprepared for what happened next; they softened. I said “good morning” as I always had, but now they looked at me when I said it and nodded or said “good morning” in return. It was not a friendly “good morning,” just an Acceptance of me being there. I was amazed! I had gotten myself out of the way and truly accepted them and in return had gotten their Acceptance. I had done nothing but change my mind; how could they read me so clearly?

In time I realized I wanted more from the relationship. I wanted their Respect. Knowing how perceptive they were I knew it had to start with me, so I made it my mission to really pay attention to each of them; to look for their preciousness, for their nobility, the genetic traits that came down from their five thousand generations of grandparents. Their souls opened like flowers before me and I saw the majesty of who they were. All I'd had to do was look; it was right there all the time! I understood then, that what they were doing was enormously courageous. Of course this Respect came right back; they began to treat me, not like ‘that driver,’ but as an individual who had value. Like magic, what I felt for them, they soon felt for me. It came from simply opening my mind; could reality be changed that easily?

Affection was almost naturally the next step because I wanted them to feel my Affection. But it was a risk; what if they misunderstood my intentions? I took the risk anyway, seeing in each of them the goodness of my own mama and my sister as they came aboard in the morning and evening. I thought of them with kindness and told them with my smiles and my eyes that I cared about them. “Your hair is different, I like it.” I said; “That’s a new dress isn’t it? Great color!” I knew we had both seen ourselves as from two different worlds but that no longer mattered matter to me. Day after day I showered them with my Affection: "It's really good to see you today!" and "Have a good night; see you in the morning!"

It worked; soon they came right back to me with their Affection and I even became a part of their dialogue. Behind me I heard: “I think that driver’s got something for you, Blanche!” “Oh no! That driver’s got nothing I’m interested in!” “Oh, honey, don’t be hasty; he’s going to have something mighty interesting for you!” Then they laughed their wonderful laugh and I laughed with them.

I had their Acceptance, their Respect and their Affection and they had mine. They called me by my name and occasionally brought me cookies or a piece of cake, “You gotta eat something honey before you blow away. And you know how that would break Blanche’s heart!” Then they would all laugh and tease one another about who was going to stay on the bus to the end of the route so she could get that driver alone. They knew my ears were red, they were teasing me and I was filled with smiles.

I did not realize that anything was missing from my mission until the during second day of a race riot in Oakland where much bus service had been cancelled to protect buses and drivers. I knew my women desperately needed the little money they were earning so I asked the dispatcher to let me take my route. He finally agreed for me to take a beater that was so old rioters could hardly damage it. Oakland was like a ghost town that morning; almost no one was at the stops and I still had a nearly empty bus when I picked up my friends. They each came aboard with a smile for me and no mention of the riot.

Then there were half-dozen big, tough-looking kids bounding up the steps. They refused to pay, sat in the back of the bus and taunted whitey, the driver. They fed on each other's rage until it boiled over; they rushed forward and started slapping me and yelling. “Hey man, how much money you got? Give us your damn money!” I tried to ignore them and continue to drive but they were dogged. “You not listening to me, whitey!”said one. As he flipped open an ugly switchblade knife, another slammed into me, knocking me almost out of my seat.

“Okay, that’s it!” one of the ladies cried out. “Driver, just stop this bus, these nasty boys are getting off right here.” I pulled to the curb and opened the door. All the ladies were on their feet:

One of the gang turned to them: “Hey, this ain’t your business, you stay out of it!”

Blanche moved forward; “Don’t you sass me! I will  not take that from you!”

“Yeah old woman, and what you gonna do?”

In a flash Blanche was in his face and backing him up the aisle; “You want to mess with me, son? Come on then; I promise you it’s gonna be the last messing you'll ever try!”

“Why you all defending this white cracker?” demanded one gang member.

“You watch your mouth boy!” said another woman. “This is a good man and he is our friend; you could  learn something from him.”

“Now you all get off this bus.” said another woman.

“Oh yeah? You think you can make us?”

Then my ladies were all on the move, pushing those big lugs down the aisle and off the bus.

As I pulled the bus away with the gang banging furiously on its side; I knew I had come close to being killed or seriously injured. “Hey,” I called back, “Do you know how much I appreciate that?”

“Well then Bob,” said one; “You’re crazy to come for us in the middle of this business, so we have to take care of you.”

“Yes indeed!” Another one called, “Otherwise we’ll have to face Blanche!” Then they laughed as though it tickled them to the spine and I laughed too. And they kidded each other about how daring they had been and how they themselves had become a gang. We were like family then, barriers gone and flowing in each other’s grace.

My friends had not only saved me, they had taught me the meaning of Support, the last word in the ARAS acronym. I learned that Acceptance, Respect and Affection can evaporate in a heartbeat if not backed up with Support and sometimes that takes courage and personal sacrifice. Support is a big word that also means to turn off your mind and actively listen, to ask questions and really care about hearing answers. Support means assisting others in each having their own secure spaces physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Support means mirroring back the highest good in each other; speaking to and listening to people’s souls.

We all agree that love is an overused word, and that many different definitions abound. But ARAS is a way of loving that promises rewards beyond our imagination; Acceptance, Respect, Affection and Support.  Love is a four letter word that can be spelled, A-R-A-S.

A bit of Humor For You
A 72 year old guy was fishing from his boat one day when he heard a voice say,
'Pick me up.'
He looked around and couldn't see any one and thought he was dreaming when he heard the voice again,
'Pick me up.'
He looked in the water and there was a frog.
The man said, 'Are you talking to me?'
The frog said, 'Yes, I'm talking to you.’
‘Pick me up, kiss me and I'll turn into the most beautiful woman you have ever seen.’
The man looked down at the frog for a short time, then he reached over, carefully picked it up and put it in his front breast pocket.
‘Hey,’ the frog said; 'What, are you nuts? Didn't you hear what I said? Kiss me and I will become the most beautiful woman in the world and I’ll be your bride.'
He opened his pocket, and said to the frog: ‘At my age I’ll do better with a talking frog.'

This week’s Heroines:
Wherever you are, my dear bus ladies; we honor you today. We realize how hard your lives were and that getting on that bus and going to work instead of drowning in the poverty around you was a choice you made every day. In so doing you expressed the finest of who you were. Your children lived in an atmosphere filled with excuses for failure that made hopelessness a reason for dropping out. But you moms refused to let your children see hopeless in you. Many of them, now adults live full and meaningful lives because of your daily example of vision and courage. I still see your sweet faces, and I wonder how you are, knowing some of you may have moved beyond this life. Wherever you are I pray you might somehow be blessed by the hundreds of thousands of lives you touched through me as I taught ARAS around the world. I think you would be pleased and then you would look at each other and surely would laugh.

 Learn about ARAS and other tools of enlightenment in my successful book Romancing The Soul; Your Personal Guide to Living Free. Click here: http://www.amazon.com/Romancing-Personal-Guide-Living-Hardcover/dp/0961216441/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261092419&sr=1-2

 For Personal Coaching call me at 425-577-0556 or write Bob@arasfoundation.org