Trust. That’s all. Trust.

Oct. 2

As night settled in, we summoned a bicycle rickshaw.  The driver pushed off directly into oncoming traffic, a blur of headlights heading directly in our direction. Despite the rush of adrenaline, we had to let the bicyclist wind his way through the onslaught as we set off to visit a nearby lit up temple.

To visit that temple, however, my friends encouraged me to hand over all of the stuff I was carrying.  ‘All of it?’  ‘Of course.  You can’t carry almost anything into the temple grounds and there is a long, long line of people checking in their possessions at the cloak room of the temple.’  So, I tucked my phone, passport, wallet and etc, etc into my backpack and handed it all to one friend whose apartment was apparently nearby.

Which means that as I stared at the oncoming headlights from my tightly fit position sitting halfway on the rickshaw, I carried nothing to identify myself, carried no money, no phone or anything.  I couldn’t help but think that if my friends skipped off, I’d have no way to get about, find my guest house or pay for anyone to transport me.

Talk about trust!

Our daily normality seems to be constructed to protect us.  Home, car, money, family, close friends and etc.  We can lock the door, take off in the car, pay for a lovely meal for our friends and the like.  We can protect ourselves from getting into situations where trust is a real factor, a tangible decision that requires us to make ourselves vulnerable and perhaps a little uncomfortable.

But what an experience, yes?

I think those are the moments I relish the most when traveling.  Stuck on a train platform in the middle of the rain, at night, in a city I don’t know while holding a stand-by train ticket that I have no idea if it will get me on the next train!  And I am alone.  Sprinting down a shadowy dirt road, fireworks exploding on every side as people celebrate Durga Puja, trying to leap onto a boat that is even then leaving the shore and you don’t realize there is a hole that you are heading directly for.  In each instance you take a breath and put yourself at the mercy of your ‘friends,’ people you met just a day ago that you still are getting to know.

Most importantly, there is a sense of humanity in that trust.  As you open yourself to others, you discover the lengths to which a fellow human that you know little about will be there to welcome and support you.

In the glare of the fast approaching headlights, I thought how much we need that trust to truly be human.  And I am not so good at it, but these experiences help encourage me to trust that trust.