I Trust You.

I trust you?

Joe the plumber sat cross legged on our living room floor. He sagged, like a kid about to admit to his grandmother that he’d broken her favorite cookie jar. He told us the final cost of our plumbing disaster. It would require a second mortgage.

After days of his crew probing the secret places of our home, the relationship had grown weirdly intimate. Our house was a hospital patient whose gown had popped open in back. I would have been creeped out by the disappearance of our privacy, if Joe hadn’t been unwaveringly gracious, kind, and sorrowful.

We tried to listen patiently to him, folded at our feet, but in our eagerness to free ourselves from toilet plungers, Ben and I didn’t hesitate to indenture ourselves to lifelong debt. “It’s inevitable …

“It has to get done …

“Go ahead and start the —. ”

“No,” Joe said. “I won’t accept your go-ahead now. Think about it for at least a day.”

Ben objected. “It’s ok. We don’t need to think about it. Let’s git er done.”

Joe objected to the objection. “I won’t start until you ask yourself three questions. Do you trust the information I’m giving you? Do you trust my judgment? Do you trust me? Call me in a couple of days, any time except Sunday mornings.” (Several drain probes ago, he’d given us his personal phone number.)

I only gave it one day, and then I texted him. Hello Joe. Ben and I want you to go ahead and fix our plumbing. We trust your info and your judgment and you.

As t-r-u-s-t unspooled across my phone, I felt exposed. T-r-u-s-t embarrassed me. T-r-u-s-t made me squeamish.

The physical reaction surprised me. I’d said—and believed in—those words frequently, but they’d never risen from my gut like acid reflux. And it had nothing to do with Joe the plumber.

It had to do with survival.

This is how it feels the instant after a person is asked (challenged?) to trust anything—whether it’s the universe or the person you wake up next to. This is how it must feel, if you’re in the habit of not trusting. I imagine that faith in your fellow humans goes against your survival instinct. Trust must seem insane, cynicism wise.

Whenever I’d said I trust you out loud, it was rote. When I typed it slowly, I couldn’t avoid awareness of my feelings.

Joe’s questions taught me what happens just before you step off the cliff into trust.

I sent the text.

I stepped off the cliff.

YOU’RE INVITED to my annual Christmas Day author reading. Put your feet up for an hour. Listen to a story.

Thursday, December 25, 4:00 pm Central Time.

*** Click to join Dawn’s author reading.

*** OR copy/paste the following info:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/5586183813?pwd=ZEx5VlpGN3dabi9GdjZjRlJpOXQxUT09

Meeting ID: 558 618 3813

Passcode: 900663