Yesterday ended my jury tenure. My assistant foremanship is officially over.  No more partially-filled-with-work mornings and afternoons; no more marathon reading sessions in my leather chair; no more vending machine Cheez-Its, Snickers, Three Musketeers, and Twix.  Most importantly, no more 10 am start time to the day.  BUT!  B. provided his email, along with an offer to tour my aforementioned favorite cable news channel and sit in on a show taping!  AND!  He backed that up with some thumbs up/thumbs down analysis of several network anchors’ personalities!  So that made it easier to move on, knowing that I had a little left to hold on to.

Saying goodbye to everyone yesterday (except for A.Hole, who naturally didn’t bother showing up), I thought about my perceptions of them and this whole experience that I formed on the first day.  I have a track record of forming my opinions early and often, usually based upon an astonishingly small amount of information.  Then I set about the business of moving forward through the experience and getting proven wrong.  A two-week sentence that I likened to prison turned out to be a wonderful break from real life (read: WORK) that was full of stories and people who made me laugh.  Those first couple of days, I sat up in my Chair of Judgment and cast my wary eyes upon the crowd in front of me.  Yesterday, I caught the musician’s eye as yet another detective told us how a field test is performed on heroin.  We shared the same laugh that the Carnegie Hall usher and I shared when he caught me nodding off.  All things discussed over lunch in the break room when I finally decided to let myself be proven wrong.  In the courtroom as in life.

This morning I remembered my thirtieth birthday.  Specifically, the weeks leading up to it.  I had made a decision: I wanted to have a party in New York.  My mom and sister and the Yankee fam were coming to visit, and I wanted to celebrate with them and my friends in a big way.  So I called the parentals and swung an idea by them.  It went a little something like this:

Me: Hey Mom and Dad, since it doesn’t look like I’ll be walking down the aisle anytime soon, how about we dip into my wedding fund so I can throw myself a birthday party here in the city?

Mom: (silence)

Dad: What wedding fund?

After further discussion, the answer turned out to be a firm “No” on that one.  So I invited everyone to a bar on the big night, rather than a boat circling the island with a band and open bar.  But in just over six months, I’ll be inviting many of those same people–plus some other very important ones–to a beach wedding (boats) and reception (open bar).  And I’m glad Mom and Dad said “no” to that other idea, because it was based on an astonishingly small amount of information.  A little pile of information that I had looked at, summed up, and settled on as being It. A little pile of information that began to be transformed a month later when I met the man who will be waiting at the end of the aisle this summer.

That same man is patiently allowing me to pile books full of information against the wall of his apartment.  I lug these books across Third Avenue, hang a right on Lexington, and haul them up a flight of stairs to Floor 2 and through his door every day now, and each time I dump them on the floor I take a look at the titles.  They cover all sorts of ground: classics, Christian life, chick lit, teeth (dental and Edward Cullen studies).  I think about all the time I spent reading and carrying these books over the years, and my varied motives for doing so.  In a lot of cases, it was to fix some part of me I thought was broken.  Or to fix my life so it would look the way I thought it should.  And I’m sure the words in some of those books helped me along the way; gave me wisdom that I often needed.  But the bulk of what I needed to know, and what I’m still learning, occurred not as a result of trying, but of living. And much of living involves receiving life just as it is, now. Like today, when I was running through Central Park and became convinced that I had just crapped my pants. I’ve never run the end of that loop so fast.  There are few things more humbling than hoofing it through our nation’s most famous and well-visited park certain that you are sporting skid marks on your ass.

And there are few moments more joyful than the one when you find out you were wrong.

An unfortunate part of jury duty is that no cameras are allowed in the courtroom.  Therefore I am reduced (literally, as you can see to the left) to finding renderings on the internet of jury-associated images.  And though the oath administered in our court does not require the witness’s hand to be placed on a Bible, it does include “So help me God.”  So He’s involved in the process, even if the book He wrote isn’t.

And today…I got to administer that oath for the first of two times!  Because my assistant foreman duties were called upon!  B. had another obligation for the afternoon, which meant that I stepped up to the plate called Foreman.  It was a role I had been dreading and anticipating for a week and a half.  Dreading because I hate being in front of an audience that can evaluate and judge me as readily as I do others; anticipating because it meant I got to ring the bell.  And be, let’s face it, Really Important.

Luckily for all of us, A.Hole was not there.  But we heard two cases and voted on one during my tenure, and no disasters occurred.  Which means I deem the whole venture a success.  I stayed awake, only succumbed to a couple of ring-gazing moments, and rang that bell with conviction.  And while I paid closer attention to the cases than I ever had before, I realized something.  One of the reasons why I’ve been so pro-civic duty.  Here it is: jury duty basically consists of listening to stories all day.  And then judging them.  Now I may not be too good at listening, but I do love stories.  (And judging, a little too much.)  And since one of the themes of my life in New York has been coming to terms with the fact that the story I “wrote” for my own life has been mercifully tossed aside and replaced with a much more masterfully written one, I have become a more willing observer of stories.  Watching them unfold, rather than dictating them.  Waiting for the tying up of loose ends instead of grabbing my own string and forcing my own conclusion.  The truth comes out in the end, and it’s always worth waiting for.

Drug tip of the day: if you’ve run out of places to keep your stash of cocaine, just look to one of your handy kitchen appliances!  Mr. Coffee will be happy to hold a few grams of the white stuff instead of boring old brown grounds! 

Aah…I have been careening toward this glass of red sitting next to me all day.  And as I prepared to type (on his computer–we must be getting serious) that all that’s missing is the BF, he walked in and rendered that comment wonderfully unnecessary.  So now we wait in our own ways for our pizza to cook: I write, he reads.  Perfect.

As I read beautiful, poetic books in a mundane, sparse setting this week, I’ve felt a sense of inspiration beyond what jury duty typically evokes or deserves.  Along with that has come a sentimentality bred from the temporary nature of my new assignment and acquaintances.  I don’t doubt that were I to discover that jury duty was a permanent sentence, I’d feel for it the same feelings I have when I approach the workplace.  Frustration, irritation, and exhaustion, to name a few.  (And no, not every day…but such is the nature of the word work.  A nature and perspective I’m asking God to change.)  But since Monday is my last day, I find myself valuing encounters that I may not notice otherwise.  And wondering things like how B. and R. and I will say goodbye: an exchange of hugs, business cards, or nothing? 

I’m feeling the same sentimentality approach me about leaving the city.  I say approach because I know it hasn’t hit me full-on yet.  If it had (and when it does) I’ll be a mess.  That’s how goodbyes work.  I already said one, this past weekend, to PG.  Our first close friend to leave the city.  This year will have several of us doing that, and it’s coming as surely as the tide.  Every time I head over to the BF’s now, I haul a stack of books from my apartment and deposit them in a corner of his.  This is a slow move in preparation for the two-month period between the time my lease expires (hallelujah!) and his does, when I will be camping out in sin at his place before we leapfrog to an apartment in Atlanta before we finally land (hopefully–plans in pencil, of course) at our first real home.  A real house, with a yard and everything!

But until then…we have New York.  And it has us.  And our pending move has already led to a “Bucket List” of things we want to do around here before we leave.  From the small (eat large quantities of bacon-wrapped, almond stuffed dates at Sala) to the large (we’re headed to Niagara in a few weeks).  Already I feel the wavelets of emotion hit from time to time: how will I feel when I walk out my front door at 9 pm (will I ever?) and don’t breathe in the scent of pad thai?  Will my new drycleaner know my name?  Will I gain weight from not walking everywhere?  Will I run out of things to write about?  Will my kids like me?  (I tend to jump ahead a little in moments of emotional upheaval.) 

And there is the idea of saying goodbye to the city that changed my life; that reintroduced me to God; that introduced me to my best friend and husband (miraculously, as I had always hoped, the same person).  There is no way to prepare for this. 

Then I remember the day I moved here.  The U-Haul with three of us stuffed up front, my possessions stuffed in the back, and the way I felt: like my heart was breaking, even though I knew I was headed in the right direction.  And so I will be in a few months.  This is the faith I have.  And it lasts longer than goodbyes.

Even when I’m knocked out of my usual routine, I fall quickly into a new one.  Such has been the case with my temporary assignment.  I head out of the apartment at 9:30 am, descend into the subway at 28th and Park, and emerge a few minutes later at Canal and Lafayette.  The land of a thousand smells, few of them good.  I walk to the courthouse and stop at the coffee truck.  (If I keep this up, I wonder if he’ll know my order and have it waiting for me just like George on 28th and 1st?  Or is he in a spot filled with too many transients to bother memorizing people’s preferences?) Inside the courthouse, I take the elevator to floor 6 and head to my throne up front. There, I drink my coffee, greet my fellow jurors as they arrive, and bury myself in my book.

Then the cases start.  Drugs, robberies, weapons, more drugs.  Drugs, drugs, drugs. I know now how much bliss ignorance provided before this all began: I walked the streets of the city, day or night, reasonably certain of my safety and fearing, at the most, a belligerent/drunk homeless man.  Now, I see drug dealers in every shadow; knives beneath jackets; zip-lock baggies of coke peeking out of pockets.  One of my fellow jurors was approached by a guy right outside of the courthouse during our lunch break who asked her if she wanted to buy a dime bag.  Seriously?!  Speak of the devil and he will appear, I guess.  Bearing weed.

But now that we know about the bad guys, we also know about their counterparts. The countless undercovers who roam the streets with the dealers, busting them each day.  To look at them, you wouldn’t guess they’re on the right side of the law: jeans and sweatshirts are among the dressier outfits we’ve observed them sporting.  And the line continues to blur: we’ve learned that there is a number called a NYSID–New York State Identification.  Law enforcement officials (the detectives, undercovers, court employees, DAs, etc.) all get one.  So do the criminals.  Basically, anyone who gets fingerprinted by the state.  Which for the most part is those two groups:  the right side of the law, and the other side.

After our lunch break, we settle in for more cases.  This is when my attention wanes the most.  This is when I admire how well my ring picks up the light from the courtroom window; when I consider which Caribbean island would be the best spot for a honeymoon; when I count the days until our apartment lease is up (now that we settled with the landlord and aren’t getting evicted); when I am thankful I’m just the assistant foreman and not the real deal because what is this case about again?

Then we get a break and I dive back into my book.  After awhile, K. comes in and lets us know we’re done for the day (“Goodbye, jurors!”).  We ask her if she’ll be working tomorrow (she’s our favorite warden) and she says it depends on whether she wins the Mega Millions.

Me, I feel like I already have.  I’m planning a wedding (and, even better, a honeymoon), reading books I love, and missing work.  I think I might cry when jury duty is over.

One of the things you learn on jury duty is that only relevant information is presented to jurors.  And someone else decides what constitutes relevant information.  This isn’t a problem for me (in THIS setting, but read on) because I tend to be of the “guilty until proven innocent” mindset.  Which isn’t such a good thing, in life, as it translates to a sweepingly judgmental attitude.  I am aware of this quality in myself, have been for awhile, and have recently even begun working on it with the help of my Becoming My Real Self Project Coordinator, guy by the name of JC.  But in a courtroom, a swift judgment can be quite efficient.  And when you’re just sentencing someone to a trial rather than the chair, it’s hard not to see it as a win-win.  Some of my fellow jurors, however, are not on that same page with me.  It took a few days for some of them to accept the fact that no matter how many questions they asked (I’m looking at YOU, A.Hole), they may never get the information they were seeking.  Usually this was information dealing with background details that would have been interesting to know (for example, why exactly the cops asked for a search warrant for that particular apartment) but were, as it turned out, none of our business.  I guess A.Hole is just going to have to live without knowing whether the knife-wielding perp on the subway is homeless. 

So we’re called to make a decision based on what we know, not on what we wish we knew.  On the information in front of us, not the unrevealed mysteries.  And at times that can seem unfair, even counterintuitive.  Until we admit that we make every one of life’s decisions–in a courtroom or not–under these conditions.  We just think we know it all.  But even on a good day, what we can see is a shadow of all the information that’s out there, past present and future.  And the one who has all the information?  Well in this illustration, our God: Courtroom Version is K, the warden.  She struts in every day with a smile, clicking the four-inch stiletto heels of her black leather knee-boots against the floor as she approaches us with the day’s schedule.  Her no-nonsense attitude calls to mind Roz on Night Court, just shorter and a little more svelte (as the tight knit dresses reveal).  Her hair is big, her lipstick is red, and even though she’s as friendly as can be, there’s a part of me that’s waiting for someone (I’m looking at you, A.Hole) to incite her to say that she doesn’t take shit off anyone.  Because I’m pretty sure she doesn’t.  After all, she’s been in the Special Narcotics Division awhile, and she knows how this all goes down.  Yet she remains patient while the rest of us stumble around a well-lit room with our eyes shut.

So this whole “limited information” thing is working for me.  It cuts down on wasted time and keeps me from getting confused.  Also, it gives me more time to read.  (I finished The Help last week–READ IT!!!–and have moved on to Elizabeth Gilbert’s latest, Committed, a gift from the Yankee Mom.)  So while wardens, assistant DAs, and witnesses gather outside and worry themselves with the details, I lean back in my leather-bound chair and relax with my book and occasional conversations with B and R.  Then I leave the courtroom and forget all about being okay with a partial view of the world.  Like when someone close gets bad news that is just completely not understandable.  And I am drawn back to my own similar experience, a time when I was told that “my services were no longer required.”  That moment still reverberates in my ears and heart as the dividing line between how I used to live and how I am oh-so-trying to live now.  The difference between letting others determine my worth…and believing in one who had already determined it.  Who had determined that my service was welcome but what really mattered was all that had already been done on my behalf.  All of which gives me the heart now to, first, admit how bad my vision can be; then, to decide be at peace with it.  Because sometimes being free means knowing less while someone else knows all.  Being still.  Relaxing in my seat and remembering that I will never again be the one on trial.

O…M…G.  I like jury duty.

OK, I hate to admit it when I’m wrong.  I rarely do it, except to Jesus–I figure he can just let other people know if he wants.  But I was wrong about my new assignment.  Being the assistant foreman(person) in the Special Narcotics Division is fun.

As the assistant foreman, I have to perform the foreman’s duties should he be absent or incapable of doing so.  Luckily, the foreman is B.  And he is very capable.  So along with him and R., I basically get a front-row seat to every case presented.  AND we get nice big leather, arm-rested chairs.  AND occasionaly B. will let me ring the bell to signal the warden to return to the courtroom.  So…I’m kind of a big deal.

The tide of my attitude toward duty changed on Wednesday, our second day. Coincidentally, this is also the day when I realized that the other jurors are people, too.  People with their own stories that are actually quite interesting: for example, B. works at my favorite cable news station and R. has a business providing housing and work leads for women just out of prison who want to make a new start. Cool. There’s a charter school teacher and a musician slash writer (aren’t we all).  And, of course, there’s the resident a-hole whose job it is to imply that every cop is a liar and every criminal is framed.  My blood pressure spikes every time he raises his hand.

It’s our job to be the grand jury, which means we hear evidence from the assistant DAs and their witnesses then decide if sufficient evidence exists to bring a case to trial.  Since we’re in the narcotics division, we mostly deal with drug possession and the sale of drugs, with a few weapons possessions and robberies thrown in occasionally.  We meet undercover cops and detectives.  We hear about buy-and-bust deals.  I learned that a booster bag is a foil-lined shopping bag that allows one to get stolen clothes past a sensor without it going off.  I have learned about the penal codes (hee) and legal terms and lots of other smart stuff.  I’ve learned that I’m glad I’m not a lawyer.

It was all such a hassle in the beginning…three days ago.  I had to deal with the subway during rush hour for the first time in two years.  I had to meet new people and have my time affected by them (especially A. Hole, who never shuts up).  My routine was changed as my world was forcibly enlarged.  Uncomfortably altered. Riding that subway, walking those unfamiliar streets, seeing those new faces, I started to think.  I thought about the blocks I walk to work every day and how I rarely look at anyone’s face as I control my way through human traffic.  I thought about how I determine my own schedule, how rigid and predictable it is.  I thought about how I see the same people every day and hear the same stories.  How not much was new until this week, all because of something I never wanted to do in the first place.

I thought about how much the initial discomfort of it all reminded me of my first few months in New York, when my predictable existence was torn open and the world became a thousand miles and a thousand times bigger.  About all the new people I met then, whom I now refer to with titles like best friend and fiance.

Reducing and packing all my stuff into a U-Haul and stuffing it into a tiny apartment.  Being compelled by a court summons.  The road to freedom doesn’t always start out looking that way.

Like I do with most things I feel I don’t deserve to have to deal with, I blew off jury duty in my mind when I found the summons in my mailbox.  I had already postponed once, so I couldn’t completely avoid this annoying piece of paper, but I felt sure that I would be in court for a few hours and then free of the dreaded New York experience.  At the most, I figured, I’d be there a couple of days, gain a topic to blog about, and be done.

Instead: you’re now reading the words of the Assistant Foreman of the grand jury of New York Supreme Court’s special narcotics division.  Is that even legal to disclose? Hmmm…let me check for the answer..oh, here it is:  I DON’T GIVE ONE TINY RAT’S ASS.

I’ve never been good at cards, gambling, or anything that requires luck, really.  So I’m not sure why, when they called my name, I thought that was a good thing.  A few minutes later, I was assured that it wasn’t as they informed the twenty-three of us that we would be serving for the next two weeks.  And no, I was told, it did not matter what impact this had on our work situations.  After all, they’re paying us the grand sum of $40 a day!  Do you know how much $40 will buy you in New York? Well, it’s going to need to buy me a bottle of wine because this day is not sitting well.

What maybe infuriates me the most is this: because some jerk broke the law (ALLEGEDLY), I’m going to lose several days’ pay and have to change my entire schedule.  I’m going to have to interact with people I don’t know.  I’m going to have to be…inconvenienced. And I am so not in the point of my journey that involves me handling that with grace.  As my attitude today proved.

My cell phone became a complaint conveyor to anyone who would listen (and it’s always the usual suspects, whose patience reminds me that they are better people than I am).  I asked God why a lot.  I tried to embrace it, really I did. Not very hard though.  I embraced negativity more.  It just seems to stay in my arms so much more readily!  I stomped and pouted and did all the other things that I used to when I was a baby and ever since, every time I haven’t gotten my way.  Then I read, during breaks, The Help and was reminded once again of my Southern heritage of prejudice.  About how rough the 60’s (19th AND 20th century versions) were for those people.  About how rough “Good” Friday was for one man in particular.  About how the best of us (surely not me, so far) can reject what we feel is unjust without clinging to a sense of entitlement.  Without being a total pill.  While accepting a greater justice that promises to prevail, even if it’s not in time to get me out of jury duty.

At the end of the day, I was assigned my seat in front.  The assistant foreman’s seat. The man next to me, a black guy named B., was smiling and holding out his hand for me to shake it.  I wasn’t any happier to be there than I had been all day, but I was humbled.  Some people are already full of grace; others (ahem, assistant foremen for example) are still being loved into it.