Things No One Else Can Teach Us. Humble the Poet
around the empty car and then sat down across from me. He stared at me, eyes wide, mouth half open, like a child absorbed in a favorite TV show. He looked at me intensely, but I didn’t feel any uncomfortable energy. Although I felt confused, I gave the man a smile, which prompted him to speak again.
“They’re all around the car, angels and demons, I can see them, you don’t see them?!”
I spoke out loud for the first time. “I don’t,” I replied honestly.
“You need to know you’re an angel, you have to watch out for those fucking demons.”
I have a few exes who would disagree with that assessment, but thank you?
Some passengers tried to ignore what was happening, while others peeked over their phones, finding our exchange interesting. I was still fifteen stops away from my destination, but something inside me trusted this stranger enough to ask him a question, to start a conversation. There was something genuine in him, and something in me that made me less afraid than I’d felt in months.
“How do you know I’m an angel?” I asked, feeling less fearful. The anxiety was still there, but what had also been growing was frustration from being so closed off to everyone. It was isolating and suffocating. I never wore my trust issues as an identifying marker. I never wanted to have any trust issues to begin with, but it was hard to be open to others, even when I tried. This night, however, and this gentleman for some reason, was making it just a little bit easier.
“See the light around you? It’s a different color, a different color from the rest of these fucking demons. Can I sit beside you?”
“Sure.”
My internal anxious voice returned, Why did you say that?
He sat down in the seat next to mine, his eyes sincere and purposeful.
“There are so many evil beings pretending to be angels, but they can’t change the color of their light. They pretend to preach the truth, but they’re liars, robbing people blind. You have to protect yourself from these people.”
“I will, man,” I replied. I felt I needed to reassure him, but I also still strongly felt the need to protect myself.
“Can I hold your hand?” he asked unexpectedly.
“Sure,” I agreed, surprising even myself.
The anxiety was coming back. C’mon Kanwer, use your brain, he’s going to ask you for money any second now.
As he held my hand he closed his eyes and said, “I need you to be safe from these demons. They’re afraid of your light and will come after you. I pray for your protection.”
How many strangers are praying for my protection? He seemed sincere, and I felt safer and warmer than I expected. He gave me the feeling I had when I was four years old, sleeping nose to nose with my grandmother, kissing her wrinkled cheeks and cuddling her until I fell asleep. When she spoke to me without her dentures, it was as unclear as this man’s Harlem accent. Yet his energy felt familiar, it felt nice. I don’t want to say I felt his love, but I did feel his calm.
Other passengers were invested in our story as well. No one else seemed concerned, only intrigued.
As the train slowed at the next stop, he kissed my hand, told me to stay safe, and to keep my eyes open. Then he disappeared through the closing subway doors and out of my life. I was overwhelmed at that moment; I put my headphones back on and instinctively took a deep breath. Surprisingly, I still felt calm—no anxiety, no awkwardness, just peace. The two remaining riders on the train gave me a look that I took as a giant “Whoa!” as they exited the car at the next stop.
The moment was over. The man hadn’t asked me for anything, other than to stay safe. I had spent that whole trip to New York on Defcon 5, keys clenched between my knuckles, back against the wall, overly paranoid, and that all melted away, with one kiss on my hand.
Maybe it was a fragment of my grandmother’s energy, or maybe that man could see angels and demons, or maybe it was all bullshit. But it wasn’t bullshit to me.
My experience with that man made me feel calm, and my anxiety hasn’t returned since. As someone who doesn’t dabble too much in the supernatural, I do respect energy and vibes, and that man, with his nineties throwback outfit and heavy Harlem slang, had some of the purest, most authentic energy I’ve ever experienced from a stranger.
I believe his purpose wasn’t to make me feel calm, but rather to show me that I had healed from the past trauma of the robbery and could now push my limits a little bit more and open myself up to others once again. I’d chosen to ask him a question, which was a step—putting myself out there—that I’d held off on taking for months.
I didn’t walk away from that experience thinking I had to protect myself as some prophetic being. Instead, I walked away pleasantly surprised, and proud that I’d regained a sense of my old self, the guy who wanted to continue exploring the universe through everyone he met. Getting beat up and robbed had temporarily suspended those adventures, but after a few years, I was ready to open myself back up to the world.
My real guardian angel in this story was time. We never fully get over traumas, and as much as we heal, scars will remain. That doesn’t mean we need to view those scars as reminders of our injuries; instead, we can see them as proof of our resilience.
We don’t have to trust others when they come into our worlds; we just have to trust ourselves to handle whatever happens. I’ve been cheated by people I loved, scammed by those I considered family, and beaten up and robbed by kids. But I don’t want to lose the opportunity for magic moments of connection to occur, and that means I must be open and welcoming to them. Beautiful winds won’t take us anywhere if we don’t have our sails open.
Time was the friend that helped me heal, slowly but surely, and time showed me I could get back to who I was and that I didn’t need to define myself through my past traumas. All I needed to do was be patient and know that my choices in the meantime could make things better or worse.
I could have told that gentleman to fuck off, gotten up and changed seats, or even passively kept my earbuds in, pretending not to hear him. Looking back, I’m glad I didn’t. Sometimes when we’re injured, we have to lean in to the pain a bit to get stronger.
I believe that even when we are in moments of misery and self-pity, the universe will offer us totems—lessons that pull us out of our selfish orbits and help us see the bigger picture. The most recent totem gifted to me was a puddle. The puddle found me as I worked on a very ambitious six-month music video for a track I recorded titled I Will.
The video features multiple tableaus, each telling a different story. It was inspired by the visual images of gangs in the 1979 film The Warriors, but I threw a little twist on it, with one gang being represented by the toughest group of people I know: cancer thrivers. I use the word thrivers instead of survivors because the women I worked with are doing much more than just surviving. They are fighting a daily battle against a horrific disease, but also confronting the reality that many of us work so hard to avoid: the fact that time is running out. We put out a call and found four strong women who were willing to show their battle scars on camera. While we were setting up, I spoke with them all, and my curiosity trumped my discretion and tact.
“How does life feel different now?” I asked, unsure whether I was being too forward or insensitive.
“Well,