“I don’t smoke,” she said, looking me in the eyes, continuing slowly for emphasis: “And neither do you.” “You,” punctuated and drawn out.   

I was thankful to Colin for picking up Dave Matthews Band tickets for my birthday, my twentieth. 1995. We rolled in with a crew to Manhattan via NJ Transit, a fifty-minute train ride from New Brunswick. Outside of Madison Square Garden a hippie passed, not indiscreetly chanting “hydro.” The college call-to-arms. We accepted, slipped him a fifty, and were off. Colin rolled it up in something that might have been rolling paper in the bathroom. It might not have been. Regardless, it worked.

Midway through the second song, the time had come. Our friends, the cigarette smokers, were seated on the other side of the stadium. Hence: no lighter. I turn to the woman to my right, in her fifties, and asked for a light. I received the aforementioned reply. I figured she had heard of Dave Matthews via Z100. “Ants Marching” was the pop station’s current anthem, impossible to avoid. I don’t blame Dave on writing songs like that, but his band was and is so much more than that. It helped him pack MSG, for one. But still.   

I shrugged off her suggestion. Colin found a match, sparked it. A moment later, I’m cupping the pinner. Take a hit. The woman taps my shoulder, laughing. “Oh, it’s a cigarette!” My puffy cheeks the result of an inhalation, I smile and nod along. In my mind I’m recognizing she’s at least partly insane, but I let it go.   

A few minutes later, our “cigarette” finished, a couple two rows down light a bowl. The woman freaks. Calls security over. Points them out. They are escorted out. I realize she’s more, way more than partly insane. I also recognize that I’m lucky we didn’t have a glass piece, thankful for whatever Colin used to roll it with.   

Woman is dancing, laughing, proud of herself for getting two college kids booted out of a concert they overpaid for. Dave plays “Ants Marching.” She’s giddy like a toddler splashing in a fire hydrant puddle. After the song, Dave talks to the crowd, references the very top rows of the stadium, in baseball jargon: the nosebleed section.   

“That there is the reefer section!”

Entire stadium explodes with appreciation. He continues, lets them know that he knows what they’re up to, and approves. Obviously. It’s Dave Matthews. Only someone who’s only heard “Ants Marching” on Z100 wouldn’t know that. He goes on, admitting that marijuana isn’t everybody’s thing, and that’s fine. But if it’s not your thing, he concludes, don’t tell other people it’s not theirs. I’m looking around for the television camera panning in on this woman next to me, and then remember reality television is still years from reality.   

Woman slouches into seat. Defeated. No more dancing, or laughing. Her hero has proven to be one of “them.” Gets up, leaves. The guy next to, who also witnessed the barbarous act of reporting someone smoking weed at a Dave Matthews concert, looks at me, smiles, shouts “Bye Grandma!” May have tried to high-five me, can’t remember. A little harsh, but understandable, given the circumstances.

It’s not about her being a grandmother. It’s about not judging others because of your own convictions, especially when the focus of that judgment harms nobody. Dave had nailed it on the head: cool if you don’t, but leave those of us that do alone. That she was fine with me smoking a “cigarette” — something that actually does cause millions of people to suffer and die — while having issue with the reality of the situation is unfortunate. In yoga we call ignorance avidya. It is something to free yourself from, to grow and learn from. In Sanskrit, adding an “a” in front of a word creates the opposite. Vidya is knowledge, something we sorely need.   

This has nothing to do with marijuana. We have so much to learn, about ourselves, about each other. When you recognize where your roadblocks are, you can move around them. Don’t set them up for other people to stumble over. We need each other too much for that.