Glass Walls
“Sorry for messing up your talk.”
“Are you kidding me? You win the endurance award. Feel better soon, okay?”
The paramedics rolled her out the door to the waiting ambulance.
I stood in the lobby, dazed. So much for “sticks and stones”…I almost talked a poor lady to death…
We had been talking about moral psychology, Havel, telling the truth, and lowering the temperature in a polarized world. Perhaps the actual temperature in the gracious lecture room at the retirement home wasn’t right. Or I should have passed out glasses of water. Or brevity is something to aim at.
For whatever reason, a lady in the audience leaned forward strangely. (I thought she was bored.) Then she went back in her chair funny, I noticed, and she couldn’t answer me when I asked if she was okay.
Help arrived quickly, and she seemed to recover. (I’ve got a call in to check on her this morning.)
Talk about putting things in perspective.
Have you ever walked into a glass door? Once, in the city, I decided on a split-second shortcut that wasn’t, and had an argument with the clean glass of a bus stop. (It won.)
Walk around, not through.
Bam! There’s your limit, son.
I drove home, suddenly irritated beyond reason at the pushy traffic.
Dontcha know there’s a limit, buddy? All the fancy words in the world and all the ideas and…Don’t make me hurt you.
Caged dogs bite for reasonable reasons. Imagine if they had an existential crisis every day. (Maybe that’s called a Chihuahua. If I were one, I’d definitely be peeing in the house often from terror, or spite, or both. “NO! Not again! Bad Josh!”)
“Short shallow breaths and lots of coffee, right?” I joked earlier with a friend who’s new role is to help medical students calm down. And now…
Looking down at the plastic lid of the gas station coffee, and back up at the road, I half-improved (kept swigging but breathed deeper).
Ten years ago, I’d have been swept into the pit of nihilism. But now there seems to be a floor.
I keep feeling like the things that matter are found in the cracks, in the gardens that grow between two slabs of concrete or in a corner where the bricks don’t quite meet.
The briefcase I carry (and talks inside it) seem to be secondary to Life. Actually, they are secondary to Life. Of course. Maybe they’re just an excuse to get out and live it.
That’s twice in two weeks that I’ve plopped down on the floor to wait. The first was with a lady who tipped over, and medical rules prevented me from righting her. So we sat (and lay) there on the hallway carpet, waiting for the EMTs, talking about travel while the nurses buzzed around, and I made her chuckle with the “I’ve got a face for radio” joke.
And then last night, easing down to the ground, hanging out with the terrified husband as he waited for word about his wife from the medics.
They were great with him, and he was set, and she seemed okay, and I left to go snarl at the traffic.
I’m still thinking. I’ve no tidy so therefore to offer, but I’m not yipping at the tailgaters anymore.
Seems like a start.
I hope you have a thoughtful day.
Josh
