Life, the Universe, and Everything in It

I was talking to a friend the other day and she told me the following story: she was walking down a street in the city one day thinking about many things and nothing, focused on getting to the train station. One moment she was walking briskly with her destination in mind, the next she found herself sprawled on the ground, her feet below street level. No one had bumped her and she hadn’t been hit by a car. As she crossed the street, she’d stepped into an enormous pothole. Her first reactions were those of embarrassment and surprise. How could I fail to see a pothole that larger in the middle of the street? As she boosted herself back up to street level, she noticed the former armory on the street’s opposite side, it’s door flung wide open. It was filled with the city’s elite gathered for a fund raiser. Hospital banners drifted above the well dressed attendees. She scurried up and out, thinking of her train, resolved to act nonchalant. But something about the experience slowed her. As she moved away, she glanced over her shoulder. Someone began to cross at the same point in the street. As they did, a member of the fund raiser’s throng called out–"Watch out for the pot hole!" Only the music still played as all the faces in crowd held expression of shock, concern, or amusement in the aftermath of her fall and escape. But instead of shame with new intense scrutiny, her admitted first reaction, she became more aware. The smell of the moist earth at the base of the pothole. The play of light over distant spangles and jewels. The periodic sounds of laughter escaping the party. The compassionate expression on the face of a stranger who offered to help her. The pain of her twisted ankle helped to maintain this awareness to the train station and beyond, where she made her train, but never forget the simple beauty of the autumn day when she stepped into a pothole and saw the world differently for a while.
     We all have moments like this don’t we? I know I do. Times in my life where I think: this is where I am going, my thoughts one thousand paces ahead of the world that’s actually happening all around me in the present moment. And then I step my version of the pothole. A lover leaves. Budget shortfalls result in a lay off. A friend dies. I back into a parked car. The list goes on. And in the moments that follow I become hyper aware of my bodies and the world around me. The pain of falling. The lurch of loss. Humiliation or anger blooming into nausea and branching into pins and needles in my hands. My adrenaline kicks in and my mind kicks into overdrive as I create a narrative of criticism: how could I not have seen that coming? why does this always happen to me?  of course I’m going to miss my train. But somewhere in these moments of loss, I also find something. It’s often simple to describe but hard to define. It’s as if I’ve been moving through a grey landscape and am shocked to find the sun and the colors of the impressionist painters. I walk around numb only to experience the gift of pain when it leads to the compassion of strangers and I no longer feel alone.

     Today, I passed a total stranger in the rain. I made eye contact. She said, "Merry Christmas," and I said it back. I couldn’t help but grin. I gleamed for two blocks after the simplest of human greetings. I see you. You are here. You see me. I am here. The next hour was a delight of simple experiences. The pleasure of slowing down, feeling my feet flow under me in a stroll of perpetual motion. The comfortable coolness of misty rain, hundreds of kisses that moistened my face, my skin, my hair, yet left me warm and glad of the wet. The sounds of a squeaky bicycle wheel punctuating my meal and reminding me that I share this space with others. The desire to commiserate with strangers as they stand, holiday packages and bags in hand, while perhaps another stranger changes the tire on their car. Not even the unscheduled shuttering of the doors of the neighborhood video rental store or a forgotten store item could dim my sense of aliveness. I think we’ve all felt it. The opportunity to wake up through pleasure or pain, both gifts from the body that we call home.

     We all feel fear or anger or embarrassment. These emotions come and go naturally, humanly. The story that I use to explain it to myself is what I create. The story that runs like a soundtrack for my life is one that I compose and I can choose to change it. I can interrupt the orchestra and switch to a different score. I can shake my fist at the driver who runs the changing light and then I can thank them for bringing the world around me into focus. Pain can be pleasure and pleasure pain. The truth is it’s a choice. It’s not a choice to feel or not feel, crushing down the emotions that my body’s natural way to give me information. I’ve never had an immaculate experience while numb, although I’ve appreciated coming back into my senses when the numbness wears off. That fact is that I’m human. This means that each time I have an experience I have it twice: intellectually and emotionally. Twin almond shaped structures in the middle of me brain hold the keys to my emotional kingdom. Flashing like beacons in a night sky they are typically the first way we experience everything we do. The intellectual center sends its calm and steady narration, but it can take me moment, months, or years to hear it.  I have twin memories for every experience, an intellectual one and an emotional one. Who can say why the emotional ones win out so easily? Perhaps its simply because its easier to hear the person shouting in the middle of the room until they stop. Perhaps that’s why the idea of counting to 10 that we learned in childhood is actually so effective. We might think this twin response mechanism is ineffective, but as I think about it I can’t say that one has ever seemed to me exclusively right. My intellect seems so prone to be co-opted by protectionism. I would never choose to be in love with advice like that. And in its own right the emotions can be clever deceivers. My history twisted to look like a Tim Burton creature character, one of the less likable ones, turning friends, loved ones, even total strangers into monsters. Instead my fraternal twin advisers are like the system of Checks and Balances: imperfect but better together, looking over each other’s shoulders, than they would be alone in control of their respective domains.

     As my friend tells me her story, her eyes are full of wonder, not shame. She breathes evenly. Her eyes shine. I see and she tells me that it is a memory that makes her feel alive. It’s a kind of signpost on her way to something she can only feel, a place that makes her live in every moment. It’s a reminder to me that I can read these signposts, too, the gift of her story in my experience.