Sit very, very still with Slumpy

"He moves nice. It’s his stillness that’s not right.” – Marilyn Whirlwind

Years ago, I was on I-40, driving from Greensboro, North Carolina, to a small town several hours west of there, when I heard a loud bang, an explosion, then a deafening sharp scary ongoing thump, thump, bang, thump. I started to lose control of the car. And as I watched in horror, the black rubber from the rear tire of my happy Oldsmobile 88 started spinning up into the atmosphere, pieces hitting like gunshots against the rim and wheel of the car, then spinning, twirling, perfect little eddies of centrifugal force, away from the car, off of the tire they were supposed to support, large hunks of rubber getting smaller, smaller, then gone. I veered wildly to the side of the road; the tire was essentially gone. I could imagine it wheeling its way into space, tiny bits of rubber spiraling upward.

It feels as if the same thing has been happening over the past few weeks; the pieces that are flinging into the universe are not tire rubber, but something else, like life caught in the whirling of an old-fashioned metal fan, the kind without a child guard, with slats wide enough for whole bodies to go through into that whirling dervish of metal and wind, the kind we used before we decided to make everyone else responsible for our own safety. First, my beautiful 18-month Moleskine date book on which my entire life is written and catalogued, all those due dates and appointments and trips and to-do’s and fabulous ideas for future essays, gone. Twirled off into the universe like a comet burning itself out. This last loss of my calendar was one of three such losses and re-finds over the past few months. “I wonder what that means,” my wise acupuncturist said last week. “That you keep losing your calendar. Any idea what that means?” she asked in that voice that indicates for all the world to hear that she knows what it means. This, you might remember, is the same woman who shocked me a few weeks ago with the question, “what are the opportunities for stillness in your life?”

Then my camera. My beautiful, fast, wonderful, new, beloved Canon Digital Elph PowerShot SD600 digital camera. Gone. On the desk, then gone. Did I lose it on a trip? Did Tess throw it away? Did it fling itself into the universe to find my Moleskine? I can’t afford to replace it now, so I suppose I am left to actually look at the world myself, remember it myself, not rely on a camera’s eye. That’s a lesson I’d prefer to read about, thank you, than experience.

And so, over the past few weeks, this centrifugal force has been flinging things away from me at an alarming pace, things I thought vital to my existence. But, as Elizabeth Kübler Ross said of her house burning down, I could either see the loss as completely paralyzing or as completely liberating, and I’ve chosen the later.

If I have an appointment with you, I don’t know it. If I’m supposed to be somewhere at a certain time, I have no clue about that. I am free, blissfully ignorant of the frenetic pace to which I had committed my Self, my days unencumbered by little one-hour time blocks. I hate being late, which makes this latest loss significant, and when added to my recent denial of watches (with apologies to the nice man named David who I met on a flight recently and who owns a watch company), time consciousness has been brought to a whole new level.

I am, essentially, out of the Everydayathon.

But evidently, even after the date book and camera, I still had some learning to do.

On Thursday night in Albuquerque, I fell. And I fell hard. I’ll let you choose the story you like best: 1) I was saving a child from a burning building; 2) I was dancing the tango with an aging interculturalist at a conference of aging interculturalists like me; or 3) I fell off a curb I did not see. There was no stumble, no hesitation, no trying to stop the fall—I did not anticipate the impact because I didn’t see it coming. I just went down, hard and fast, to the ground, landing on my left knee and the heels of my palms. My business partner, David, and I were in Albuquerque to conduct a workshop the next morning at a conference; he rushed to my side when he heard the impact. The pain immediately made me nauseous as I struggled to get in the car. He drove. Being the polite accident victim I am, I focused on not vomiting from the pain.

We finally found a hospital. Eight hours and a lot of swelling later, we emerged at 3:30am with a lot of emergency room stories and characters, a prescription for painkillers (not the painkillers themselves, mind you), a splint, and the best wishes of Dr. Victory, a sleep-deprived intern with a penchant for repetitive, seemingly irrelevant questions and long, unexplained absences. After a futile search for an all-night pharmacy, we arrived back at the hotel at 4 a.m. Ibuprofen would have to do until morning came. It’s the first time I’ve ever arrived in my hotel room after they put the bill under the door. Our wake-up calls were at 6:30am to present our session.

That was a short night.

Turns out, Yeats was right—things do fall apart, the center cannot hold.

The outcome? I have many opportunities for stillness in my life right now. In fact, my life is One Big Opportunity For Stillness. With no calendar and no way to walk, Stillness Looms. Nothing But Stillness. All Stillness, All the Time.

After our session, we drove north of Albuquerque to work, my club of a foot on the dashboard in its brace and conspicuous orthopedic white sock, held up by hope that the swelling wouldn’t cause the skin to burst, and buoyed–finally–by Vicadin.

An hour into our trip, suddenly, a loud gunshot rang out, glass shards peppered our clothing, a projectile forced its way toward us, through the glass. We swerved, then righted ourselves, shaken, looking at each other and trying to figure out what had just happened. A large rock had hit the windshield of the rental car, sending glass into our laps. Okay, enough messages from the universe. I give up. Stillness, it is.

In the absence of my very favorite nurse (the Wonderful Big John, my very own Mr Brilliant), my business partner David did an admirable job of applying ice packs, bringing food objects, and wagging a crooked finger at me to keep my leg elevated. The leg kept me still, the lack of internet access and the canyon-induced cell phone outage provided the total disconnect. Just the trees.

After a day of reclining on a couch in gorgeous Jemez Springs, New Mexico, with golden cottonwood trees blowing in the breeze outside, napping in and out of a Vicadin haze, and watching my ankle swell to the size of my head, I traveled home at the mercy of those nice people in airports who push people in wheelchairs from one gate to another, or not. You’ll be happy to know that not one inch of my body—and especially the suspicious, swollen ankle bits—went unswabbed by that gunpowder explosives checker swab thing at security. Meanwhile, buckets full of Purell and shaving cream and exploding toothpaste were whizzing by behind the security guards—like that Lucille Ball episode when she’s working in a chocolate factory—without being inside a requisite quart-sized clear Ziploc bag.

When I got home, Emma carried my bags for me, John swept me into the house, and Tess covered me up with her blankie and started bringing me piles of her books to read, “The Okay Book” and “I Can’t, Said the Ant." 

Then she disappeared upstairs, coming down minutes later with a proud smile and in her outstretched hand, Slumpy, a much-treasured bright pink and yellow monkey who started his life in our house fourteen years ago when Emma was small. And so, I am sitting quietly with my vast opportunities for stillness, me and Slumpy, my Vicadin and a book about a singing troll named Gus who, according to Tess, “isn’t especially good looking.” Join us.

~*~ 37 Days: Do it Now Challenge ~*~

As D.H. Lawrence wrote, “One’s action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be mere rushing on."

Stop running the Everydayathon. Sit very, very still with Slumpy. The universe is telling you to slow down—how? What is blowing away from you with some strong centrifugal force? Are you listening, or are you disregarding the messages? Because if you are dissing the universe, it will get you. Not today, maybe, and not tomorrow, but someday soon you’re not going to see that curb. And then, my friend, you’re going to be sitting still for a long, long time.

Don’t be merely rushing on. Your center cannot hold.