***
At first, I think
it’s a pile of clothes wrapped around the telephone pole. And then I see a head
rise, straining to lift up into the cold air, and an arm stretching to catch
hold of an invisible hand. The other arm circles around the pole, clutching close
to the what is now an anchor between the pavement and the passing cars.
And I drive pass.
The scene seen and realized too late. In my rearview mirror I watch the head
lower back down, exhausted from effort, hovering above the curb, sickeningly
close to the thin, temperamental distance between the oncoming cars.
Gut response
steers me back. Hoping that I misread the scenario, or that this person is
now standing up and surrounded by others who have appeared to help, I drive by,
and this time we lock eyes.
Bright eyes
silently plead for help. Her head swerves out toward traffic as she tries once
more to push herself up.
As I swing on a
side street, I see another woman racing toward her. We arrive in the exact same
moment to the side of the elderly woman who is crumpled and curled around the
post. She’s alert and terrified. To our stream of questions, she replies in half-choked
words I cannot decipher, but I sense the fear and the desperate urgency driving
the bursts of forced, cracked communication.
My companion
instantly kneels, firmly and gently scooping up this woman like a tiny bird,
cradling her petite frame close to her chest. She stands, holding this stranger
in a secure embrace, and speaks words forgotten now in the blur of the following
events, but the emanating intention behind the words remains: I have you, you are safe, I am here to make
sure you are cared for.
The intention continues
to be actualized by the instant appearance of firefighters. In a series of precise,
orchestrated movements, the firefighters relieve the rescuer, fasten the
elderly woman onto a gurney, raise her into the back of ambulance, and I think
that she looks like a child here, her small stature almost swallowed by the
white cloths and bulk of equipment. The ambulances lights are spinning, ready
to propel through the one-ways and clustered streets of downtown to the nearest
hospital.
I scan the elderly
woman’s face: eyes half-closed, yielding to a wave of exhaustion. The woman who
picked her up and carried her into the trained arms of safety has left. A
firefighter repeats that she’s being taken to the hospital, and his
concentrated gaze prompts me to return back to myself, and I become vaguely
self-conscious when I remember that before leaving today I painted my lips a
shade of deep crimson.
The ambulances
blares into action. And I return back to my car -- front doors wide open, keys
in the ignition, emergency flashers on.
I settle back
into the front seat and continue on my way. As I drive, I think of all the cars
that passed her. I think of people standing nearby, waiting at the corner at the
bus stop, filing in and out of the gas station down and across the street. I
think of how easily I could have dismissed my gut reaction calling me to stop
by shaking it off with a line, “I’m sure that person’s fine,” or “Someone else
will help.”
I question my
effectiveness in a crisis situation and retrace to the moments before I saw her
hovering on the edge of the curb. Consumed with my own narratives, my own
self-pitying thoughts, functioning on auto-pilot to deliver me to my
destination, I arrived to the situation startled into the harshness and
coldness of reality. I believe I would have served more efficiently if I had
been mindfully awake on my familiar route to work.
Now, more than
ever I feel, there is urgency to be present, to be a presence of compassion,
alert and ready to respond in courage and kindness to the needs of this
thirsty, aching world. The call is now a command. The choice is simple: we
either show up, stay close to our truth to be best of our ability, and our
conviction to ensure justice, safety, well-being for the planet and those we share
this planet with; or we fade to the sidelines, choosing to react from a place
of fear, resigned and reluctant to awaken and blaze bright.
The actualization
of living an awakened life connected to answering the demands to elevate,
expand, heal our collective consciousness is painfully challenging and
tremendously difficult.
These days, I
walk close to bursting into indignant rage. Tensions between relations has heightened. Heartbreak over past friends, former
relationships, stews into anger. In the course of a day, I rush across the
spectrum of emotion: teetering toward forgiveness and understanding, to a sadness
that drenches my spirit in despair, to an anger flashing its fangs and
hungering to inflict pain to justify my hurts.
Feel the rawness
of the emotion. Listen to its lessons. Breathe.
My dilemmas and
issues are both petty and significant. This is my practice. These are my
teachers. Every day, I am unraveling and rewriting my unfolding understanding
of forgiveness, compassion, and necessary action.
The experience
from this morning is already fading into the softness of memory, but the woman
who gathered the elderly woman up into the strength of her arms remains vivid.
I have you. You are safe. I am here to make sure you
are cared for.
Assured in
courage, she answered to the specific needs of the present moment. She embodied
bravery. She acted from a place of clarity and calm. She responded from a place
of love, and this is the lesson reigniting the commitment to be awake in life,
to stay centered in the chaos, to show up in this raw, dire, heartbreakingly beautiful
world with a whole heart.
