All in experience
The pleasant woman and I introduce ourselves and shake hands. I am friendly, but can’t quite say, “Nice to meet you.” “Fascinated to meet you,” would be more accurate, but I don’t say that either because the situation is already weird enough.
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“I’m scared of needles”, I tell her. “I’ll use a small one”, she says.
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Race report: the author takes an epic beating in the Black Hills.
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My heart beat 170 times in the last sixty seconds. I’m sweating a bit and out of breath, but don’t call anyone, this isn’t a medical episode … yet.
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It was one of those “Oh S#!T” moments. I knew right away I had made a mistake and wished mightily to be able to rewind the last two seconds of my life.
We don’t do a lot of entertaining - partly because we’re a couple of quiet introverts, and partly because it’s awkward asking our guests to listen to each other use the bathroom.
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I climbed into the same Chevy Suburban that my wife had disappeared in an hour earlier. We turned onto a dirt road directly behind the convenience store and climbed a steep hill.
When the tourists spotted her and realized what they were looking at, they’d stop and point and talk to each other in German, Hindi, Korean and Arabic. It’s a poignant moment when you see people of other nationalities react that way.
... if you stay in theater long enough, you’ll eventually get cast in a part where you have to sing or take off your shirt, and I wasn’t gonna do either of those things in front of people.
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I remember wondering why adults moved so slowly, and then I became an adult and I lost the run, too. The run just atrophied away like playing the piano and remembering grocery lists and other things I used to be able to do.
The shop of my childhood was a relic of the mechanical age: oily and unguarded. Belts, flywheels and blades were fully exposed. Solvents and cigarettes were held in the same hands. It was a place so obviously dangerous that I can’t remember ever needing to be told to be careful.
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Abruptly we pulled to the curb, and Matthew began to talk to a bunch of men sitting in lawn chairs under a tree: robed, Ray-Ban-ed, exaggerated cool. I was taken aback when Matthew announced that these men would change our money, and it suddenly seemed that the transaction was urgent.
We, the USA, are not just a member of the world community, we are a leader. Leadership is a tough position to be in because it demands that we occasionally insert ourselves into other people’s issues. Some will welcome our involvement and others will resent it.
The only way to get past many of the obstacles is to reach a hand out for help, and the only right thing to do is to offer a hand to the next person behind, and there’s actually a certain beauty in the collective overcoming.
Another of our colleagues mentioned a footrace renown for it’s heat, crowds and a huge, difficult hill. “It’s really hard. You don’t want to do that one”, he told her. I didn’t say it at the time, but I thought, “how sad”. Why would we discourage someone from doing something just because it is difficult?
When I say comfort, I mean you put these things on your hands and you say, “ohhhhhhh” out loud. They’re like wearing kittens.
Ruth hands me a peach and rushes to get a second one. She comes back with sparkling eyes, "this one will be good", she says. She must be deranged.
