Done With All My Thrashing

And all in a hurry in front of your averted eyes – life. Teeming life. Fish in the sea, people on the sidewalk, cars on the road pushing and pulling, yanking and relinquishing. Weird time to be alive. And the day has only just begun. 

What was it Tomas said about the way people and things seem to rush right past you? There was a certain “je ne se quoi” about the way he phrased it, how did it go. Oh yes, something like this: “I’m getting sick and tired of it.” A man with such a prolific dialect and valuable insight. Well, I too share this great man’s sentiment. I too am getting tired of all the rushing and the pulling and the cramming. 

Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, one at a time, please! No need to fret, no need to lose your heads. It’s not a race, come on now. If it were a proper race, then you would all be wearing numbers and competing for gold, silver, and bronze. But alas, none of you are wearing numbers and competing for anything, so none of you must be in a race, eh? Funny how that sort of thing works out. 

I’m starting to feel like it’s high time I put a stop to all my thrashing. All that clamoring to get from Point A to Point B with the rest of the mindless and yet furious throng. What has that ever gotten me? What has that ever gotten anyone? And what constitutes Point A and Point B anyway? Point A could be Point B, and vice versa. Who is to say one point is more important than the other, and why do people always have to be bouncing between points all the time? Why can’t people just stay and relax at Point A or Point B for a little while? Go ahead, kick your feet up! Put your arms behind your heavy head and breathe deep the drafts of life!

What was it Tomas said about life? I’m trying to remember it now, he had only just told me last week and I was sure I had written it down somewhere. Oh yes, it’s starting to come to me now. Something along the lines of: “Life is hard sometimes.” Wow. Just…wow. Spoken so succinctly and yet so powerfully, like words spoken by the Dalai Lama at the top of the Tibetan mountains. But there was something else that Tomas told me as well, and it was not that long ago, either. It was something I should have written down, but I didn’t. Let’s see, how did it go…oh yes. Tomas said: “Life can be nice sometimes.” Wow. Talk about deceptively simple and profound. The duality, the yin and yang of life. When Tomas had followed up the “Life is hard” statement with the “Life is nice statement”, I just about fell out of my chair. 

Life is hard and it is also nice. Duality, supreme duality. And it can’t ever be rushed through, otherwise what is the point of any of it? After all that thrashing, wouldn’t all your arms start to get a little tired? After all that running, wouldn’t your legs need a bit of a break? 

I wouldn’t ever want to get Tomas started on the ways many people completely devalue and disregard art and literature. Once you get Tomas started on something it’s nearly impossible to get him to stop. 

I’m standing in a hallway on the seventh floor of an apartment building. On my way to visit a friend – catch up, shoot the breeze, have a cup of coffee, and perhaps engage in some cinema viewing. As I step out of the elevator, I see someone in a wheel char rolling along at a snail’s pace. Probably faster than a snail in all technicality, but you get the idea. 

The person at first looks like a man, but on closer inspection I can see is an old woman who is trying very hard to look like a man. Five o’clock shadow and long greyish-white hippie hair. She’s wearing a beanie and seems to have a broken leg, because one of her legs is in a cast and propped up, or more like jutting straight out. She is slowly pushing her wheels forward, not rushing anywhere. Just existing. There is a Point B to get to (or is it a Point A?), but she’ll get there when she gets there. 

She doesn’t look at me. She has every right and reason to, because I just stepped out of the elevator and am in her immediate vicinity, but she opts out. I can respect that in a person. 

As she is slowly moving past me, turning the wheels of the chair, the chair is making a pumping and a sweeping sound. Like someone is pumping a heart rate monitor and then immediately brushing a part of the floor with a broom. The sounds occur every time the wheels turn. Pump-brush. Pump-brush. Pump-brush. 

I cannot help but be in awe of this woman, this pillar of nobility and perfectly even pacing. No rushing or thrashing here, no sir. Point B is not something to be seized at all costs and without any valid reasons. It is reached when it is reached. 

She has already passed me and is rolling herself along the hallway toward the emergency exit. Point B. To which she will undoubtedly turn herself around as best she can (Lord knows how she will pull that off with her broken leg) and head toward Point A, the other emergency exit on the other side of the hallway. 

“Excuse me,” I say. She stops, not turning back to look at me.  

“What,” she says, projecting the word down the empty hallway. 

“I…I just…” The words seem to be caught in my throat. I have to get them out somehow. And then they tumble out. “I just have to say, I am quite moved by the perfectly even and relaxed way you move the wheels of your chair along the carpet.” 

She doesn’t answer right away. Takes a moment to think before responding, like any even-keeled person would. Then she says, “Drop dead.” And resumes her wheel turning. Pump-brush. 

Simply fantastic. “Drop dead”. So deceptively simple and yet so jam-packed with meaning. The undertones of countless messages cannot be mistaken or missed. 

I rush to Tomas’ door, eager to tell him about what I just heard and experienced.