I have been lucky my whole life. There are so many near-misses and slip-ups that led to no great trial… Amazing! I can tell ya some stories! Ha.
I once disobeyed common sense and ran in the house, playing with the dog. I was in my stocking feet, running down the hall toward the foyer and it’s polished slate floor. To the right of the entryway, a matching slate hearth wrapped around a quite nice fireplace. The hearth was a foot and one half up from the floor. I leaped up onto the hearth, still running full tilt and my feet lost grip. I flew, horizontal, in the direction I had been running. Pure luck. I landed, hard on my back, on the carpeted floor – NOT the polished slate. I looked back and decided, “Nope, better not do that again!”
Those sorts of incidents litter my past like Mr. Big wrappers…they are everywhere. An ordinary person would be hard pressed to believe I had even half a brain. “If X led to Y, then why attempt Z? Aren’t they similar? Can’t you expect a similar result?” Yeah. Perhaps, it is a masculine thing but viscerally — I am not so sure. I see folks of every description taking huge chances with their star alignments, their stocking feet and their own polished slate floors. Every day of living unearths another hard stone hearth for the unwitting. I have been lucky, so many others not so much.
Unwitting. That word has another connotation for certain. Another way of understanding would be that un-witting means, ‘doing something in a manner unburdened by availing of wits.’ It doesn’t only mean that a person is surprised by something they hadn’t sussed out. Haha. Aren’t we all without wits a time or two? What is it that causes us to say, “quick! Let’s…” just before the accident, the bankruptcy, the police incident?
Oh, yes. The police incident (s). There, again, X led to Y, why try Z? Some of those escapades have been logged, reported, punished and some have been very funny. I was in an accident that didn’t involve my own volition. I was, in fact, waiting patiently for the light to turn and minding my own business. A loaded work van across from me suddenly started to pull through the still-red light. At that moment, a brand-new speeding sportscar approached on the right angle. Smack! The resulting spin of motorcars, ladders and other loose items did involve me. The car I was driving was incapacitated and required a tow for serious cosmetic surgery. The investigating police officer offered us a lift to the station where we could phone for a ride. We sat quietly in the back seat as he drove and after a few short minutes he looked in the mirror saying, “…first time in the back of a police car, eh?” I just smiled and nodded, there being no need of any more detailed revelations.
Ah, luck. I have lost all the money, thrown up most of last night’s beer, been fired, shouted at, beaten up, arrested, fallen from a great height onto concrete, survived an incovenient venereal disease (or two) and married/divorced twice. None of that destroyed me. It has destroyed others but not me. I was lucky, I escaped. I stand here on the sidelines, quietly munching a snack and watching the unlucky flicker across CNN. I am reminded of watching the Wildebeest on a nature program of some time ago. When a lioness stalked them, they all ran in panic. As soon as one of their number was captured, downed and dined on…they all stopped running. “Well, no trouble now…it is someone else being eaten, mmmmm, love this grass.” Isn’t that what we are doing when we watch the news?
Yeah. I have been lucky and my heart goes out to those who have not been. Sadly, improving someone’s luck other than my own is a hard thing to do. I watch the tragedies and wipe my brow in relief. As go they, so could I, so have I. Beyond putting my head down, enjoying my luck and living my life, what else can I practically do?
There isn’t much I can accomplish to ease the way or solve the problems of others but there are ways, small ways. I can shop local, I can cross in the crosswalk and look both ways before doing so, I can watch carefully for bicycles, I can say hello pleasantly to the homeless person and be cheerful to the clerk. I can set aside judgement and accept that I have, myself, done stupid things. That is a hard thing to do, as well…the setting aside judement and accepting that we are all human and most of us don’t act out of spite. Even if we did act out of spite, there is probably some silly reason, something the spiter did unwittingly.
so.. It’s okay, I can put some money in the pot from time to time and appreciate how lucky I am. Yeah.
Robert On The Air 