What were you doing Wednesday morning?
I was pondering what always puts me in strange places and strange times.
People ask me why I’m different. The honest answer is I don’t know.
Perhaps karma, the truth of the universe, simple chances of mathematics repeating over and over. It could be an endless possibility of choices, many which I considered. One could be led to believe in giving personal choice responsibility, or perhaps even left wondering if god simply has a sense of humor.
I do know experience makes you evolve or become permanent. The choices for surviving the storm of life is simply to become agile and maneuver around it, or choose your foundation and weather the storm with untapped strength. I think that my choice as typically been to maneuver, but it also seems I always make it to the next haven of safety when things get too rough.
In my life, the remarkable seems to be the ordinary. Everyone else highlights things and tells me what achievements I’ve reached… and I simply wonder why I didn’t reach the next level.
This morning I wanted to take it easy, relax. Enjoy a slow cup of coffee on my way to my first morning appointment. Yeah right.
Instead... I was driving and saw a perfect Christmas tree, wrapped in silver decoration and overseeing a happy new home that just a few weeks ago was still for sale. I was thinking about how life changes so quickly for everyone at the drop of a hat. That thought was exactly what I felt as the dream of warm Christmas lights engulfed the tree in flames and set the new home in a blaze of fire before my eyes. It took all about two seconds.
Myself and two other cars driving by at the exact moment slammed our breaks on, I had my phone in hand and hung up on the 911 operator as I realized the guy next to me was about three seconds earlier into the conversation on his line. The other man and I banged on the door, looking at the minivan sitting quietly in the drive way all by itself without a driver or any passengers. I remember noting the two kids car seats in the back. In the seconds it took to move across a yard, hang up a phone, and bang on the door… the entirety of the whole first floor was on fire. Consumers beware: Thank god for the safety value of new construction these days.
We circled the house and looked for a reasonable entry, but the fact was that it was only death waiting. I was angry with the fact that as smoke poor out of the seams of the doorway, the crawlway, and every opening in the house within a minute that you could not hear any alarms inside. They probably weren’t there. The were probably second on the list to all the presents being assembled under a seasonal tree that HAD been standing proudly in the front living room window. In sixty seconds that proud tree was a blackened stick that resembled a Charlie Brown tree, with the highlight of a ranging inferno around it.
Slow motion events. Serendipity. Singularity. Moments in time that have hundred of possible outcomes that radically affect the lives of everyone who participates in them, or sometimes even witnesses them.
Truth be told, I know the decision to not go the second floor and wait for equipped personnel was the right one. I’m in shape and have very healthy lung capacity, but moving up a single set of stairs without breathing uses up about fifty percent of your oxygen levels. Even if you find someone up there, you won’t be able to carry someone, or even yourself, back down those stairs. The screwy math of reality that people like me hate.
Ponderous thoughts in a world gone wild.
In any case my sister was good enough to call me at our business party tonight and let me know there were any casualties...everyone in the house was gone. I had been bummed most of the day wondering if making the right choice had meant someone else didn't make it.
People ask me why I’m different. The honest answer is I don’t know.
Perhaps karma, the truth of the universe, simple chances of mathematics repeating over and over. It could be an endless possibility of choices, many which I considered. One could be led to believe in giving personal choice responsibility, or perhaps even left wondering if god simply has a sense of humor.
I do know experience makes you evolve or become permanent. The choices for surviving the storm of life is simply to become agile and maneuver around it, or choose your foundation and weather the storm with untapped strength. I think that my choice as typically been to maneuver, but it also seems I always make it to the next haven of safety when things get too rough.
In my life, the remarkable seems to be the ordinary. Everyone else highlights things and tells me what achievements I’ve reached… and I simply wonder why I didn’t reach the next level.
This morning I wanted to take it easy, relax. Enjoy a slow cup of coffee on my way to my first morning appointment. Yeah right.
Instead... I was driving and saw a perfect Christmas tree, wrapped in silver decoration and overseeing a happy new home that just a few weeks ago was still for sale. I was thinking about how life changes so quickly for everyone at the drop of a hat. That thought was exactly what I felt as the dream of warm Christmas lights engulfed the tree in flames and set the new home in a blaze of fire before my eyes. It took all about two seconds.
Myself and two other cars driving by at the exact moment slammed our breaks on, I had my phone in hand and hung up on the 911 operator as I realized the guy next to me was about three seconds earlier into the conversation on his line. The other man and I banged on the door, looking at the minivan sitting quietly in the drive way all by itself without a driver or any passengers. I remember noting the two kids car seats in the back. In the seconds it took to move across a yard, hang up a phone, and bang on the door… the entirety of the whole first floor was on fire. Consumers beware: Thank god for the safety value of new construction these days.
We circled the house and looked for a reasonable entry, but the fact was that it was only death waiting. I was angry with the fact that as smoke poor out of the seams of the doorway, the crawlway, and every opening in the house within a minute that you could not hear any alarms inside. They probably weren’t there. The were probably second on the list to all the presents being assembled under a seasonal tree that HAD been standing proudly in the front living room window. In sixty seconds that proud tree was a blackened stick that resembled a Charlie Brown tree, with the highlight of a ranging inferno around it.
Slow motion events. Serendipity. Singularity. Moments in time that have hundred of possible outcomes that radically affect the lives of everyone who participates in them, or sometimes even witnesses them.
Truth be told, I know the decision to not go the second floor and wait for equipped personnel was the right one. I’m in shape and have very healthy lung capacity, but moving up a single set of stairs without breathing uses up about fifty percent of your oxygen levels. Even if you find someone up there, you won’t be able to carry someone, or even yourself, back down those stairs. The screwy math of reality that people like me hate.
Ponderous thoughts in a world gone wild.
In any case my sister was good enough to call me at our business party tonight and let me know there were any casualties...everyone in the house was gone. I had been bummed most of the day wondering if making the right choice had meant someone else didn't make it.