Famous last words...
I had a dream last week that a group of teenagers converged on my car in an intersection. I reached under my seat and pulled out my "tire tapper," a steel tube with a rubber grip handle. I realized too late, after I had antagonized them with the threat of a beating with my "tire tapper," that I was outnumbered, and that they also carried gypsy weapons like the kind I kept under my passenger seat. I knew I was a goner.
Later that week, I drove to my house in Baltimore to give our tenant a fan. It was after dark, and I pulled onto a street that I had used as a shortcut to our house for two years without a worry. It is a wretched street, full of projects and boarded-up houses and people with nothing to do. But it never affected me before. I always felt safe inside my car, always knew I could peel out if I needed to. I scanned the street this time. The block after the second light was crowded with teenagers, teasing each other and running out into the street laughing. I turned the car around and drove back out to the main drag and took the long way to my house.
You shouldn't ignore instinct. It seems to be our last link to animal survival.
Last night, a hurricane blew past our town, bringing with it heavy winds and rains. Our dog refused to pee in the yard. My husband walked him once through the downpour in daylight, and prepared to walk him again after dark. I fussed, but I had too much wine in me to think straight and just watched him walk out the door. Before he left, I urged him to stay away from trees, told him about the time that a girl in college was killed by a fallen limb in a storm. Ten seconds after he and the dog walked out the door and down our front sidewalk, the pear tree in the front yard split in half, and the losing half fell across the spot on the sidewalk where my husband and my dog had just been. I stood outside in the rain and wind, with a glass of wine in my hand, staring at the tree until my husband emerged again through the hedges. He paused for a moment as if he were unsure he was looking at the right house. I raised my glass of wine above the fallen limbs and toasted him.
"What was he doing walking the dog in a hurricane?" my mother scolded. I don't know. The dog wouldn't pee? The winds didn't seem that bad? Or do we still foolishly think we're invincible. I think it's the latter. I don't need to live my life in a bubble, but I need to use my instincts more often than I do. Only a fool would walk a dog in a hurricane, and only a fool would allow him to do it.
"If we're ever in a storm like that again," I told my husband today, "the dog can just pee himself. No one is going to walk him." What were we thinking? The dog didn't even pee.
Later that week, I drove to my house in Baltimore to give our tenant a fan. It was after dark, and I pulled onto a street that I had used as a shortcut to our house for two years without a worry. It is a wretched street, full of projects and boarded-up houses and people with nothing to do. But it never affected me before. I always felt safe inside my car, always knew I could peel out if I needed to. I scanned the street this time. The block after the second light was crowded with teenagers, teasing each other and running out into the street laughing. I turned the car around and drove back out to the main drag and took the long way to my house.
You shouldn't ignore instinct. It seems to be our last link to animal survival.
Last night, a hurricane blew past our town, bringing with it heavy winds and rains. Our dog refused to pee in the yard. My husband walked him once through the downpour in daylight, and prepared to walk him again after dark. I fussed, but I had too much wine in me to think straight and just watched him walk out the door. Before he left, I urged him to stay away from trees, told him about the time that a girl in college was killed by a fallen limb in a storm. Ten seconds after he and the dog walked out the door and down our front sidewalk, the pear tree in the front yard split in half, and the losing half fell across the spot on the sidewalk where my husband and my dog had just been. I stood outside in the rain and wind, with a glass of wine in my hand, staring at the tree until my husband emerged again through the hedges. He paused for a moment as if he were unsure he was looking at the right house. I raised my glass of wine above the fallen limbs and toasted him.
"What was he doing walking the dog in a hurricane?" my mother scolded. I don't know. The dog wouldn't pee? The winds didn't seem that bad? Or do we still foolishly think we're invincible. I think it's the latter. I don't need to live my life in a bubble, but I need to use my instincts more often than I do. Only a fool would walk a dog in a hurricane, and only a fool would allow him to do it.
"If we're ever in a storm like that again," I told my husband today, "the dog can just pee himself. No one is going to walk him." What were we thinking? The dog didn't even pee.