Tuesday, August 07, 2007

hope in a winter hat

I made my way into the bowels of the city. The subway station was lined thick with people in their business casual. I walked to my spot, not once taking note of a face. In my peripheral vision I saw two forms leaning in to each other, the girl standing on her tip toes, helpless, her forehead pressed into his chest. I closed my eyes, my back against the wall. The tiles were damp with humidity and it occurred to me how dirty they must be. I pulled away, standing straight.

The air was thick, even at 0800 hrs. A stout black women to my left fanned herself with a newspaper. She looked over at me and rolled her eyes, looking for someone to share in her distaste for the temperature.

But I'm not a part of this. None of it. I'm somewhere else.

You're not going to pin me down, I wanted to tell her.

Instead I looked forward and let my vision blur everything into a putty grey.

Later, on the way home I bought a winter hat. In August. A big cable knit rasta hat and I bought $62.34 cents worth of vitamins to ward off cancer. I almost laughed out loud in line at the pharmacy. All I am going on is a list I printed out from the internet based on [at best] loose evidence, but that's nothing. Where it gets funny is that in this state of mind, I'm buying vitamins.

5 comments:

(S)wine said...

it's so paralyzing, this fear we have of death, isn't it.
we don't know death, and so we fear it. we cannot process that it's part of a cycle. and we don't know how time, in general, fits into the equation (or if time really exists), and so we are just terrified.
it's so ingrained in our psyche, that even, like you describe, while experiencing dangerous states of mind, we go and purchase our vitamins to 'ward off cancer.' We know quite well how inefficient vitamins in a bottle are. We know quite well how the healthiest have succumbed to sudden, fatal attacks of pancreatic cancer or leukemia or...? A few weeks ago I got a great wake-up in the form of a horrible accident which made national news here, in the States, involving a tractor trailer which blew up and trapped other cars underneath it. There were fatalities. My ex was bringing my daughter to me for the weekend. The horrific accident happened right in front of her,and she swerved to avoid this oncoming semi-trailer, which would have probably decapitated her. My daughter was in the back screaming. After they avoided the truck, it blew up right behind them; the concussion sending their car across two lanes. Everyone was all right, but shaken. What they left behind was a fiery carnage which made the national news here for a few days.

Perspective.

Rachel said...

That's so scary, and yet you don't seem paralyzed with fear of death to me. How do you avoid that?

(S)wine said...

a lot of wine.
no, just kidding.
i've come close to that 5 times in my life.
i actually count only 4, but Tomesa reminded me about the time in DC I got mugged at gunpoint.
i tend to not count that because at the time i thought the gun was either a fake, or a b.b. gun, and i didn't feel like my life was being threatened, but no...it was a real .9mm.
anyway, all i recall about the various times, is a sense of calm and a sense of thinking that this isn't going to be bad.
i remember just being somewhat remorseful that i hadn't accomplished everything i'd wanted to in life.
what's unpleasant, for me, is the possibility of going through a degenerative disease, or a dementia-like affliction. alzheimer's scares me only in that i will become unaware of everything--existence included. so i have to draw up an advanced directive of some sorts. i don't want to wither away, not aware of anything.

Anonymous said...

the last winter hat i bought was on the way back to work after a date with my psychiatrist. the following year i chopped off all my hair and never wore the hat again. it's been shoved in a "winter stuff" bag all this time and it's going in my yard sale on the labour day weekend, right after i retire.

Rachel said...

T, I love this story.