Heartbeats and Moments

I’m living from the neck up.   

The prefrontal cortex is the “what if” future scenario workshop compartment of our brain.  I spend most of my time there.  

Take for example, this morning.  

I’m driving to a hearing about me falling off a ladder at work and tweaking vital vertebrae.  I’m “mothertrucking” this five year process of describing me climbing this attic ladder, it buckling then twisting and landing on my brick sized radio (I was on duty as a cop).  

“How has this injury negatively affected you?”  

I’m driving and mining my life for specific examples of peeing on myself, shooting pain down my leg and quoting what the urologist said to add validity.

I’m usually texting and driving down this hill, but since I’m talking to myself I see…

A freakin’ baby in diapers stepping off the curb!

His shirt collar is moist with his slobber.  I’m approaching this blind bend so his parents must be calling him from across the street.  Their dumbasses don’t see me but I press my brakes and stop my car.  

I lean my head out the window to see the baby walking to his parents before I continue on.

But there are no parents.  

This baby just walked across the street by himself.  Now he’s walking in the street along the parked cars towards me.  

I was a cop for 25 years and my condescending cop voice mansplained, “Norm.  This is where you put the car in park.  Get out.  And scoop up that kid.”  

I did that. 

Because I think I’m smart, I walked over to the open garage I deduced the baby walked out from.  Moments pass and a young mother opens the garage door.  

It’s on her face: Baby not in home.  Panic.  Check garage.  Baby in arms of Stranger.  Stranger has pissed and judgmental  look on his face.  

I hand the baby over.  Through her rapid breath she blurts, “We were in the backyard and I turned my head.  He probably opened the garage door-”

I cut her off.

“Not probably.  He did.”   She’s not receptive to a lecture as she’s in “I’m glad my baby didn’t get crushed like a squirrel” mode.  

I yell at her with my eyes, softly annunciate and nod on each syllable. “Lock your door.  Close the garage..” was my goodbye as the baby waved at me.  I smiled at him.  Not the mom.  

I know I’m an asshole. I’m not editing this shit to make me look compassionate and soft and huggy. I was fucking pissed because I’m protective of the innocent.

Do you need to imagine striking a child with a car at any speed?  

I’m back in the car and you know what?  I actually don’t give a fuck about driving to this hearing and sitting and just answering questions. 

I’ve been living from the neck up and only in times of crisis, loss or extreme passion do I experience other aspects of my being.  

Months before I fell off that ladder my cousin had a premonition, a dream I was on an autopsy table cut in half.  In his vision, I was still alive and said, “I’m gonna be alright.”  

My Chiropractor said the vertebrae that I injured is “exactly the point where your upper and lower body meet.  If I were to cut you in half, that would…”  be the point where my cousin saw me dissected.  

That’s magic, friends. He saw that. You can’t make this up. It doesn’t compute in the probability machine. Instead of tucking it away to randomness why not feel the otherness of that premonition. Why not sit and savor and marvel at the other perceptions within or beyond our comprehension?

I’m gonna be alright.  

Handing a toddler to his worried mother is a cause for pause.  Living from the neck up hasn’t helped.  At all.  I’ve been on that conveyer belt of school, job, career, marriage, kid, premature retirement.  I checked those boxes and instead of measuring my life in chunks of sectioned timelines I’ve converted to heartbeats and moments.  

Just today.  

The hour glass of my time here flipped at my birth.  Each granule is a cherished heartbeat and moment I must savor.  Because they’re finite.

That imbalanced way of thinking in lack and worry is weak, man. It’s not me. I have hippie tendencies, but masked them and became a worker bee to fit in. That shit is not fun and not colorful. I feel gross about it. You know what I feel? Typical.

That worker’s comp hearing?  It got canceled and rescheduled for Zoom.  All that dread and rehearsal in the face of having the opportunity to protect a child…

I’m sure rehearsing and preparing for future scenarios has its place, but I’ve turned my head to back to magic, synchronicity, premonition, aura.  

Aren’t those valid states of awareness that deserve space?  

What happens if we stop rehearsing winning arguments or picking up our phones and use that energy and attention to feel the warmth of the sun on our bodies, laugh with family and friends and feel immense gratitude for this next exhale you’re about to take…