Today began with a whimper and was followed by an almost bang. My old dog baby has figured out how to get her food earlier and earlier. She lets out a sharp bark at anywhere from 2 to 3 in the morning. This bark is designed to interrupt any level of sleep I may be in. This morning I wanted to kill my dog--not really kill her, but to make her apologize profusely for waking me up. Instead, she whimpered and cast her clouded-over, cataracted old dog eyes up at me. All I could do was just give in and then try to go back to bed. Instead, I popped on my tablet and played Sudoku, read the news, and eventually arrived at my normal getting-up time.
Within the next hour, I took my medications, showered, walked the dog, and got myself for work. It had been raining the whole day before and the wind caused shards of tree limbs, leaves, and other tree parts to cover the wet pavement, sidewalks, and yards. I began my almost-daily walk to work by taking the same general path that I do Monday to Friday. This involves finding the shortest walk from my neighborhood to work which is a healthy 2.2 miles away via streets, sidewalks, and alleyways. I came out of the alleyway I usually do on Wales St. and saw fallen pine cones. I danced around them but neglected to notice a slime of silty mud that led to the sidewalk. In so doing, I found myself doing what to an observer would look like a very poor imitation of James Brown popping down into the splits as my right foot slid away from me for what felt like an inordinate amount of time. Thankfully my left foot did not join in and as I regained my footing I thought "fucking Monday" and went on.
At Court Street, I looked behind me to see if I could walk across to avoid the inevitable logjam of cars at the stop sign up ahead at 7th Ave. Noting the line left no gaps, I continued to the corner and felt lucky that the logjam had just cleared as I entered the crosswalk. A car was just approaching the stop in front of me. However, instead of fully stopping the driver kept going oblivious to me--until she wasn't. Then, her face through the driver-side glass looked at me and pitiably mouthed "I'm so sorry" as she continued through the intersection. Maybe it was because I raised my unopened umbrella in her direction or maybe because I was undented, the moment gave me a sense of relief and adrenaline.
On the corner of Iowa Ave. and Muscatine Ave., a man was out on his porch and I said, "Hello". He responded, "Mornin', how's it going?" I replied, "Pretty good, all things..." and trailed off. He chuckled. I thought to myself, a few minutes ago, we wouldn't have had this conversation, but had I not slipped prior to that, I might not have been endangered in the first place or, if the dog had not woken me up or...And that is the mystery of life every day we get to keep doing it. Really, the miracle of life is both a wonderment about how we made it at all and why we get to keep living? For all the trouble of life, I have never gotten tired of the mystery.
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