The darkness nuzzles it’s shoulder into every corner of the room. The noise machine and air cleaner hum their lonely tune. The buttery concoction of sound and shadow has worked it’s magic once more and my infant daughter is finally asleep in my arms. Now just to slip her into the bassinet and the night is mine. Nailed it! She’s landed and sleeping. Whoops… dropped the burp cloth on the ground. Dammit, just another thing to slow me down from finally relaxing into the night… ugh. I bend over to quickly grab it and … WHAM! I slam my forehead into the corner of the dresser that was hiding in the dark. That’s gonna leave a mark. The blood flows, the head throbs, the usual.
I heard a song on the radio the other day, “Accidents Happen” by Elvis Costello (Dear Elvis, thank you for your service) and it got me thinking. Do accidents really “happen” or do we “cause” them? Meaning are they random or is there always something hidden underneath? Is the accident the tip and something else entirely, the iceberg? Did I accidentally crack my head open or was I so desperate to “relax” and slow down that I sped up through something else, “causing” this accident? In my desire to be elsewhere, did I not see where I was going? Am I the cause of this supposedly random event.
Hell yeah, this was my fault! The dresser didn’t bum rush me and try to take my wallet. I had a yoga teacher once say “No one has ever been injured doing yoga. They hurt themselves when they were doing a pose and left the present moment.” These accidents happen when we leave our bodies and start thinking of things that “could be” not things that are “right now”. Presence isn’t illusive, it’s just not as sexy as we want it to be sometimes. And when we start to crave things that ARE NOT is when we slam our heads into things that ARE. Mind you, there are definitely things out there that are beyond our control and circumstances that are hiding around the corner but more often than not, we are the perpetrator not the victim. WE are the traffic, we’re not stuck in it.
Keep your eyes open and your moves deliberate. It may not hurt to put some of those squishy foam things on the corners of the furniture either. P.S. The next morning I bashed my shin into the corner of the bed frame. Dropped to my knees, partially because it hurt, mostly because I knew exactly why it happened again.
