Mary Beth Writes

5/24/2022

What Turns You Around?

I am just home from a walk to and from the YMCA gym. It takes more than an hour and since I am not an ‘early bird gets the worm’ kind of person, this ruins several mornings per week. Though I have been having the heart function tests they throw at you when you say your heart fibrillated like 7-Up and mentos tablets for a couple days back there. Just another older American here, keeping cardiologists off the dole. So far my heart is testing well and I suspect the walk and the gym are part of why I’m fine.

I’ve mentioned that around the corner from our house is a street of mostly low-income duplexes. The street is usually quiet although it features cop action from time to time. Not frequently. Maybe every few months there is a little action and even less frequently there is a lot of action. The 5AM flash bombs several years ago followed by a helicopter– that was memorable.

This morning I was almost all the way home when I noticed four cop cars parked on the street. Four. They weren’t close to each other; they weren’t chatting with their windows down as cops often do. They were just spread out, hunkered down, and silent. Waiting for someone to wake up and come outside?

While I was observing this my feet turned around and trotted me back out to the bigger street I’d turned off a minute earlier. I then came home a different and more inconvenient way.

It’s more than an hour later and nothing has happened. Probably there is a benign explanation for all those cops though right now I don’t know what it would be.

Here’s the thing.

I’m surprised that my feet decided what to do first.

Has this happened to you? Have there been occasions when your body and spirit headed for the door before your mind could figure out the moment you were in?

Do your instincts sometimes kick in while your intellect gallops to keep up?

Just asking.

 

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I think it was a combination of both my feet and my mind. I was aware that something was wrong and decided to just head out of the building. That was in 2011, when I was working in Alexandria VA and there’ was an earthquake centered about 100 mi SW. I didn’t feel the floor swaying ( I was actually at ground level) but I could here a lot of shaking in the structural members. So, it seemed like an earthquake, but they are rare in the East. Even though I was not sure, I started to head outside. As I got to the atrium, I noticed a lot of white folks, like yours truly , just standing there looking puzzled. Everyone who looked Asian in anyway was hurrying towards the doors. I figured that all those folks with Pacific Rim heritage likely knew what a real earthquake was like, and so I then decided that if they were heading outside, I would continue on out.
Mary Beth's picture

Wow! That is a strong story of instinct and mindfulness and observation and feet moving!

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