Peeing My Pants

After my head injury I could  hold it for what seems like an epoch amount of time.  But, I have recently lost that skill (I think my current state of contenency is more age related, however.)  I was the Boise City Track Meet, and I found myself in BSU's blue infield just prior to Rachel's 300 m hurdle race.  I realized I had to go to the bathroom, but I knew I didn't have time to hobble up into the stands, to the restroom. Look at the picture, the bathrooms are in orange section 1/2 way up! I decided to try and hold it.

I positioned myself near the start of the race, which is the back side of the 400 m track. From the start area, my plan was to hobble towards the center of the infield to watch her run the far corner, and be moving towards the last stretch of the race, to the finish line.  I knew my viewing would not turn out how I envisioned it, because I always overestimated my abilities, but I was willing to give it a go.

Rachel had obviously listened when I told her the secret to the race was to go out hard, from the start. I let her know she was going to be spent in the last 50 meters whether she in front, or trailing, but it would be much easier to finish if she were winning.  Also, I reminded her the 400 meters is considered a sprint, and this was only 300 meters, with hurdles.  She was a decent hurdler, with lightening speed, so I figured this was her race.

The gun sounded, she blasted from her blocks; the first competitor over the first hurdle. Of course, I was screaming like a banshee, and it became more, and more difficult to hold it.  The more I yelled, the more I struggled, but at least I was alone in the infield.  I think she hit  hurdle 3 or 4 but still, her lead was growing.  Every time I shouted encouragement, I dibbled some, but was thankful it was a hot day, because everyone was drenched in sweat.  By the races end, my bladder was close to empty, but I took the time to get to a restroom, finish my business, and dry off as best as I could.

It was her fastest 300 hurdle race, and her last.  She broke the city record, and was a shoe in for a state medal, but her coaches had other ideas.  They thought the 300 hurdles were run too close to the 200 (a race they pegged her for), so at the state meet she didn't run the long hurdle race.  I disagreed, but didn't want to be that parent.  Instead,  I ended up being the parent who peed their pants on the BSU infield.
I

Shelving Books

Shelving

I was at the city library shelving books, scooting through book trails atop a plastic chair that rolled on wheels, the kind kids wobble around on, in front of a computer. The shelves were just chest high and a man spoke in my direction, from the other side.  It was only a question, and it initially startled me because I had been fully focused on my mindless task.  I spent two hours among the books each Saturday, when I first moved home to Montana. For many, this would have begun as tedious, and evolved into monotony.  But it felt fine, to me, tucked safely within the quiet, warm walls of books.

The man repeated the question as he indicated the illustration on the cover of a children’s book.  He showed me the drawing of a stage coach with its parts labeled. He had asked me to look at the anatomy of the carriage shown.  He thought it odd that he could not find a part labeled buckboard.  Speaking almost to himself he said, “Each day I drive by a road named buckboard, and I thought I knew what it meant.”  But, he indicated, the diagram did not have a part labeled buckboard, and his disappointment was apparent.  It was as if he had, somehow, let himself down.  Inadvertently, he had believed that he had known something, but in the children’s section of the city library he had learned that maybe he had not known it.

 He asked if I knew where the buckboard was located, and I felt like because I was there, shelving books, I was expected to know the answer to this simple question.  And, as if I knew with certainty, I said that I believed it was somewhere in the front, but towards the bottom, close to the wheels.  But, I really didn’t know whether I was anywhere near correct.  It made sense, he continued, because if a horse bucked while hitched to the coach, a board placed in the vicinity I had pointed to, would indeed protect the driver.  Relieved, he said he had thought that was where the buckboard should be.  We were now it seemed, in agreement that the children’s book was incorrect, or at least incomplete in its labeling.  He was clearly relieved, and returned to his grandchildren, and I to my task.

The Aftermath

Time has countless paths

I was gone so trauma chose mine

Routes must be smooth, level, sometimes solitary

Safe too, because time can pass

Both gazelle–like, or sluggish

Kismet is that my

Recall of good has strength, and

Horrific memories, although there,

Fade with time’s passage

                

lexie wyman

Uncertainty

It is holds back the light to

Block the good that I might feel.

Just beneath the calm, knowing,

Glassy surface, it waits for

The blunder it knows will come.

I can push it away, and open,

Just wide enough,

The door to self,

So that I

Can think, maybe

I am whole, complete.

It takes me time to wrestle the

Gate, to shut it tight

So one more time

I come close to right.

I roughly push Uncertainty

Away, so it can’t, and won’t, join up

Safe places, though, I

Only visit, never asked to stay

Lexie wyman