A Considered moment

Sun 12.20.20,

      At the market the other day, approaching the entryway an old guy carrying two bags of groceries falls to the ground, about 6 feet from me.  There’s a clerk behind him sweeping the ground; he looks but he doesn’t rush over to help the old man, and people start to form a circle 10 feet around.  I go over to him and ask, “Do you need help getting up,” and I reach down and place my arm under his armpit.  A woman joins in and grabs his left side.  We swiftly get him up and he points to where his car is.  I tap him on the back and I leave him with the others.

      This incident stays with me.  Why didn’t I help him get to his car, I wonder.  Is it that a person can be helped along the way, but one makes one’s own path ultimately?  One loses the ability to forge ahead and one is left to the mercy of an indifferent mass.  That the clerk did not move to offer help and the gathering people kept their distance until I reached over to him played a part in my feelings.  Blue nose Yankees! is the phrase running through my mind as I write this.  Prejudice?  Yes.  My French people are more vivacious, more emotional than anglos.  It’s a fact that I became aware of as a very small child.  It doesn’t mean we are warmer or more caring. Of course, I like my people’s character much more than the Yankees. 

      The man on the ground, I would say was lower middle class, had seen some wear and tear in his life, and in this incident he was a supplicant in need of a helping hand.  We are all in our assigned characters, with our little tags identifying us as . . . Just get me to that car, I will be alright, thinks the old man.  Inside my car I will reclaim myself, have a purpose.  I will make my way home, to the home I have created In my mind, which is warm and comforting.

      But here at this moment something went wrong, I fell to the ground and I am vulnerable.  Hurry, hurry, I must get to the car.

 The all-time favorite essay, over and above everything else I post on this site, from at least 20 to 30 countries is The Sweat Lodge Ritual the Lakota purification ceremony.