Personal Narrative: A Deliberate Distraction
A deliberate distraction. Such as, but not limited to, fiddling with the corrugated fabric at the edge of my shirt, making coffee in the middle of the day that would, undoubtedly, remain in the pot until the next morning, completely untouched, or closing my eyes and fervently discovering new, unblemished corners of the boundless, interminable universe that is the human mind (mine in particular). However unhealthy the aftermath may be, doing any variety of these mentioned can significantly alleviate feelings of anxiety, lethargy, apathy, and fear. These distractions are also, admittedly, the only inconsistencies that I would ever allow to intertwine with my rigid, polished schedule; without them, I am sure that I would completely lose control.
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On Thursdays, I listen to Brahms. If it’s raining (which, in Rutland County, Vermont, is a rarity during every season but spring), I watch the news. This is my simplest routine of the week. The other weekdays would ordinarily consist of numerous other variables, such as the current condition of my resplendent porch garden and houseplants, or the specific number of steps that it would take me to walk to the kitchen. I prefer to keep Thursdays effortless.
That particular Thursday, before I went to the flower shop, I sat facing the sunrise on the back patio, tapping my fingertips on my knees and counting to four, again and again, while my coffee brewed. With a symphony loud in the foreground, I meditated, crossing my legs and resting my head on the brick wall. The air was biting at my skin, crisp and menacing. The harsh weather of January and the months surrounding kept me constantly on edge. It was as though I was always fighting to stay in control.
Before I left for work every morning, I tended to my plants.
I found a certain refuge in them— my ferns in the hall, my tulips in the kitchen, my tomatoes on the porch. I spent the most time with my personal favorite, the Crown of Thorns, scientifically named “Euphorbia Milii”, who basked royally and proudly in my bedroom window. She bloomed in small clusters of six or seven rich, dark pink petals, with tiny yellow pods in the center; they almost resembled solid red pansies, though much smaller. As I cared for them all, and admired their beauty, as I always did, I was overwhelmed with the familiar fascination and relief that cured my weakening nerves many times before. The flowers calmed me down, and they kept me sane in the winter.
Drumming my fingers on my purse as I walked out to the garage, counting each step, I began to feel uneasy. I forgot about my gardens. I forgot about where I was going, where I was happiest, and I hesitated to leave. This was not uncommon. I began walking towards my car, and after the third group of four footsteps, there were around two left over. I walked back to the door and started counting a second time, taking smaller steps and successfully completing four groups. I glided my palms over the edges of the steering wheel, taking deep
breaths.
As I drove through the rural, foggy hills of Rutland that unsettling morning, I noticed that the once warm, evocative acres that surrounded me when I drove to work were now completely dead. Coated in a dim, white, icy dew, they were no longer vibrant fields of flowers and grasses, but graves.
I consciously directed my attention back to only what was in front of me and behind, occasionally glancing around at the things inside of my car. My beaten, beige purse, a birthday gift from my mother, adorned with brightly-colored pins and patches, lay defeated in the passenger seat. Leaves, flowers, insects, and animals, all exaggeratedly vivid in hue and size, littered the surface of the strap and pocket in rigid groups of four. I fussed with them all religiously, usually when I went shopping, which noticeably wore down the fabric around them. I began tapping my hands on the console beside me, then letting them wander to the water bottle in the cupholder, and then to the dash. I suddenly grew increasingly anxious, about my condition, and Vermont’s. With every second that passed, my chest became heavier.
I pulled over. I turned off the engine.
Sitting on one knee on the edge of the road, I cupped some water in my palms and washed my face. I sat on the hood of my car, observing the desolate winter around me. There were no other moving cars or people anywhere in my sight, only a few small, country houses and trucks, doors frozen stuck.
Twenty-four minutes. Twenty-four minutes of worrying that I would be late for work, of wincing at the sting of the wind on my cheeks, of losing another battle.
I, dramatically and ceremoniously, there, on the side of the road, underwent my own miniscule, dramatic baptism, with only my broken metaphors and disinfectant. However, I did not come out of it reborn, or stronger, as I’d expected— I came out of it colder. I got back in my car, and continued.
I had to take a detour, on a narrow, bumpy road, labeled ‘Little Ada Drive’, by a single sign at the beginning of the turn. I had only taken this route about two or three times in the past, primarily because going this way was always an unnerving experience, as the road was rarely traveled by anyone, and poorly constructed on extremely uneven terrain. I avoided taking it because of this, however, it saved me a significant amount of time. The trees that hovered over the path were dry and bare, and they looked completely dead, yet their branches were not rotten, and they never broke off. As a lover of all varieties of life and foliage, this paradox disturbed me in unexplainable depth, deep beneath the source of my passions, and of my anxieties.
I drove for awhile, in this state of confusion and dismay, repeating the order of turns I would be taking from memory aloud. After a fourth sharp turn, over the hill to the right of me and a few hundred feet away, I saw thick, dark gray smoke rolling in enormous curves in the air.
I have never witnessed such a devastating scene of panic, of desperation, of fear.
As I went around the slope, I had to instantaneously drive my foot onto the brake to avoid hitting a dark blue shirt. A boy. He looked about fourteen years old, medium height and heavy, with curly brown hair, and his hands were smeared with blood. He was pressing the heel of one of his palms into his eye, and reaching his other arm out towards me, in the middle of the road. Behind him, rammed into the side of the hill, in a wide ditch, there was a dark green, muddy trailblazer. The driver’s side was elevated slightly, because of the terrain, and the entire front of the car was smashed, about half of its original length wrinkled into folds of busted metal. Both front windows were completely broken, however, I didn’t see much glass on the ground around the car. There was no one else around for miles.
I opened the door slowly, with caution, and walked over to the boy. He had a few small bits of glass stuck in his lower arms, and he was panicking. He looked as though he were going to faint in a matter of minutes. I put his arm over my shoulders and led him to my car, and he fell against the door, crouching down beside it.
“Please, please, try to calm down, please,” I told him, stammering, “Please. What is your name?”
My eyes darted back and forth, from him to the smoking vehicle, not very far from us. He shifted slowly and turned to look up at me, his eyebrows tense and furrowed between his eyes. He shook his head.
“P-Percy. Percy Beaumont. My mother,” he said, speaking in a hoarse, squeaky growl, “My mother is trapped.” He had a noticeable, quick French accent, and his voice was trembling, but he seemed to put a great deal of effort into enunciating every word. This, a festivity for all of my fear and nervousness, an event for each of my misgivings and concerns. While the boy’s limp, bloody arm rested like dead weight on my shoulder, I became overwhelmed with agitation. My source of adrenaline was exhausted. I needed to leave. I needed to apologize to Percy, get in my car, and go to work. Surely, somebody else- somebody more capable of taking care of this, would notice the commotion soon. “Well, I can’t- I don’t know how to get… her out,” I managed to say, staring at the damage so close to me, attempting, and failing, to dismiss the thoughts and images of a woman stuck inside of the monstrous wreck. He frowned, quickly standing up, and began walking towards the scene of the crash, pulling my arm.
“I- I’ll call an ambulance,” I said. Still, despite my clear discomfort, he pulled me closer to her. I didn’t want to see her. I knew that I would not be able to handle seeing her. I tried to reach for my cell phone in my pocket, but my body was shaking in protest, making any simple task seem like a tremendous one. I dropped my phone onto the pavement just as soon as I had pulled it out.
I pushed the child’s hand off of my arm, and I planted my feet in the ground. If I did not regain control anytime soon, I would lose it completely. I raised my arms above my head and inhaled deeply, four times, closing my eyes. Seeing the frozen dew, the complete lack of life, and the empty skies above me made me feel sick. It was as though the ice was a plague, spreading slowly over the surface of each leaf, and killing it. It was as though this disease took me with them. Percy continued to cry, shouting at me, in what I assume was French, and pointing to the car (which, to my relief, was no longer burning). My hands trembling and pallid, I reached down and picked up my cell phone, which had completely shattered on the ground. I dialed the number and erased it, three full times, and called after the fourth. Percy ran back to the hill.
“911, what is your emergency?” said a loud, assertive voice in my hands. I pressed the cracked screen against my cheek and tried to clear my throat.
On Thursdays, I listen to Brahms. If it’s raining (which, in Rutland County, Vermont, is a rarity during every season but spring), I watch the news. This is my simplest routine of the week. The other weekdays would ordinarily consist of numerous other variables, such as the current condition of my resplendent porch garden and houseplants, or the specific number of steps that it would take me to walk to the kitchen. I prefer to keep Thursdays effortless.
That particular Thursday, before I went to the flower shop, I sat facing the sunrise on the back patio, tapping my fingertips on my knees and counting to four, again and again, while my coffee brewed. With a symphony loud in the foreground, I meditated, crossing my legs and resting my head on the brick wall. The air was biting at my skin, crisp and menacing. The harsh weather of January and the months surrounding kept me constantly on edge. It was as though I was always fighting to stay in control.
Before I left for work every morning, I tended to my plants.
I found a certain refuge in them— my ferns in the hall, my tulips in the kitchen, my tomatoes on the porch. I spent the most time with my personal favorite, the Crown of Thorns, scientifically named “Euphorbia Milii”, who basked royally and proudly in my bedroom window. She bloomed in small clusters of six or seven rich, dark pink petals, with tiny yellow pods in the center; they almost resembled solid red pansies, though much smaller. As I cared for them all, and admired their beauty, as I always did, I was overwhelmed with the familiar fascination and relief that cured my weakening nerves many times before. The flowers calmed me down, and they kept me sane in the winter.
Drumming my fingers on my purse as I walked out to the garage, counting each step, I began to feel uneasy. I forgot about my gardens. I forgot about where I was going, where I was happiest, and I hesitated to leave. This was not uncommon. I began walking towards my car, and after the third group of four footsteps, there were around two left over. I walked back to the door and started counting a second time, taking smaller steps and successfully completing four groups. I glided my palms over the edges of the steering wheel, taking deep
breaths.
As I drove through the rural, foggy hills of Rutland that unsettling morning, I noticed that the once warm, evocative acres that surrounded me when I drove to work were now completely dead. Coated in a dim, white, icy dew, they were no longer vibrant fields of flowers and grasses, but graves.
I consciously directed my attention back to only what was in front of me and behind, occasionally glancing around at the things inside of my car. My beaten, beige purse, a birthday gift from my mother, adorned with brightly-colored pins and patches, lay defeated in the passenger seat. Leaves, flowers, insects, and animals, all exaggeratedly vivid in hue and size, littered the surface of the strap and pocket in rigid groups of four. I fussed with them all religiously, usually when I went shopping, which noticeably wore down the fabric around them. I began tapping my hands on the console beside me, then letting them wander to the water bottle in the cupholder, and then to the dash. I suddenly grew increasingly anxious, about my condition, and Vermont’s. With every second that passed, my chest became heavier.
I pulled over. I turned off the engine.
Sitting on one knee on the edge of the road, I cupped some water in my palms and washed my face. I sat on the hood of my car, observing the desolate winter around me. There were no other moving cars or people anywhere in my sight, only a few small, country houses and trucks, doors frozen stuck.
Twenty-four minutes. Twenty-four minutes of worrying that I would be late for work, of wincing at the sting of the wind on my cheeks, of losing another battle.
I, dramatically and ceremoniously, there, on the side of the road, underwent my own miniscule, dramatic baptism, with only my broken metaphors and disinfectant. However, I did not come out of it reborn, or stronger, as I’d expected— I came out of it colder. I got back in my car, and continued.
I had to take a detour, on a narrow, bumpy road, labeled ‘Little Ada Drive’, by a single sign at the beginning of the turn. I had only taken this route about two or three times in the past, primarily because going this way was always an unnerving experience, as the road was rarely traveled by anyone, and poorly constructed on extremely uneven terrain. I avoided taking it because of this, however, it saved me a significant amount of time. The trees that hovered over the path were dry and bare, and they looked completely dead, yet their branches were not rotten, and they never broke off. As a lover of all varieties of life and foliage, this paradox disturbed me in unexplainable depth, deep beneath the source of my passions, and of my anxieties.
I drove for awhile, in this state of confusion and dismay, repeating the order of turns I would be taking from memory aloud. After a fourth sharp turn, over the hill to the right of me and a few hundred feet away, I saw thick, dark gray smoke rolling in enormous curves in the air.
I have never witnessed such a devastating scene of panic, of desperation, of fear.
As I went around the slope, I had to instantaneously drive my foot onto the brake to avoid hitting a dark blue shirt. A boy. He looked about fourteen years old, medium height and heavy, with curly brown hair, and his hands were smeared with blood. He was pressing the heel of one of his palms into his eye, and reaching his other arm out towards me, in the middle of the road. Behind him, rammed into the side of the hill, in a wide ditch, there was a dark green, muddy trailblazer. The driver’s side was elevated slightly, because of the terrain, and the entire front of the car was smashed, about half of its original length wrinkled into folds of busted metal. Both front windows were completely broken, however, I didn’t see much glass on the ground around the car. There was no one else around for miles.
I opened the door slowly, with caution, and walked over to the boy. He had a few small bits of glass stuck in his lower arms, and he was panicking. He looked as though he were going to faint in a matter of minutes. I put his arm over my shoulders and led him to my car, and he fell against the door, crouching down beside it.
“Please, please, try to calm down, please,” I told him, stammering, “Please. What is your name?”
My eyes darted back and forth, from him to the smoking vehicle, not very far from us. He shifted slowly and turned to look up at me, his eyebrows tense and furrowed between his eyes. He shook his head.
“P-Percy. Percy Beaumont. My mother,” he said, speaking in a hoarse, squeaky growl, “My mother is trapped.” He had a noticeable, quick French accent, and his voice was trembling, but he seemed to put a great deal of effort into enunciating every word. This, a festivity for all of my fear and nervousness, an event for each of my misgivings and concerns. While the boy’s limp, bloody arm rested like dead weight on my shoulder, I became overwhelmed with agitation. My source of adrenaline was exhausted. I needed to leave. I needed to apologize to Percy, get in my car, and go to work. Surely, somebody else- somebody more capable of taking care of this, would notice the commotion soon. “Well, I can’t- I don’t know how to get… her out,” I managed to say, staring at the damage so close to me, attempting, and failing, to dismiss the thoughts and images of a woman stuck inside of the monstrous wreck. He frowned, quickly standing up, and began walking towards the scene of the crash, pulling my arm.
“I- I’ll call an ambulance,” I said. Still, despite my clear discomfort, he pulled me closer to her. I didn’t want to see her. I knew that I would not be able to handle seeing her. I tried to reach for my cell phone in my pocket, but my body was shaking in protest, making any simple task seem like a tremendous one. I dropped my phone onto the pavement just as soon as I had pulled it out.
I pushed the child’s hand off of my arm, and I planted my feet in the ground. If I did not regain control anytime soon, I would lose it completely. I raised my arms above my head and inhaled deeply, four times, closing my eyes. Seeing the frozen dew, the complete lack of life, and the empty skies above me made me feel sick. It was as though the ice was a plague, spreading slowly over the surface of each leaf, and killing it. It was as though this disease took me with them. Percy continued to cry, shouting at me, in what I assume was French, and pointing to the car (which, to my relief, was no longer burning). My hands trembling and pallid, I reached down and picked up my cell phone, which had completely shattered on the ground. I dialed the number and erased it, three full times, and called after the fourth. Percy ran back to the hill.
“911, what is your emergency?” said a loud, assertive voice in my hands. I pressed the cracked screen against my cheek and tried to clear my throat.