Some how when I thought about writing my first blog, I wanted
it to be profound, something that flowed from me and that people would delight
in reading. And so, for months,
possibly years, I waited for exactly that moment. And waited. And
made excuses. And
procrastinated. And wrote them in
my mind. And dialoged with
myself. Waiting for the time. Waiting for the miraculous moment. Waiting.
So many things have happened through out the years, but
today came and instead of getting angry, feeling hurt or belittled, I decided
to write. I always have a story,
but today, I was given a gift that inspired me to think, to remember, and to
want to share. Not because it was
happy, and inspiring, and profound, and unique or perfect, but because I spent
way too much time pondering the few words spoken to me. Those words were: “in case of
emergency”. And while it was only
4 words, the impact they had on my day inspired me to share some of my journey.
It sort of began a few days ago, when being the somewhat
clutz that I am, I burned my hand with scalding hot water. The friend I was with at the time had
seen where the hot water pot was perched and tried to move it from its
precarious spot on the ledge of the bathroom (why do they put the outlets in
the worst spots?), but couldn’t find a better place. Later when I went to grab the pot, the base came too, and
the water that had been boiling moments before encountered my hand and made
quite an impact. As I gathered
myself up and placed my unhappy hand into the cold water of the sink, I
recalled when I was a young girl and my best friend had pulled a pot of hot
water from the stove onto her and wound up with severe burns on her stomach. I remember her pain, the blistering and
scars that she was left with. We
were young then, scared, ashamed and guilty, and were supposed to have learned
our lesson. And so, with shame and
guilt rushing back in that moment, I looked at my hand, and said “its not that
bad”. When I showed my friend, he
rushed out to his truck a started pulling out first aid kits, looking for those
little packets of burn cream one always sees in first aid kits. He settled on the best thing he could
find, Neosporin. When we parted
ways, he said, “take it” and also put a bag of ice together for me to help cool
it off as I drove home. Over the
next day, I tried a combination of colloidal silver, aloe, vitamin E, tamanu
oil and anything cold I could find to aid in the healing. I convinced myself that it was getting
better. I needed it to. I didn’t want to be the little girl who
had pulled the pan off the stove…and certainly didn’t want the blisters or the
scars. And I couldn’t be the one
to cry over spilled water. So, I
put on that tough exterior of “I can handle it” and went about my routine.
Yesterday, happy to have a Friday off, I hustled myself to
my favorite yoga class at my favorite yoga studio. Blessed. There
I was with a gaggle of friends and strangers to share a bit of sweat and
inspiration on a crisp Friday morning.
And as I laid out my mat, and the heat began to fill the room, I became
aware of my poor left hand…reminding me that I was human, and of that guilt and
shame for causing myself pain.
Would I be able to practice?
Surely it wasn’t that bad, it just looked awful. I pulled out the aloe I had shoved in
my bag and placed it at the edge of the mat, and practice began. Through out the class, I would be so
fully present in the poses that I would forget that burning I felt, but at
times, I stopped to lather a bit of aloe and treat myself with compassion and
ahimsa (to do less harm), making sure that I honored my tender hand. The end of class was graced with the
familiar, but never overdone reminder that yoga begins when we roll up our
mats. That what we learn about our
bodies, stretching, flexibility, challenge, balance and of course, ahimsa, is
how we strive to be in the ‘real world’.
That when class ends is when the real yoga begins: the yoga of our lives
and how we treat others and our world.
And closing with honoring our teachers, we moved from the sacred space
of class, into the sacred space of the universe.
In packing up, I took note of my hand, which had begun to
bubble with blisters, and clearly transitioning from how it had been previously
and not looking or feeling so great.
As I left class, I noticed a large first aid kit, and saw that it had those
little packets of burn cream I was unable to find the previous day. I opened the box and saw that there was
a stack of them, and ripped off one.
As I was doing this, one of the assistants approached me and I let him
know that I had burned myself and mentioned about grabbing one of the little
packets. He responded with
attitude about asking before just helping oneself and when I asked if it was
okay to use one, he told me I would need to ask one of the other staff. So I held on to the packet, spoke with
friends, and waited for the opportunity to ask the other staff member. When I finally did see him, and asked
if I could use one of the burn cream packets, he responded gruffly that I
should have asked first and that the first aid kit was “only in case of
emergency” but since I had already taken it, I could have it. I said I was sorry and returned the
packet of burn cream to the first aid kit. At that point it felt more like poison than medicine to aid
in my condition. There it was,
that shame again, for helping myself to the packet, for having burned myself
and for being vulnerable and reaching out for help. When I left the studio, I laughed it off the shock because I
could not imagine how the lesson of yoga preached moments before was so
irrelevant to the people that worked in the studio, who practiced right along
side of the rest of us. I laughed
because in that moment, I took yoga into the real world and exhaled the
attitude, stretched my mind about the lack of care and released the challenge
that anyone would put so much value on a small packet of burn cream that it
couldn’t be used by someone…all in the name of “in case of emergency”. It seemed more likely to me that the
response was driven by ego and a view of scarcity, rather than the love and
abundance that we hear about in the practice room, strive for in our practice,
and seek for our lives.
As I went through the day, I pondered the concept of “in
case of emergency”. Who decides
what is an emergency? How do we
know what we will need when that emergency comes? How much do we put aside “in case of emergency”? How much of our compassion? How much of our energy? How much of our love? How much of ourselves? What are we holding out for? Are we waiting for the building to burn
down? What do we hope to
gain? Will we be prepared when
that emergency finally comes? Will
that which we hoarded be needed or useful to us in that moment? And how will we know when and how to
pull out any of these things if we don’t do so in our daily lives?
For those you who know me, you know that I am not perfect
(despite my quest in younger years to be so) and that I work in the world of
emergencies. When things go to
chaos, I go to work. And that well
stocked first aid kit in that cushy studio in San Francisco, protected like it
was a prized possession kept haunting me because I have seen scarcity and work
in a world filled with elements of some emergency. We can grip to what we label as ours, but when an emergency
actually happens, one gets to realize that everything really is temporary and
that the true yogis are often not the people with the toned bodies and sticky
mats, who cling to a packet of burn cream like it is the last one they might
ever see (even though the Walgreens is one block away). The true yogis are those who not only
offer their words of wisdom, but those who would give away the last of what
they might have to help relieve someone else of some pain. And, today, those few uttered words
reminded of a group of such people.
In July 2002, I was deployed on a disaster response to the
island state of Chuuk (formerly Truk) in the Federated States of Micronesia, a
freely associated state of the United States. Two typhoons had barred down upon the island (and a number
of others in the pacific) and biblical rains left many homeless, injured and
dead. I was sent there with a group
of federal emergency responders.
We were from different branches of government, from fire fighters to
health care professionals to environmentalists (me) and were sent to perform
tasks associated with our field of expertise. Most of us had never been to this island nation before, and
were flown in on C-130s because the commercial flights were no longer flying
because of the devastation. We
were brought there to assess the damage, but because Chuuk was not part of the
US, our roles, activities and abilities were very limited. I was there to
assess hazardous materials releases, but was given no support to actually
cleanup or mitigate the releases. My
counterparts faced similar challenges, a 13 year old boy died while awaiting
medical transport, because resources we not approved. We were brought there to show that we (the US) was helping
this poor island nation, but did not have the resources or support to do
that. Because of the horrible
conditions, we came with our own medical support staff, and quickly became
increasingly aware of the lack of medical supplies and medical care available
to the people of Chuuk, who had been through the typhoons and were struggling
to survive.
An emergency response doctor, separate of our team, came in
from the US to help out and was quickly overwhelmed and ran low on
supplies. Our medical staff
offered to help, since our group was small and generally well, and he had
little to do during the day. When
he began to help with assessment of some of the injuries and illnesses, instead
of sitting in our camp doing nothing, he was served with a letter of reprimand and
removed from the island. We were
told that the medic and the supplies sent with him were “in case of our
emergency” and therefore they were not to be used for anyone else. The rest of us were directed not to
help any of the villagers. We were
threatened with disciplinary action.
What did we do? We gathered
all of our personal first aid kits and supplies and donated them to the
emergency doctors who had come to help the villagers. The EMTs and other staff on our team with medical experience
gathered their supplies and joined the team of emergency doctors providing
support to the villagers. I
demanded that the poisonous pesticides which were strewn all over a residential
area be addressed and didn’t let up until finally I was given the support to
bring in resources and get the area cleaned up. We gave what we had.
We did the best we could, and if we gave away our last band aid, we were
proud to do so, knowing that the person who received it needed it way more than
we did and that it was providing much more service on a human being than it was
sitting in a box waiting “in case of emergency”.
Its been a long time since I thought of those 20 people and
the 28 days we spent on that remote island, with much of the time feeling like
our hearts and our hands were strapped behind our backs. And yet, we got up each day, and tried
to do our best, despite the imperfect conditions. While none of us had stretchy pants, a yoga mat, or even a
safe space to sleep some nights, we had our hearts and our heads in the right
place. We worked together to help
in what ever way we could. To the
brave souls of the Joint Task Force Operation Chuuk State, FSM, I honor
you. Thank you for teaching me
yoga, way off the mat and in the real world: inside the lagoon and outside of
the box. May we never hold back
anything “in case of emergency”.
Namas te’.
