Montague to Rutledge, cross Calhoun

On the way to the hospital, she walked westward on Montague. Victorian house after pink-yellow-blue victorian house, sequential private gardens in waning September bloom warmly radiated with the subtle perfume of roses. Soft, blush pink petals littered the stone slab sidewalk. Sounds of a drill and someone dropping a large peice of wood startled a gathering of sparrows, and they flitted away into a shady row of unruly ligustrum.

She knew this street so well, she could have walked it blind-folded. Stepping over an up-ended block of gray slate, she thought about an article she had read the other day. Something about the gravitational wave detector GEO600, at Fermilab. Something about a theory that the universe is just a gigantic hologram. Anecdotally, this foggy notion of some crazy physics theory suddenly made a lot of sense. Afterall, it did seem like she had been doing the same things for years. Either working or being sick. One or the other, chasing each other around the loop of time, like two little butterflies playing in a field of dandelions.

The routine drive into town. The same 14 traffic lights. The same parking garage. The same winnowing rose bushes. The same cluster of doves. Sameness ruled her every waking moment. She may as well have been a hologram on this day, again walking alone to the hospital. Again chasing an unknown pain, following it to an unknown end.

As she entered Rutledge Tower, the claustrophobia-inducing smell of unwashed human flesh took her by surprise. An immediately pungent presence, it was made all the more so because it was experienced in such bold contrast to the fragrant smells of the neighborhood she had left outside the glass revolving doors.

Slate sidewalk slabs baking in September sun, radiating a sublime scent of warm iron. Rose scented September wind, tinged with salt, shrimp, and pluffmud. A building full of people who have not bathed, nor brushed their teeth, nor washed their hair - it was not a polite greeting.

Her gaze pinballing from one face to the next, to the wall, to the carpet, to the flourescent lights - she methodically scanned the lazy seascape of infirm bodies. The confines of the room were brimming with people who were aged, in wheelchairs, morbidly obese, walking slowly by with canes, scooting down the hall with walkers, falling in and out of consciousness while sitting, head bobbing, in a chair.

Infirmity pulled like gravity on everyone wandering the first floor, near the entryway. In the face of each diminished soul, she noticed with increasing panic, the tell-tale lack of the life-spark. That delicate glint and glimmer of electric, animal energy, erased from their eyes by the sucking forces of illness.

She felt distinctly not of them. She was not like them. She was there, in a state hospital, but she was not one of them. She was different. She was healthy. She was strong. She was very far from falling apart; far from falling to the earth in a helpless heap of ailment.

A short elevator ride to the sixth floor, and she found herself at the reception desk of the Neurology Department. After signing in, and nervously surveying the room for a clock, she slid into a chair, trying not to be noticed. It took a few minutes for her to realize the obvious defensive posture she was carrying around. Her arms crossed over her stomach, clutching her purse too close to her body, her eyes downcast, staring blankly, defiantly away from all the others. It took her a few minutes to recognize that her withdrawal was hurtful to the rest of them. One by one, the other patients eyes were darting to her face, and quickly away, back down to their feet. It was a sad game of hide and seek, in a room full of people wanting to be seen, needing to be heard.

Humble.

It is a humbling experience to be sick and not know why, nor how to fix yourself. Of all the people in that room, it was safe to assume, they were each suffering - wrestling with physical pain; but even worse, confusion. Fear.

When a person finds herself in the vulnerable position of being a patient in the waiting room of the Neurology Department at a state teaching hospital, she will instinctually find herself depending on the kindness of strangers. Without really knowing why, she will find herself depending on a smile, and the nonverbal acknowledgement that everyone present is in this together - that everyone present is in pain, and afraid, and that the reality each person is grappling with is difficult and unwieldy.

She will come to understand that, in this place of uncertainty, while yeilding to the sheer, brute force of nature upon an immortal soul quivering within a mortal body - this is where the human heart will grasp - with hands shaken by glee, gratitude, and abiding hunger - any amount of kindness, even if it is just a smile. The human heart will search the room, just for a smile.

A smile will be enough to tarry the fear for just one moment longer.