A couple of things that immediately come to mind when I think about David, my blog-babysitter this past week:
— I was in a Barnes & Noble in Chicago. I sat in the same position for 3 hours, reading, with my leg curled up under me. So when I stood up – I had completely lost the feeling in one of my legs – and my ankle snapped beneath me, and I pitched forward, crashing into a book case, throwing my hot coffee wildly into the air. All hell broke loose. People rushed around me, I was writhing about in pain on the floor, my ankle had puffed out like a blow-fish … and why was an ambulance not called? I do not remember. I hopped on one foot to a public payphone and, of course, called David. He answered – and I wasn’t crying or anything – just kind of manic, “I need help – I fell down – my ankle – I can’t walk!!” And David immediately became Mr. Savior Man. Like: all business. Completely focused, and completely calm. The kind of energy you want in an emergency! He said, “Stay right where you are. I’ll be right there.” 10 minutes later, there was David, pulling up outside of the Barnes & Noble. He drove me home, and by this point I was in a shrieking amount of pain (it turned out it was just a strain – I didn’t break it, nothing like that). David was calm, cool, collected. I lived on the 3rd floor. I stared at the steps, completely overwhelmed by them. David, unfazed, scooped me up in his arms and carried me up the stairs. The second he picked me up I started raving about how I needed to go on a diet, and I was sorry about my weight, and I needed to lose a couple pounds … David let me rant and rave and just marched up the flights of stairs, like Rhett Butler.
— He was my audition partner for grad school. That’s a story in and of itself which I will tell someday when I have more time. He and I were both so nervous, so worked up, so INSANE that it was like we transcended the flesh. Hard to describe. We became buzzing bolts of energy and nerves, as opposed to human beings. The audition itself ended up being beyond our wildest dreams. It was spontaneous, it was messy, it was emotional – we were so out of control that we couldn’t WAIT to go up on stage and get RID of all that energy. Sometimes when you’re that nervous, you “choke”. But he and I both knew, in the half an hour leading up to my audition slot, that we wouldn’t choke. We knew (without speaking about it) that we needed to just get up there and put all of that shite, all of our TERROR, into the words Tennessee Williams wrote. It was out of control. One of the most memorable days ever. And of course, with an audition like that, I totally got in.
— I stood on a deserted train platform in White Plains. There was a thunderstorm. I had just missed the train to Grand Central and had to wait an hour. I was already in the middle of one of the worst trips of my life. It took me 20 hours to get from Chicago to New York … door to door. In a normal state of mind, that would have been an annoyance. But this was the summer of 2000, and I was not in a normal state of mind. Which is putting it mildly. For various reasons I won’t go into, I was a mess. Not just a mess. But out of control, hysterical, pacing about talking to myself, praying out loud – IN PUBLIC – etc. And I felt like the universe was conspiring against me, in making my trip so arduous, so long. Nothing was easy. There was no comfort for me. Anywhere. I was all alone. I was out of control. I had no perspective. No one could save me. Or help me. I RACED up the train steps and watched the train pull away. I started losing it again. (I had hyperventilated at O’Hare – something that had never happened to me before. Terrifying. I felt like I was dying and actually called out randomly, at the airport “Is there a doctor anywhere? I think I need a doctor!” Heh. I’m a person who NEVER makes scenes. And that whole long terrible day was one long scene. A doctor did come over to me and took one look at me and told me I was having a panic attack. He gave me some water. Told me to breathe. BUT I COULD NOT. The panic kept building and building … I could not get rid of it.) So hours and hours later – I stood on the empty platform, thunder crashing in the sky, and started getting frightened. Nobody knew where I was. No one. No one knew I had been traveling since 9 am that morning. I could die, and no one would know. At least not for a couple of days. That thought was actually kind of a relief, in the state I was in. To disappear … ahhh … to not exist anymore … I yearned for non-existence – I just needed a REST. That’s all!
I do not know what prompted me to pick up the phone – but I did. Some shred of self-preservation still existed, some sense that I didn’t have to be alone, that I WASN’T alone. So I called David COLLECT. And he stayed with me on the damn phone until the next train came. I don’t even know what I said to him. I was raving, I was incoherent, I was crying, I couldn’t catch my breath, I was talking to God, I was yelling at God …. If you can get a picture of all that in your mind, then that was where I was at.
And David would not hang up until I told him the next train was pulling in.
I felt horrible about it after I hung up … like: Jesus. He must be out of his mind with worry.
But he was there for me. Calm, sympathetic … and comforting. Because what was lacking in my life on that platform was comfort. No end in sight. To the pain, the loss. Also no end in sight to my damn trip!! I still couldn’t get home somehow, I still had hours to go before I got to my bed. The universe denying me comfort, the universe denying me the soothing hand across the forehead, the soft voice saying, “Sheila, everything is going to be all right.”
Well that’s what David said to me. “Sheila, everything is going to be all right. Eventually. Not now, but eventually. You. Are Going. To be all right.”
He saved my life that night. Can you get that? In more ways than one.
