From the Brain of Dr. Nicki: Blow Job

Saturday morning. I have plans. I’m going to the memorial of dear John Morgan about whom I blogged here a couple weeks ago. Afterwards there are things to be done. Preparations to make for the remaining weekend and upcoming week. People to see. Work to do.

The day proceeds. The memorial is spectacular. Participant speakers span 47 years of this 52 year old man’s life. People from when he was 5 and in high school, undergraduate school, graduate school, and now. Impressive and moving. The many attendees sitting in the huge UCLA auditorium laugh and cry as the stories pour forth. I cry and laugh too. Continuously. At one point I think: “I’ve got to get more people in my life! How full will my auditorium be?!”

On to the next moment. My plans. Hubby leaving tomorrow. I can’t wait to talk about the gorgeous memorial.  Yes, I have plans. For the day. For the weekend. For my entire existence.

But life has other plans. As life tends to do.

It all happens in an eye blink. Me, not quite home but instead folded under another freeway car….my brand new car’s front end crumpled like a thrown-away piece of paper…my stunned body inside a cocoon of airbags. Later I’m told in any other car I’d be dead. Plans? Plans blown. And what a blow job it is!

I should be terrified. But really, I’m not. Mostly I’m just…uh… interested.

Actually, as it turns out I’m immediately fine! Truly fine. Alive. Completely unharmed, but for a few bruises. And a totaled vehicle.

In the dead car graveyard where I get towed there’s a fellow lingering beside his hurt BMW. His wife, whose demeanor instantly advertises she’s not been in car during her husband’s accident, stands beside him. She looks at my poor mangled auto and says compassionately to me: “Are you alright??!!??” “Yes”, I reply, “quite fine.” I then turn to him: “Are YOU alright?” I query. “I’m pissed,” he responds instantly. “Aren’t you pissed?” he continues. “No,” I answer, “I went straight to gratitude! After all, we’re alive. Here to tell the tale.”  His wife stands behind him vigorously shaking her head yes, yes. “Hmm…gratitude,” he ponders,” Maybe I’ll try that!” I laugh.

And it was true. Gratitude. I was and am fairly bursting with it. The entire day had been about living – generously, unself-consciously, vivaciously living. John did it. So do I.

I often say all important matters are about life & death….the rest is just…stuff. That’s an easy idea to promote, wonderful to know, sometimes hard to remember. Indeed, getting caught in the net of our miniscule preoccupations takes us out of the entire point of this exquisite, miraculous experience we get to have, called living. Luckily, this day -- this precarious day -- I move directly into this wisdom. Years of practice help. Immediate surrender turns the key.

So make all the plans you want. We all do. But keep in mind, life is talking to you every minute, making its own plans. Sometimes it whispers, like a simple breeze across your cheeks; and sometimes it shouts, like an animal in dreadful pain. Either way, your job is to see, hear and allow.

And if you stay awake, I promise, no matter what happens THIS can be the best day ever. If only you contact and remember your profound, real gratitude for Being Alive.