The edges seem small...

“The death rate for people who play it safe and

for those who live boldly is the same.”

- Patti Digh: Life is a Verb

“Just a note.” She said,  “If we have an earthquake you can exit the room on either side and go down the stairs.”

 “Just head outside and we will gather in the car park,” she continued.

The rest of her ‘housekeeping’ instructions indicated to the attendees when the breaks would be, where the bathrooms were and a little more about the events that were coming in the day.  Just par for the course in a country that experiences nearly 20,000 measureable earthquakes per year. 

It was Saturday morning in Wellington, New Zealand (Friday afternoon in my home state of Arizona), I was sitting in a small regional spine meeting, and as the morning unfolded, reminded how similarly spinal conditions are treated all over the world.

The “Just a note…” comment also made me think of how the unexpected can so quickly take everything away.  As I looked around the room situated on the third floor of the building, I briefly wondered if a really big one came, whether her instructions would make any difference…if a really big one hit, this building sitting on slopes of a hillside on edges of Wellington harbor…well, I suspected it would be gone.

It was almost as if, that by getting safety instructions, we were given a sense of security...if things quickly went badly, we would have at the very least a strategy for survival…a talisman against impending danger.

I filed her comments away, grabbed a cup of coffee and settled in for the conference.

For some, these kinds of instructions produce the opposite effect. 

“If she had not brought up the possibility of a dangerous event, I would not have thought about it.  Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m freaking out!”

Playing ‘not to lose’ is a difficult and paralyzing way to engage the game of life - always fearing the worst when considering what may or may not lie ahead.  Ancient sailors, when reaching the edges of the known world, would say concerning unknown dangers beyond the reaches of their understanding, “…here be dragons…”

Over the next few days, I will carry on my life with a hearty people, pretending there be no dragons in the compartmentalized world within my mind, as though I am not in an insanely dangerous city, having come here by an insanely dangerous method of travel, in an insanely dangerous world. 

So the day will come and with the smallest of garment of safety instructions, as if knowing where the ‘emergency exits and bathrooms’ are, will be enough.  The amazing thing is that, so far, it seems to have been enough.

Now if I can just find that cup of coffee…

- ted