Jan. 27, 2003 - 22:23 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Sanctuary

It isn't flu, had my shots, so it must be some other kind of virus. Hopefully of the short lived kind. It might explain my trip through the mire of despair yesterday.

Achy, runny and generally miserable today.

As in other times of trouble I do a Ziggy and visit the past for a short few.

We had a pastime for a time when I was a kid. It was based on trust and adventure. One of us would volunteer to be blindfolded and the other would give us a kerchief or piece of clothes line rope to be led by. The object of the game was for the blindfolded one to say where the two of them were at the moment of stopping.

It was a pastime that only friends who trusted each other would mutually engage . Somewhat similar to the act of deliberately falling backward, knowing the person behind you would catch you before your head hit the floor.

Being young all our senses were probably as sharp as they would ever get, except in experience. Every sense available to the blindfolded one would be used. When it was my turn it would often be my ears hearing our feet on the surface just before stopping and being asked, "Where are we ?" that would give me an idea -- that and the elapsed time. Sometimes it would be my ears that came to the fore. I would hear a noise unique to the place we were. A streetcar passing on Pearl Street was a give away, and the squeal of the wheels let me know that we were at Evans and Pearl where the street car turned the corner. Maybe my nose would tell me were in front of the Holland Bakery or I would get a whiff of the distinctive smell of the drug store. Going down an alley often it would be a case of the nose knows as a different smell came from different yards and trash cans.

If the walk was long enough and twisty turney enough I could be led to a spot that was soft underfoot that had no clue to give away where I was. It would be a very short bit of time -- any longer I could then guess we were on the grass in the park.

Being a ding dong fool in later years I would close my eyes as I walked in the power plant where I worked, having a specific goal in mind and trying to make it by sound and smell alone. I got to where I could go short distances and even making a turn or two going blind. Guiding myself by the sounds coming from different machines and the smell of some of them, it was fairly easy to move around without falling over something other than my own feet.

Often in my life I have had the feeling that I was "flying blind" once again, only without the blindfold. Still at times in interpersonal relationships it is hard to understand what lies below the surface of another person's desires or feelings.

I feel as I am flying blind at times in trying to judge just how bad Heather feels and what I can do to help. She has a bad habit of mentally gritting her teeth and saying, "I'm okay," but there are little give aways that let me know she is not okay -- I am truly flying blind there.

So some times when I am sick and uncomfortable I do as Ziggy does, not live in the past but go for a pleasurable visit to the timeless Sanctuary . . . . . . . .

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