June 4, 2015
Most days, I carry my little blue bike out the front door and down a flight of stairs to street-level and use my little legs and two wheels to get to school. It’s usually a 15 minute ride, give or take, depending on the traffic and the amount of road/sidewalk construction around which I have to navigate. These days, the rides are extraordinarily hot, and I’m all sweaty-like by the time I walk in the door for lecture. Air conditioning is a nice thing.
The pedestrian traffic around the med center is pretty heavy, so by the time I get close to school I often find myself saying “excuse me….sorry, thank you so much…” to people of all sorts walking in front of me on the sidewalk. This morning, there were two heavy-set janitor/maintenance guys near the parking garage. One had a long dark braid down his back. They were chatting about life and the day in front of them. “Excuse me, sirs,” I said politely. They each took to a patch of grass on either side of the path to let me through. “Sorry, ma’am. We didn’t hear you coming!” Oh, no worries at all…thank you so much!
A few turns of the wheel later I glanced down to see a fat, long worm flip-flopping on the hot cement. Without so much as a second thought, I dismounted, put down my kick stand, wrestled with the little guy until I could grab him, and tossed him aside into the grass. I didn’t think much of the effort–it was instinct, really. I then remembered the men behind me and realized that, with my abrupt stop, they were probably close to catching up. So as to not cause them to have to slow their pace waiting for me to go, I hurriedly hopped back onboard and began to continue on my way. As I reached for the handlebars, the one with the dark braid looked at me with teary eyes and said, “that was awfully kind of you.”
“Well, he was going to die on the hot cement!” I exclaimed.
“He sure was,” the gentle man said. “He sure was.”
“Have a wonderful day, sirs!” I shouted back behind me.
“You too, ma’am. You too.”
Now I don’t always dismount to save soon-dead earthworms from frying on hot sidewalks. In fact, before this morning, it had been a while since I’d done so. But as I parked my bike and walked into school, it gave me pause. Why would I do such a thing…ever? It’s only an earthworm. There are millions of others. Millions of them die every day. Plus, stopping made me sweatier. It was an inconvenience. It made me arrive two minutes later than I would have had I continued on my way, and two extra minutes to study for my impending OB quiz would have been crucial.
I don’t really have any answers that make sense. But what I can say is this: there is something that happens in my soul, in our souls, when we make a hard stop and do something for someone (or something) else that benefits us in no otherwise tangible way. I cannot explain why, upon seeing that little worm, I completely cut off my hyperfocus of needing to get to school and, without second thought, hopped off my bike to save him. I really cannot. Sometimes, things like that simply aren’t measurable by our limited human standards. But maybe my inconvenient kindness made that pony-tailed man’s heart stir just a little. Maybe he’ll remember my act when he’s confronted with an annoying co-worker later today and think to himself, “if a little sweaty blonde girl can save an insignificant earthworm, I suppose I can be kind to the human standing in front of me.”
Or maybe, next time he sees a dying earthworm, he’ll think to stop and toss it into the grass.
Maybe you will, too.
missjordanjean 