Nothing Happened
14 January 2009
Philadelphia, PA
Yesterday morning I went through the back gate onto Pastorius Street, a narrow lane actually, on my way to the train station. As I was walking, I saw a young man crouched down next to his dog.
Suddenly, the dog lurched away - teeth bared - and began sprinting toward me.
Now then. A bit about the dog. He (I think it was a he) had the build of a large bulldog, brown in color. He didn't have that typical bulldog snout. I guess he is a mix of some sort. As he was running toward me, I noticed how wide he was. Odd thought, but there you have it.
Back to the lurching away and sprinting toward me part of the story. The dog moved surprisingly quickly and was clearly headed right toward me. As he got closer, he lept also surprisingly high for someone built so close to the ground.
Here is where the story takes a strange turn for me - literally and figuratively. All I did was make a sort of pivot, like opening a gate. When I did that, the dog just flew right past me landing a few feet behind me and sliding along the asphalt on the road. As he flew past, I felt his paw touch my leg and his shoulder lightly graze my arm. But that was it.
By then the young man had come running past me to regain control of his dog. The young man was very upset and began chastising his pet peppering him with "Bad dog. Bad dog." Then he apologized to me saying, "He is usually quite gentle, but sometimes you just never know..."
I continued walking down the lane as if nothing happened. The young man then called out to me asking if I was OK, and if my clothing were torn. I said, "No, I'm OK. I'm fine."
Then I noticed something strange - there was no adreneline rush; no rapid heart beat. No trauma. No images racing trough my head about "what might have happened". In that moment I came to the realization: Nothing happened.
There was a dog being dog. One aspect of being dog is a sudden, unpredictable need to lurch and lunge. And there was this self encountering this dog. In that moment I somehow felt, somehow knew, what "dog being dog" means. And so along with that awareness in some way there was an awareness that this self was also a kind of no-self.
I recall now moving in a way that might have been an aikido move. I don't know for sure because I never studied aikido. What I do know is that the move took almost no effort. It was as if this self/no-self, who somehow knew what dog being dog meant, also knew the absolute minimal effort that was needed to move out of the way. And the little street seemed wider, a bit more spacious.
When I called back to the young man that I was fine, I really meant it. I was just as fine as when I walked through the back gate just a few minutes before, and I was just fine as I continued on to the train station. The exact same fine - no more and no less.
The only echo I took away from the whole encounter was from the young man who said, "... sometimes you just never know."
So, that's the story, or no story, about nothing happening to no one.
X
Later in the day (and I am just now making a connection the morning after) I met with a client - a social worker in oncology at a large teaching hospital in Philadelphia. Her patients all have head and neck cancer, so the pain and suffering she encounters is profound. Anyway, she is pretty burned-out, and is dealing with the after-effects of one of her client's suicide. She is more anxious now. More hypervigalent and compulsive. She is determined to not have that ever happen again.
There has been no one she could talk to about all that she is carrying. No way to release it. I sat with her as she teared-up, and I said that she could talk to me about it all, and that it would not be a burden. And I knew in that moment what she does not yet know - she is fine, just fine.
Sometimes you just never know.