Wait, what happened?

“As accidental as my life may be, or as that random humor is, which governs it, I know nothing, after all, so real or substantial as myself" - Anthony Ashley Cooper

God, how brief and powerful we are. Leaving breadcrumb trails of chaos and brilliance as we go, hoping to revisit those moments in which we choose to define ourselves - revisit the accidents we would later deem as our finest moments. Because in reality, it's all an accident. An ongoing change in plans that will never truly be what you had anticipated. 

You know those moments when all these aspects of your life seem to intervene in one, obscure place? One that on any other day you would let slide from you, allow to be washed clean with sleep. But on the day you decide to really look, allow yourself to collaborate with the world even if only a minute scale, something opens up to you. You feel as though your bones are in tune with the rotation of the earth - that you can only exist on the most organic level there is. Nothing is foreign, nothing is at war, nothing can disrupt what you know as "myself." 

It had been raining all morning, putting Andrew and I into a haze. But there was a guitar he wanted to show me, so we went. Sitting in a far corner, I let my eyes close and listened as his hands played a number of familiar melodies he had picked up over the years. Things only he, the musician, would hear differently on this guitar as opposed to his own. Once with his capo, once without. Once on body with a cut-out, once without. Once on a nylon-string, once on a metal. I caught myself drifting when Ivo approached us, his head turned into what Andrew was playing. 

He was reserved, embarrassed almost of his accent, but eager to talk. He was from Brazil, he explained, and wished he could play Flamenco guitar the way Andrew had taught himself. There was nothing special in the meeting, not really. I coaxed Andrew into admitting he had been trying to learn Portuguese for awhile, and listened as Ivo taught him some phrases. His mouth contorted as he tried to slow down the guttural noises of his native language for Andrew to perceive indefinitely. 

I asked if he knew any Bossa Nova. He did, smiling childishly as he tuned his guitar. It was then, when the room was empty except for the three of us, the impending rain casting our bodies in deep shades of gray, that I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of peace. We really take for granted the things in one another that connects us to this earth. For this man, these songs were his home, a stepping stone in his career as a musician, the soundtrack to his childhood. It was one of many things that created Ivo, and that we were lucky enough to witness.

I had a similar experience the following night while waiting alone for the nurse to start an IV. 

It was close to 9 PM and Andrew had ventured off to find food. The nurse had told me she needed to start therapy because of my severe dehydration.. It wasn't so much the pain I suppose that scared me, but the idea of this foreign thing siting in my vein, pumping me full of salt and drugs. 

So I sat, waiting, my brain turning over itself. Should I ask them to wait until Andrew was back? Or would I pretend to be the brave woman I wished I was? I dimmed the lights of the room, standing half-naked over my bed, scanning my body for some unseen illness. This was the place where people came to die, after all. There had to be something wrong with me to deserve all this pain. "Unwarranted" would not suffice. I heard a soft knock and slid back under the tattered blanket Andrew had found among a number of cabinets. 

My nurse was young, blonde, and tired. Her face course from a 15-hour shift. I whimpered a hello, watching as her small hands worked swiftly to unpack what was to be my IV. I swallowed hard, exhaling loudly to catch her attention. 

"I'm pretty scared of these things." I admitted, attempting to smile. Removing her rubber gloves, she patted my hand, her skin uneven to the touch. "It's okay." 

It wasn't that comforting, but she tried. I had never met this woman in my life and most likely would never see her again, but for these few minutes, we were inextricably interconnected. I tried not to hold my breath, and she promised to do her best. That was all we could ask of one another. I yelled anyway, sounding to most in the hall outside my door like Steve Carell in the waxing scene of "40-Year-Old Virgin." But it was over with, and I was proud of myself when Andrew walked in looking surprised that I had gone it alone.  

We all need to feel like we belong to something bigger than us. We need to know that we can approach a stranger, whether to talk guitars or to admit we're afraid, because it means we're still human on a human level. Not simply people who go through life without seeing the forest for the trees. And when we can recognize one another for our strengths, not our weaknesses, we set one another free. And most importantly, we give ourselves permission to be "us", inherently, regardless if accidental or not.