Gathering Places
Gathering Places
IT is twilight, just getting dark, and Waikiki is crowded. As I drive along busy streets, I see a bicycle moving fast. The man is pumping steadily, hunched intently, like an acrobat on a high wire. One mistake is all it would take in this traffic. There is no room for error. He is all attention, lips closed, arms firm. Help is right at the
end of your armPerched behind him on a bar that runs through the rear axle stands a woman. She stands straight, still and tall. Her hands grasp his shoulders lightly. Not even her head moves. They are one in balance, their bodies tight and light with precision.
There are no frills here. They wear pants and shirts of no description, neutral and unimportant; there are no flapping clothes or mouths. They do not speak; they do not smile. They are intent; it is precision work. Perhaps the thrill comes from riding at death's edge. It comes from calling forth skills one has meticulously honed. It comes from knowing that one's life sometimes depends on oneself alone.
It is ballet: He is Baryshnikov, she his ballerina. They move as one through the darkening street, past swift and darting cars. As he turns the corner fast, they lean as one into the turn, and then they are gone.
In society today, we don't often experience the feeling of depending solely on ourselves. Most of us work in situations along with others where together we make decisions about ideas, about paperwork, or about the work that other people do. Rarely do these decisions make a critical difference to our own, or to anyone's, life or death.
There are jobs that are potentially life-threatening: working in construction 30 stories high on the skeleton framework of a building; handling the cooling mechanism in a nuclear power plant; racing a thoroughbred horse down a track. Even in these, our safety depends in part on the skill and diligence of those around us. Rarely do we think to ourselves: If I get this wrong, I may die.
A hundred years ago, many of our lives depended on the work of our own hands. Over the years, increasing technology has separated us from the reality of our own effort, our own survival. Today a computer screen is our reality, refashioning us into some new vision of what we once were. Sometimes we feel like we are wheeling out of control; sometimes we have no control at all over our own lives, and our own survival.
When I was sailing across the Pacific in small boats, a thousand miles from any land, I was often afraid. As I lay in my bunk at night listening to the pounding and the whoosh of the ocean three centimeters from my ear through the skin of the boat, I made my mental plans for escape. I imagined the boat dark with water pouring in and feeling and fighting my way up to the deck, grabbing survival gear if I could, if I had time.
The skipper and I talked a few times about what we would do if the boat sank. We talked about the many boats with inexperienced sailors aboard who expect help from the Coast Guard when they get into trouble, or help from another ship that might be close by.
But the skipper said we shouldn't assume that anyone will be able to help us, that ultimately we must help ourselves. His final comment has remained with me over the years: "When you're in trouble and you're looking for help, you should look at the end of your arm."
Colleen Soares is an instructor of English as a second language at Hawaii Pacific University.