Disgraced

Dear Kate,

What a beautiful day.

So beautiful that one is tempted to call it perfect without knowing what perfection is.  One is also tempted to resist it, to walk away from it, to deny it's all grace after all.  How is one to justify any self-pity after receiving the gift of such a day?

Grace we have to acknowledge everyday and in every way.  Like thanking your parents for paying the family's hydro bills: how ridiculous, how redundant.  A consensus should have been reached a long time ago that, yes, we are thankful if we need to speak about the topic, but to speak about the topic all the time we would need to be full of nothing but thanks.

Well, we can't be.

Life sucks, often, and mostly, we say, it ain't our own sucking.  For every decent moment there's always a bigger bad one to nullify it, baggage not ours but we must carry.  Grace goes from being an exception to utterly exceptional.  As long as there is room for improvement, thankfulness can only be tentatively entertained, Providence a rumor.

Entitlement, instead, is much more efficient and effective, gives our entire being a good exercise.

I was on the bus this morning, a long ride to a place not too far off.  You are always at the mercy of someone else's schedule, whims and neglects, when you are not in the driver's seat.  A lady came on the first bus, disabled and in a big scooter, announced her presence by asking everyone to move away: "I need this space to be cleared."  I was at a place where I didn't think was in her way (and in fact I wasn't), but close enough that she gave me a look that I should know better to give her a wider berth than she could use.  Everybody should know by now I am entitled to this space to maneuver, she stared and grunted, a consensus should have been reached a long time ago, no need for repeating, folks.

My stop was also hers, I went for the train and she apparently another bus.  "Right on," she said, seeing her next bus pulling in as our bus stopped.  Half way up the stairs to my train I heard loud bus horns.  I looked out the glass wall and right away knew who did what to whom: the lady's second bus has already pulled off before she could get herself out of the first, and the first bus driver was trying to stop the second, to no avail.  "Right off."

I stayed at where I looked out and tried to imagine the lady's nexts: her next thought, next emotion, next action, the whole strenuous exercise routine.  There must be many priors to justify them all: always at the mercy of other people's grace, always less than graceful others have been.  She pulled out her phone, probably called the bus company about her being disentitled, disenfranchised, dis-graced.  Maybe some advocate can turn her story into a headline.

Curse this beautiful day, for all the graces it has promised and left unfulfilled, undone.

Yours, Alex