Smooth Ray was having a normal Sunday recently, until it wasn’t.
Funny how time appears to pass like that — bifurcated into Before and After around a never-ending stream of events, most of which we don’t notice.
Some moments, however, are impossible to miss. I’d been shopping for groceries. It was taco night, naturally …
Outside in the parking lot, I put the groceries in the car, closed the door and the world shifted.
There was a moment. Before, it was a good day. After, different.
I’d closed the car door on my finger. How? Who can say. I’ve closed a car door thousands of times without injuring myself.
The universe shifted, the order of operations changed, the door closed and the finger remained.
At first, there was just space … The pain was barely noticed. No sound.
For a moment, as if watching a movie, I could still see the frame of a good day. The injury seemed so small.
In fact the injury was small — just the very end of my index finger. Yet the pain seemed to grow as the day progressed.
It was disorienting to feel so much pain around such a small wound.
I tried meditating. I listened to a wonderful talk on opening up to pain. Thirty seconds in: “Of course, if you slam your hand in a car door, the opportunity to be able to open around that and investigate is going to be very slight, if at all — unless you have worked some with your minor headaches.”
I laughed deliriously. Point taken.
Eventually, the pain seemed more like this ….
At times, the pain filled the entire frame.
Wish that I could say eventually Smooth Ray found his meditation groove and fell asleep with the pain hovering above like a blanket. However, it was meditation and vodka, truth be told. Eventually I fell asleep and woke up to …
An entirely different pain. Diffuse. Manageable. Present but not persistent.
The finger is healing, but the experience leaves a memory.
So much pain. Such a small wound.
How did it happen? And what can be learned?
There was a moment where I observed my body reacting to the pain while my attention focused elsewhere.
Maybe somewhere in there is the difference between pain and suffering.
