Errand Day

Friday was my errand day.  

Goodwill to drop off and pretend hug Carolyn who works there, in the winter, she sits in her car to stay warm and gets out when I show up and hollers and grins and says, “you okay?!”  This is the middle of the pandemic and we are all watching out for each other a little more than usual.   Kind of like my favorite 3-lined poem I use as my signature on my email.

Farm country back road:
just like them I lift one finger
from the steering wheel
      Tom Clausen

Then on to the framer’s to get my finally finished way overdue embroidery of the alphabet in flowers framed to give Julia, my newly embroidering-on-sweatshirts granddaughter.

And next is Brownlee’s Jewelry to get my mother’s diamond necklace repaired for my daughter, Alice-Lyle, to have it.  We are finishing up at the front counter looking at silver necklaces for my Red Cross charms.  Then I heard this.  Though I did not understand it.

GET DOWN ON THE FLOOR!” he yelled.   The man with the hammer.  I didn’t’ understand what was happening in the split second.  I saw two men, one with a long-handled hammer.  Say what?   I was stunned into dumbfounded-ness and didn’t’ know it.  

I stayed standing. 

I turned back to the clerk.  He had, by this split second of time which seemed like hours, he had his hands up in the air and said, “My hands are in the air, sir.”  I didn’t’t see it but behind me there must have been a man with a gun.

Then the clerk, by now my Zen master,  turned to me and calmly said, “Ma’am, get down on the floor!”

I knew him by this time and just did what he said.  I am sure, I would have done anyway even if there were no men yelling in the store.  He had been very helpful, and I liked him.

So I went down on my knees and got into my familiar yoga class “child’s pose” curled  up like a ball, my face down on my folded arms, my purse and jewelry I was having repaired in my arms,  and stayed there while I heard glass breaking.  Over and over glass breaking.  I figured that is what the hammer was for.   And two guys yelling at each other to hurry up.

I was at my favorite jewelry store and the only customer and then all hell broke loose or you could say for the robbers all hell broke loose, the rest of us quiet and calm and biding our time, doing exactly what they asked.  I had the thought and relief that I was not recovering from shoulder surgery or knee replacement as I surely could not have gotten down on the floor. I was even happy, believe or not, about my fitness in that moment of being able to just do what I was told.

Then it was over.  The glass breaking ending and the yelling ended. I heard the doorbell sound as the door opened and closed.  Then silence.   I thought of the soldiers hearing helicopters after being in Vietnam and being anxious.  I wondered if I would feel the same about glass breaking over and over.  The silence, the PRECIOUS BEAUTIFUL SILENCE lasted a long time, though probably 2 seconds.

Then, in the quiet, clerk/teacher said I could get up .  I will take him a plate of cookies and this essay and learn his name.

Sometimes I am grateful for electricity and running water.

Today, I am grateful to be alive.

Electricity, running water, being alive. I take for granted.  

And I have my mother’s necklace which clerk/teacher repaired.  It is a Christmas present for Alice-Lyle.  My mother loved Alice-Lyle.

He said, get down on the floor and then the clerk said it too ma’ am, get down on the floor

And I could.  Repeated this over and over as I tell it.

Out of context, did these men at the jewelry store standing there with a gun and a hammer and then this man across from me with his hands in the air saying sir my hands are in the air and then saying to me to get on the floor, did they even know how good I am at getting on the floor and getting up again?