A Shot in the Light

Thursday, November 7, 2024

My Uncontrolled Experiment

The end of last week I was working on a long post about a book I was reading, a mostly melodramatic 1920s novel with a few surprise departures from the genre. Then, the election. Also, the apparent death of my laptop screen, if not the laptop itself. So, long draft not currently retrievable -- but anyway, really, who cares? Just as, who cares about inexplicable font changes in this post? Not intentional on my part.

Intentions, though. Choices. Large and small, trivial and life-changing.

This morning I found myself thinking back to a hospital room, years ago, a friend lying in the bed looking tiny and fragile and terrified. Her husband was there, my husband and I were present, and a nurse was hunting for a vein to do yet another (there had been so many!) blood draw, and everyone's natural response -- three of us in sympathy with the patient -- was to tighten our muscles in resistance and be angry with the nurse for taking so long, afraid of the pain that only one of us was directly experiencing. Then I thought, there in that hospital room, for the first time that I remember, how would such a response help? Conscious of having a choice, I asked myself if our physical response could make the situation better, easier for our friend. I didn't see how it could.

If anything, I thought, maybe it could worsen the situation! (These were all new thoughts to me.) Maybe the "energy" in the room would be affected (mysterious and vague language for what is beyond our understanding) or simply, more directly, we three might convey nonverbal messages to the patient, telling her, Tighten up! Be angry! Don't let that needle in!

Maybe not, of course. I had no evidence to go on that our sympathetic mimesis could increase my friend's pain; I was only sure her pain would not diminish if my body tightened in resistance to it. So I made a decision and very intentionally relaxed. Shifted into neutral. I tried to "send" -- well, there's no way to put it into words without sounding woo-woo. Anyway, that was my experiment.

Conclusion? Did it make a difference? I will never know.

But that scene came back to me because it's what I want to do today -- not make things worse, not deepen pain, not add to unhappiness -- in short, not give hate and despair the victory.

Not much of a story, is it? It's what I've got today. Take it or leave it.