Molasses

Biking against the wind on the way home today felt like a good physical manifestation of the thick muddle my mind has been in lately with thoughts pouring slow like molasses instead of the usual electrical storm. To fly down to LA or not to fly down to LA seems to be the question tripping me up. By all accounts the answer seems to be: go. I could be on a plane now or at least on my way to the airport, but I'm not.

Saturday night a girl sitting a few feet from me had an episode on BART. Between 12th Street and West Oakland station, she stood up in the aisle and started frantically removing her outer layers saying it was too hot and she couldn't breathe. Shortly thereafter she fell to the ground as if in a faint, but did not appear to lose consciousness. I was so close but another passenger much farther away sprang to her feet and took charge of the situation. She sat the girl down and started interrogating her friends. Has she taken any drugs? No! they exclaimed, we only ate chocolate cake. The girl still claimed to be having trouble breathing and at one point started screaming as much, or, rather, alternated shouts of 'I can't breathe!' with high pitched screaming. I found this to be a somewhat comforting affirmation of her ability to breathe, at least for now. What do you think is the matter with her, the woman asked the girl's friends. Paralyzed! they answered in unison. I could see the girl's hands locked stiff with the fingers straight out. Another passenger contacted the driver to report the emergency and called 911. The girl appeared to be improved by the time we reached the station, though she was still acting in that funny way people act when they're not all there. The woman who had been on the phone with emergency services was visibly shaken and collapsed against the wall after re-boarding the train. Tears dripped helplessly from the corner of her eye. Will she be alright?? she wanted to know, feeling a cocktail of shock at having witnessed what could have ended much worse (and still might for all she knew) and guilt for not having somehow done the impossible and fixed everything herself. We guessed that it might be some sort of diabetic shock. By 'we' I mean other voices on the train. I thought about how I could get up and hug that woman to say out loud that she'd done all she could and to reassure her that the girl will be alright. But I just sat there and called the friend I was supposed to meet in San Francisco to tell him there had been a delay.

I do think that girl was probably fine, and my grandmother appears to be as improved as one could hope an 87 year old woman to be a week after major surgery, but something doesn't feel right about it.