Shattered Glass

Those of you who come here often know that I’m a creature of habit. I like my routines. One of my favorite routines is my morning walk with Taxi before dawn. It charges me up for the day ahead, wakes my body, and clears the remaining cobwebs of sleep from my mind.  Being a creature of habit, I predictably follow the same route. Yesterday was, of course, no exception. I headed out and said hello to the night watchman in the Bed & Breakfast at the end of my street as I always do. A couple of minutes later, I bumped into the gang of octogenarian joggers who stop me to coo at Taxi every morning. Several blocks later, I waved into the café where my favorite baker was busy kneading dough just like he does every day. In between the regular early morning greetings and habitual waving at acquaintances, I disappeared into the world inside my own head as my feet went on autopilot the way they normally do. About half an hour into my trek, I suddenly discovered that the pavement was glinting as though a million stars had fallen down from the sky. My first thought was, “Oh, how pretty.” A split second later, I yanked Taxi from the ground and into my arms as I realized the pretty glitter was shattered glass.When I looked around, I caught sight of a group of people gathered outside a building ahead of me. More accurately, they were standing in front of the remains of a building. There had been a gas leak which resulted in an explosion and all that was left of the building was a broken heap of smoldering rubble.   I shuddered as it hit me that if it hadn’t taken the octogenarians longer than usual to admire Taxi, he could have been hurt by the blast. Belatedly, standing in the deceptively pretty broken glass, I thought about the lives the explosion must have shattered. It made me think that, despite our so-called evolution into civilized beings and our fancy new-fangled technology, we’re as fragile and breakable as butterflies in a storm.   Anything could happen at any given moment to shatter our worlds. As I gaped at the skeleton of the leveled building, I told myself that even if I’m having a crappy day that goes wrong in a hundred ways (those days happen), I should remind myself to be grateful that I’m alive, that I’m here now and able to complain about my crappy day. The alternative is incomparably worse.