365 Days of Jazz Hands - Day 106

TUESDAY, APRIL 16th, 2013  

I woke today as many others did, to find the world still spinning.  As it does so, I suppose we shall continue to stumble and fall down.  Inevitably, we will find a way to pick ourselves back up again, knowing full well that the vicious cycle will do what vicious cycles do, proof positive that we are resilient when unreasonable obstacles arise.

I had an entry ready for publishing yesterday, but held off submitting it due to the day's unfortunate events.  I did not feel comfortable with the contents and thought it relatively insensitive, all things considered.  Instead, I wrote what I wrote.  Today is a new day and we must carry on...as cliché as that might be, it's true.  

Today you get what was intended for yesterday.  Please keep in mind that the following is an unedited version of what I had written prior to the afternoon's total unravelling.  Note the eery coincidences, both blatant and subtle. 

Yesterday's intended post:

Approaching the stop sign at one of our several neighborhood intersections, I gradually bring the large contraption I'm driving to a halt.  I look both ways and then slowly proceed to make a righthand turn toward home.  Suddenly a jogger, the most famous jogger in our local community known to everyone as "Jogger Lady", is directly in front of said large contraption.  The brakes firmly applied to avoid running over Jogger Lady, she stops dead in her tracks and throws her arms up in fear.  She is so close, in fact, that she could have bent over and kissed the hood of the car if she chose to do so.  

She did not choose to do so.

First things first, I have to ask why both of us stopped to avoid the collision?  I understand the logic behind my stopping, but she had absolutely nothing to gain and would have been much better off letting instinct take over, jumping out of harm's way.  Stopping directly in front of a moving vehicle has limited outcomes.  First outcome is that the vehicle stops in time, the second outcome is that it does not stop in time and absolutely nothing good can come from that.

I readily admit that the mistake is fully on my shoulders and I never, ever want to see that type of horror on anyone's face again as long as I live.  I feel a slight bit of guilt, amused by her raised hands in what some might classify as Jazz Hands.  

I looked at her, frozen in fear inches from the bumper of my car, with an apologetic expression on my face and sincerely hope she understands that elusive joggers that are hard to see, are...hard to see.  

I can not remove the haunting image of Jogger Lady's horrified jazzing hands out of my head.

Today's Jazz Hands are checking twice.  Day one-hundred and six complete.