Slow Down

Last week, I hit Lance on the head with a pot.

No, not the angry wife purposefully hitting her husband over the head way, gosh no*.

*I might be writing this post from a different location if so.

We had just finished having lunch and I was going to start making cupcakes for my mom’s birthday. I’d chosen zucchini cupcakes because a) I had zucchini and b) my mom likes zucchini.  

Lance had placed two thick plastic cups with lemonade for us on the kitchen table and was sitting in his spot there, relaxed, in no rush to leave the room.

The first step to making any kind of zucchini cake type item is to grate the zucchini. Our grater was hanging from an oval pot rack over our kitchen table. We’ve had this rack for several years now and it is the best space saver where pots and pans are concerned. I should also note here we have never, NEVER, had a problem with the rack.

I reached for the grater which was hanging above Lance’s left and as I brought it up off its hook BANG! my 3-quart pot slammed straight down.

I knew it hit him, but hoped I was wrong. It was directly in front of him. But the thing was, there were about twelve other things happening at the same time which made understanding exactly what had happened nearly impossible. There was lemonade all over the table, but both glasses were upright. One of my eggs for the cupcakes had been smashed. A plastic container with sweet potato wedges had slid off the table and onto the floor.

“Did it hit you?” I asked, my face flushed, heart pounding in shock. His scrunched face and slow reach to his forehead was followed by a slow nod that, yes, he had taken a blow from the pot.

“Oh my gosh. Are you okay?” I asked, looking in three different directions before rushing to the freezer to pull out one of our gigantic circular ice cubes. A red circle began to appear above his right eyebrow.

“Oh my gosh, you’re not, I can see a spot already!” I screamed, trying and failing at removing the ice from the plastic shell it forms in.

“What is 5 minus 7?” I asked, choosing numbers blindly.

“Ummm,” Lance raised his eyes at me as if I were a crazy person, “2.”

“No! It’s negative 2! Tell me, are you sure you’re okay? Do you need to go to a hospital?” I asked.

“No, I’ll be fine,” he waved the ice I had finally freed away, opting for a frosty metal roller we keep in the freezer for soothing tight muscles.

Stitch, realizing an opening for free food, began going after the sweet potatoes, chomping quickly as Lance slowly reached down to stop him.

“I’ll take care of it,” I said, waving him away from the floor.

“Do I still have any drink left in my cup?” he asked.

I wasn’t even thinking about lemonade at this point. Peeking into the cups, I found mine untouched. His was still sitting upright, but was more than half empty.

“A little,” I paused and grabbed my cup, “Here, take mine. I’ll clean this up. You go relax.”

I walked back and forth from sink to table three or four times before composing myself enough to start cleaning things. Then, I was all sniffles. Thinking about if the pot had landed on Stitch. Hoping Lance didn’t have a concussion. Thinking how stupid I had been to not check why the grater wasn’t easily coming up. But the thing was, I hadn’t even felt any resistance, I just hadn’t been looking. I was too busy thinking of the next thing I needed to do.

I kept walking into the living room and checking on Lance while simultaneously sniffling, trying to stop replaying it over and over again in my head. I looked at the broken egg next to two intact eggs all resting in a sea of lemonade. I took sips of Lance’s drink as I started to clean, then on second sip discovered it had a crack straight down the inside.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked him. “I checked, that is a three-pound pot.”

“It bounced up off the table before it hit me,” he said. “The cup got the worst of it.”

I did not make the cupcakes. And I did not stop worrying about him until…let’s just say days later.

As I cleaned the mess on my kitchen table, I sensed the words “SLOW DOWN” being said like a command within me. Slow down, Jessica. Stop being in a rush, Jessica. Take your time, Jessica. You would think after all this time at home, all this time unable to really be forced into an agenda, I would understand the concept of these words.

Apparently, I don’t.

Would this not have happened if I had been taking my time? If I had been watching what I was doing? I don’t know. But the unavoidable connection of these words to my being told me this was something I needed to concentrate all my energy on in the coming days.

Self-reflection is no easy task, and if someone tells you that they are a master of this, make sure you raise an eyebrow. Because we are all constantly changing. With each new day we are presented with situations, people, and atmospheres we have never faced. And we must choose our actions carefully, lest we desire to face the painstaking task of repeating our mistakes.

Lance is fine, by the way, but maybe I needed this eyeopener, this reminder to SLOW DOWN in order to prevent myself from entering a greater catastrophe. I offer this embarrassingly awful tale to you today in case, like me, you need this reminder, too.