Perspective and a ripped $20 bill

Winter is back.

Today was cold, so I waited for the bus instead of walking from the train. The bus was late. I was late. Late for an evening to spent by myself, doing the necessary chores of life so that I would have clean, warm, woolly socks for tomorrow. My plan didn't go accordingly.

You may already be able to tell, but I like structure. I like things to be ordered, and I like my evenings to go according to planned. Go home, drop bag, go to bank, take out $20 for groceries and enough left over to get change for laundry. Go home, make soup, put on laundry, study. Put away laundry. Write. Sleep.

But, like I said, the bus was late. And then I took a ripped $20 bill out of the bank.

A ripped $20 bill! Could I spend this? I didn't have the missing part to tape on, and if I couldn't get change, then I couldn't do my laundry and my whole night's routine would be thrown off! Pheewwwwww!!!!

I fretted all the way to Safeway, and still shopped according to planned: $16, nothing more, so that I would have exactly $4 in change left over.

After club card savings, the total came to $15.55 - I know how to shop - and I nervously handed over the $20 bill with an entire corner ripped out of it.

The cashier looked at me - I glanced back nervously. Did he think it was a fake? Should I explain, or would that look like I was trying to cover something up?

"It's ripped," I said, shrugging my shoulders casually.

"I see that..." he replied in an obvious tone. As he put the bill in the register. A few seconds later my changed popped out of the automatic dispenser.

"Wait - can I have 4 loonies please?" I asked taking the toonies that were dispensed and handing them over. "I need to do laundry."

Without answering - what did he care if I had to do laundry - he handed me the requested change and my receipt.

I was home free. And back on schedule.

Part of that schudule involved a five minute walk back home where I could ponder the night's sequence of events, as well as my own apparent neurotic behavior. Beneath the moon-lit early evening sky, it suddenly dawned on me - I freaked out over a ripped $20 bill! But what's worse, I was freaking out over something as mundane as screwing up my routine - getting out of sync with my own reality that I pretend I am constantly in control of.

And then - something much more significant came to mind - I was upset over the loss of routine for 30 minutes, when thousands of Haitians have been living without routine for two weeks. For two weeks, the inhabitants of the shattered Island have been living as raw, unsheltered, uncalculated of a life as one could imagine. What they would probably give for the promise of a routine meal. A routine shower. A routine existence. And they have none of that, just the routine practice of the rising and setting sun - letting in the theoretical day, and shutting light's blinds at night. What they would give for a decent hours sleep on a comfortable bed, in a familiar home, which is something I go home to every night, no matter how unroutine my day has been. I always know there will be a fresh start tomorrow, when I can start over and have a second chance. Buy the groceries I forgot, see the friend I didn't have time to see, or take the minute to relax that I missed. In Haiti - all life is dedicated towards survival, nothing more.

My chance to shift perspective tonight might not have happened had I not finished the last few pages of Sartre's No Exit on the bus on the way home. (I remind myself here, that if I hadn't waited for the bus, I wouldn't have had the time to finish the play). In true existentialist fashion, Sartre's play reminded me that in life, and only in life, I have the unique ability to make choices that affect how I perceive my reality of the everyday. These choices do not only affect my actions, but more importantly, they affect my state of mind, which is important for overcoming the obstacles that life throws at us.

However, the privilege of choice is only thrust upon us with the condition of death. By facing the inevitability of death, we are reminded of life and thus the power to choose our existence.

So today, in honour of Sartre and in hour of Haiti I choose to a life where I acknowledge the unroutine - where I acknowledge my privileged ability to take a day like to take and see it for what it was - special.

In Haiti, the days ahead will be special, but special in a much more challenging way as its citizens, aid workers and government officials begin to choose a new path for the country's existence.

Let's just hope they choose the path of life, but a life that forever remains conscious of the power of death.