barbara fletcher

He stops me in the park, the man in the patterned sleeping pants and baggy sweatshirt, no coat despite the cold. Grizzled beard. Red patches on the cheeks. A face that has faced several lives.

After we exchange passing-by greetings he calls out, “You look like a nun.” A nun? I reply. Stunned because I there isn’t anything remotely religious-looking about me.

“That nun from ‘The Sound of Music’,” he chirps. With emphasis. With a brightness to his voice.

I laugh and we both keep walking away from each other, beneath the lightening winter sky.

After a few moments I realize that he meant the Julie Andrews’ character: the mischievous young nun that daydreams and sings and makes clothes out of curtains (which some might see as inventive or finding creative solutions to challenging situations…).

I smile. Maybe even hum a few bars.

When the chiropractor unwound the fabric to reveal a Dexter-esque set of metal implements, my palms started to sweat. First there had been the intense manipulation, the upward press against the screaming muscles flanking my shin bone. But now what: torture devices? I glanced nervously toward the exit.

She assured me that the metal utensils were not knives — but she did not confirm whether or not they were tools of torture.

While explaining how the Graston Technique breaks down scar tissue, I was focusing more intently on how that hard metal tool felt scraping down my shin. It was crunchy. Seriously. And it wasn’t particularly comfortable, either. Apparently I have a lot of this nasty gravelly stuff lurking beneath my skin.

But I have to say that afterward, it feels like blood is flowing fast to all the places that need it. And if a bit of pain is needed for me to keep spinning and swimming, then I’m a willing torturee.

Why is it that fire alarms never go off during the day or when a warm evening is practically begging people outside? Why must it always happen in the dark cold depths of night?

I had barely fallen into sleep — somewhere in between half-awake and skirting the edge of an interesting dream — when the ear-piercing sound ripped open the silence. For the first ten seconds I had no idea what was happening. When the cloud of confusion dissipated I realized that the obnoxious rhythmic screech was our building’s fire alarm.

After several minutes of fumbling with buttons and zippers and making clumsy attempts to gather some necessities (so much for a 30-second emergency plan), we packed up the cat and headed down the stairs out into the night. I was surprised by the sizable collection of bleary-eyed residents huddled by the building entrance. Not a bad turnout for a nasty ousting from bed at an unreasonable hour — and with no visible smoke.

So in varying distances from the door (some even stayed in the lobby) and in varying states of dress, we waited with our dogs and cats and partners in the frosty air, sleepy faces awash in red flashing light.

Forty-five minutes later, back home sitting on the couch in the dark, I was trying to decide if it was worth the effort to try to get back to sleep, knowing that today was probably not going to be the best Monday ever.

Its brightness is trickery: that eye-slitting brilliance and illumination is just a mirage. With light the world just looks warmer, and seduces heat-seekers outside. And at first the light on your skin is a lukewarm caress. Its barely-there-ness leaves you longing for more: a heated hand against the cheek, a little warm breath against closed lids. But no. Twenty seconds away from an open door, you feel the slap of cold across smarting skin. Because Winter won’t let you have Spring yet. And you feel betrayed, having ventured from your cocoon, tempted by an empty promise of warm. But it’s March. And you should have known better.