The Thing That All of Us Have Wanted to Do in Never Say Never

Liz is among the first two to arrive. “Liz has a very strong core,” the woman who rolls Liz into the chapel tells me. Liz has on pink socks with sandals and a navy blue jacket. She just has the one front tooth and sits tall in her wheelchair.

Mrs. Rosa does not sit tall. She also does not hear me when I greet her. “You have to speak very loudly,” the manager lady tells me, “into her left ear.”

Soon she will tell me that I will be using a headset so that everyone can hear me and that I will be on closed-circuit television so that people in their rooms can join in.

The chapel fills with 15 or so ladies and one elderly man, who takes a seat in a far corner away from everyone else. Some are in wheelchairs, some have walkers with wheels, and some walk in without assistance. Liz wants to know if 15 is a good number. She wants to know where the regular teacher is. I tell her that she is camping in Colorado, and Liz tells me that the best time she ever had in her life was the time she slept in a tent. I want to ask her if she saw any bears, but I do not.

One little lady cannot decide where she’d like to sit. She wanders about the room, from chair to chair. One sharp miss in the back row catches my eye, looks at the wandering one, and looks back at me and shakes her head and says, “I have no idea.” She wears a gold starfish around her neck; I will compliment her on my way out.

But first, I will take my seat at the front of the group and put on my headset and lead these ladies and gentleman in breathing exercises. I will lead them in neck rolls and finger stretches and “picking fruit.” We will twist our spines with our hand at prayer and make circles with our arms until someone (me) breaks a sweat. We will move our blood until the lady in purple, who arrived with a sweater and a blanket, sheds her layers and looks at me with a smile.

She does all the exercises perfectly.

Mrs. Rosa, however, doesn’t make it that far.

A few minutes after class begins, she begins hollering, “I can’t hear a thing she says! I can’t hear anything she’s saying!” And though I try to talk louder and I am being broadcast by an excellent-quality mic, she becomes so agitated she begins to scream, ”Get me out of here! I don’t belong here! Who brought me here!?”

The manager lady tries to calm her down, but Mrs. Rosa is having none of it. She twists and turns and screams: ”Get me out of here! I don’t belong here! Who brought me here?!” until the manager rolls her away.

It was amazing!

Haven’t we all felt that way? Haven’t we all shown up to something that should be familiar and yet suddenly we feel awash in anxiety and just want to ditch that shit?

”Get me out of here! I don’t belong here! Who brought me here!?”

I taught right through Mrs. Rosa’s freakout, unruffled and in secret admiration of the lady who just wanted to GTFO.

Last updated July 26, 2017