WONDER BRUISE
I’m tracking a bruise under my thumbnail. It started at the base of the nail and is slowly working its way up toward the tip of my thumb. Each day it creeps further along.
I don’t know how it happened. Most likely, something hit my thumb and formed the bruise. But whatever it was, it didn’t hurt when it happened.
The bruise is sort of round, about the size between a shoelace hole and a pencil eraser. Its variegated reddish-brown color is lighter in the center and darker at the edges.
It’s so cool watching the bruise move! I’ve derived a great deal of amusement from it this past week. In that time it’s traveled about 3/8 of an inch and has less than 1/8 to go before hitting the tip of my nail.
I’m anxious to see what happens when it gets to the end. So, I bit off some of the nail. That slightly lessens the extent the bruise has to travel. It doesn’t change the length of my nail substantially, but at least I’m contributing in a useful way.
I feel like a scientist conducting an experiment. My careful observations and the resulting knowledge may be useful in answering hypotheses puzzling humankind since time immemorial. I’m on the brink of a discovery so powerful, so magnificent, and so comprehensive it could provide the last link in making the “theory of everything” fall into place!
I can envision myself now heading to Stockholm to pick up my Nobel Prize in Physics. I see physicists across the globe bowing in honor to my patience, dedication, and superior skills in deductive reasoning. Statues will be erected in tribute to my accomplishment. Libraries will be dedicated to me. I might even get my own postage stamp!
It’s also been fun explaining to people who ask how the bruise occurred. Since I don’t know how I got it, I just make something up on the spot. I told one friend a rhinoceros was charging me. I threw up my hands to cover my face as the rhino raced toward me. But, suddenly it stopped. The chain around its neck held tight as the very tip of its horn just grazed my thumb to create a tiny bruise. I think I had her going at first, but she soon realized I was pulling her leg. We both had a good laugh.
To another friend, I explained I was at the bank when they discovered a bomb near the vault. Since I’m an ex-Navy SEAL, I jumped across the counter to defuse it. The detonator snapped against my thumb as I cut the wire. Since I’m 5’7” and weigh 150 pounds, he knew I’d never been a SEAL. He just rolled his eyes and groaned. But I chuckled when he snorted, “Navy SEAL? Yeah, right. Maybe more like a pollywog.”
This simple bruise, with its myriad cornucopia of possibilities, reminds me of a truth espoused in many schools of philosophy and a teaching found in all major religions, “Be like the little children.”
Children find excitement around every corner. They view the world through eyes of wonder; drinking every event from a cup of enthusiasm. Children revel in the “good” things, and “bad” things don’t keep them down for long. If they fall off a bike, they dust themselves off and get back on. They keep trying. Children make a game out of every nuance which life unfolds before them.
Seeing wonder in everything is the way to stay young at heart.
Living the wonder or letting it fade is the difference between happy people and curmudgeons. Curmudgeons lament about a bruise. Happy people transform it into an adventure.
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