New Day, New Lesson

 Dang! The pop quizzes in Life School can be embarrassing!

Last night, I set out to make some hummingbird food: 1 part white sugar, 4 parts water. Bring to a boil, then simmer 4 minutes. Easy-peasy. But I didn’t set a timer, and quickly went down the social media rabbit hole. I came to when my smoke alarms started blasting. By that time, I had completely forgotten about the boiling syrup on the stove, but now my apartment was rapidly filling with a dark, angry, steady plume of smoke. Aaahhh! After turning off the flame, I feverishly set about fanning the 2 screaming alarms. They stopped, but the smoke was still thick, so I opened my balcony door and turned on all the fans. They weren’t working quickly enough, so I thought I’d open my front door — the one leading to the shared  indoor hallway, because there’s a window close by, and I thought I’d get a cross breeze. Wrong.

In a matter of seconds, the whole building’s alarms were going off, and people were popping their heads out of their doors. “It was me”, I said. “Sorry!” Fortunately for actual emergencies, the alarm notifies the Fire Department, so I went outside to wait for them. Some residents were doing what they’d been instructed to do in case of a fire, and had come outside. I watched from my car as they got an ‘all-clear’ from the maintenance person, and started going back in. I met the fire truck as it turned the corner, pointing to myself and mouthing “it was me”. Geez. 

The driver stopped, and I repeated myself to him, then to the next two men as they got out of the truck. “What happened?” one asked. I told him I was making hummer food, then forgot about it. I admitted that I had then opened my door, thinking that would be a good thing. Mea culpa. Don’t do that!

One of the fire fighters gave me a conciliatory pat on the back, and said not to worry about it. Yeah — tell that to the residents who needed help moving around as they worked their way back up the stairs to their safe spaces.

My gratitude — and I had to remind myself to look for it — lies in the infrastructure in place which protects us all by those fighting fires and offering smoke clean-up, and offering the small gestures of understanding. I’m grateful for the concept of forgiveness for being human and making mistakes — even the big, loud, embarrassing ones. I’m grateful that with enough soaking and scrubbing, my pot will live to make more hummer food (and you know I’ll keep my eye on it when I do!).

Chalk it all up to experience.