Ovations

celebrating the things we accomplish with little bloodshed

At precisely 5:47 in the evening on the downhill side of the week after wrestling and jostling the stubborn key out of Tungsten’s ignition, I clip my keys to my purse, unclip my badge from my shirt, and collect the remnants of the day’s beverage buffet from the passenger seat. Coffee, Earl Grey, and then cinnamon tea consumed in order according to their caffeine dosages. I’m ecstatic to have access to a covered parking garage across the street from our home, which fills only for the Fourth of July and the Chili Cookoff. There is ample space, decent lighting, and only occasionally the sort of skateboardish tomfoolery that inspires my right hand to cross my heart and my mother’s voice to emerge from my mouth.

As I dodge the only ankle-breaking pothole in the city and emerge into the sideways sunlight of the evening, it starts.

Clapping.

Cheering.

Applause?

High above me I squint and see my patio - the pumpkin in the corner, the bistro set my person found at Goodwill precisely 16 hours after I mentioned of hand that it would be nice to have one, and a newly bespectacled person waving his hands and cheering at full volume,

“You DID IT!!! You SAVED LIVES!!!”

He claps for my entire pedestrian journey, and then meets me as I step off of the elevator with a bear hug.

It is impossible not to beam.

While I often joke that soup* is my love language, or that flowers are my love language, in my 43rd year I can confidently say a nightly standing ovation has ousted them both. And - to clarify - nothing that I do in my work at the hospital is remotely close to saving anyone’s life, other than my own. My work is non clinical - it’s mostly administrative and logistical. As a quantum acrobat whose natural habitat is comprised solely of liminal spaces, it’s no wonder that my role is principally to support softening the edges for those doing the hard work of healing.