Last month we were in DC on business. I like to negotiate strange cities, and find the surprises encountered along the way one of the joys of travel. We decided to use the Metro, because it was fast and relatively uncomplicated, rather than take expensive taxis to our meetings. We’d loved the tube in London, adored the subway in New York, been in trains all over France, and appreciated the cleanliness of Toronto’s rocket, and the speed of Vancouver’s sky train. It seemed a snap. Then the unexpected happened.
We stepped off the Metro. A stout woman in a reflective vest met us at the transfer station where we inserted our tickets and waited for the bars to shift, allowing us passage into a narrow concrete hallway. I could hear her screaming from the subway doors, and now we were close enough to understand her words: “You just did the hardest thing of the day! You woke up and got dressed and got out here! Everything gets easier from here, honey!” She was a Metro employee who took her job seriously, directing us not only to the next place on our journey, but how we could think about it, if we adopted her strategy. I followed a line of students and people dressed for business down the passage until I saw a large cave-like elevator with twenty people inside, waiting for us, the last two, to squeeze inside.
I am seriously claustrophobic. Have been for the past decade, mostly due to being suffocated as a child. I can take elevators if necessary, but I have been known to walk up a dozen floors to avoid it if the space is too small or decrepit. This elevator was old, older than any I had ever seen. I looked around for stairs and saw no exit. My husband stepped on and held the door. This was his way of saying, “Suck it up, sweetheart. We have a meeting.” Ten faces turned to indicate they were waiting for me. Before I could think, I was on the lift.
After the door closed, the elevator clanked, jumped and then sat there for almost a minute before it began creeping in that manner that you know is going to take forever. (I later learned the DC Metro elevators are so notoriously slow that bloggers say you can “load 100,000 superballs, one by one, in the time it takes the doors to open and then close.”) At the front, about five rows of people ahead, I could see a small rectangular window, a few inches wide by about eight inches high with iron bars behind it. It reflected concrete and then light as the seconds passed. We were traveling up, but could not exit, the glimpses of light a reminder that I was trapped inside. I felt my legs disappear under me. The bodies pressing up against me seemed to hold me up. Another minute into the ride. We were creeping up foot by foot. I looked up. Watched a ‘3’ light up red at the top of the cold metal box. How many flights were we going to have to stay in here? There was nothing inside this death trap to indicate where the lift ended and the doors opened into the light shining past the bars of the window. I knew this was no microchip operating lift, but it was traveling so slowly, I imagined some horse winding a rope that hoisted us skyward. I reached out for the steel wall; it was cold, clammy against my fingers. My senses searched for something comforting: the pink ipod of the woman in front of me, the aroma of aftershave and smoke. I couldn’t look at my husband because I imagined if he had anything other than a calm face, I would start shrieking in terror. Then I remembered the words of the woman yelling me into the morning. “Everything gets easier from here, honey!” “You just did the hardest thing of the day!” We were going to a deposition. I seriously doubted waking up was the hardest thing, but if these elevator doors opened soon, I might begin to believe I could withstand anything.
Then, in the middle of losing my feeling of my body, I realized something in that woman’s voice. It wasn’t what she said – it was that she got up and did this every day, for every customer, shouting encouragement to every passerby, including those who never met her eyes with a nod or a smile. That woman had my back. If my worst fear came to fruition – that I would be stuck inside this elevator for hours or days, this was the kind of woman who would come to the rescue. And as we slowly strained up over the ‘4’ and a brief glimpse of ‘out there,’ wherever that was, I realized that if this stranger could provide a feeling of safety, then I could provide it for myself too.
I started breathing again. My fingers reached out for my guy’s palm. He was there: still, sure, gentle as ever. The elevator terrorizes me because I think I am trapped, that I cannot control my movements. A teacher had trained me to realize that an uncomfortable thought is not an enemy. I began to investigate the painful thought: ‘I am trapped’ – is that true? The elevator screeched to a halt. The door remained closed. Up above, a ‘5’ lit up. I looked around and saw people who were bored, going through the routine of their morning lives. They were expecting these doors would open. The mechanics of the elevator was out of our control, as was most everything all day long; perhaps everything that we will ever encounter would be out of our control. Still, I could affect my mind, that wildly unpredictable collection of synapses that allowed me to perceive safety or experience fear. After the “code orange” fascinations of this government, I had said that I wanted to feel safe anywhere, no matter what was happening to me in external circumstances. Wouldn’t testing my skills in the world’s slowest elevator be a great way to get there?
The door opened. The people tucked their heads into the harsh winter wind. My husband took my hand, and my legs followed, trusting gravity. I began to wonder: what would we do differently if we felt safe in every environment we encountered? What do we avoid doing or being because we needlessly fear? If we stopped believing our stressful thoughts and questioned our mind, might we create a world free of harm?
