Out Of Order

When signs are signs.

Tabata class was starting. I always drink a full cup of coffee before class so there is some chance I will be able to make it through. Consequently a quick bathroom stop is critical before walking in.

However, this past Tuesday, there was a sign on the door reading Out Of Order. Of course, the nearest other bathroom is a million miles away upstairs.

AND, since I seem to be going through some kind of early onset of peri-menopausal night sweats, I wake up just the slightest bit tired and grumpy. I consider my very ability to make it to the gym at all the highest level of accomplishment.

Roadblocks in my routine are not welcome.

However, as I saw it and began speed walking upstairs, I could feel that the sign was a sign. My inner compass has a strange knack for being able to override my irritability when there is something that I am supposed “to get”.

Perhaps everyone has this. I have never really asked. Perhaps some people are just more inclined to hearing this inner voice. I think probably the people who have been broken without it.

Anyway, I got that the sign was a sign.

And it put my brattiness, on a temporary hold.

Out of order? Like out of bananas. Minus the fruit. Like being in chaos, having run out of order. Like a deficit of an organizing principle?

Or was it more like not working. Being broken. Having no current ability to function in the necessary linear progression that gets the job done?

My body has been out of order for a couple weeks.

So perhaps it was related to that. Besides the unpleasant night (and day) sweats that come out of nowhere, I had pulled something in my groin and been unable to lift my left leg without pulling it up with my hands.

Joe and the boys have lovingly been calling me gimpy. Charming.

My right shoulder and neck require Advil and tiger balm to move. Did I mention the sweating? Enough whining. My point is it was like the universe holding up a mirror. I had been feeling poorly and muscling my way through.

But thinking about being out of order put a different twist on it.

Things that are out of order get fixed and then they are back in working order.

This was encouraging. Sounds puerile, but really and truly the new context of being out of order provided a different framework. And it raised three important questions for me.

First, what does MY order look like?

Order is not one thing. The steps of a multiplication problem have a much different order than the life cycle of a caterpillar. Order is individual. I always forget.

My particular workout insanity looks like this.

The girl in front of was a ballerina. Her legs are about twenty feet longer and leaner than mine. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to kick as high and fast.

The girl next to her was obviously a hummingbird in a past life because when the instructor moves the rhythm mid-class to quadruple time, she can move at speeds not visible by the human eye. Without compromising form.

It’s not that I’m super competitive, although… It is that I tolerate nothing short of extreme effort and I always think I am under-delivering. Until I pull my groin.

This is a not so gentle reminder that perhaps shorter legged girls who were put in the back row during childhood ballet recitals should aspire to more of a sleek ninja warrior kick.

Second question: Is there a way to find order inside the chaos?

Sometimes, life rolls along smoothly. I have learned NOT to be bored by this like I used to be. Other times, circumstances of all kinds make for a chaotic sea of unpredictability.

Recently we were stuck in North Carolina during the storm, unable to return because flights got cancelled day after day. And driving was treacherous until finally the third day, when we did it anyway.

We managed. We made the best of it. And we were lucky to be safe.

But I can’t say that we found order inside it.

It only occurs to me, being home, inside a different work-life-house upheaval, that the only way to find order amidst chaos is to shut down the future and past. Get reality really small it fits only inside the smallest box of present reality.

And stay inside the box long enough to realize it is actually very big and spacious and actually quite luxurious. Inside here, order is not necessary.

Because, order is linear.

And inside the box of the present, there is not need for linear. It is simply one moment. One experience. From the outside there maybe a string of moments but inside the present reality there is nothing but now.

At first this is unnerving, uncomfortable and nearly unbearable. Especially for chronic planners and obsessive strategists.

However, after the extreme agitation wears off, it is a huge relief.

The third question this out of order sign brought up had to do with the idea of being “out of”. It’ a strange phenomena that when we are out of any one thing, that is all we can seem to focus on.

When the airlines were out of flights, that is all we wanted. When we are out of ice cream… out of firewood… out of… patience…

When our life seems to be out of order, all we want is order.

And yet, if we accept there is no more right now, a world of options arise. What about creativity, imagination, rest, connection, innovation?

Perhaps order is overrated.