The Art Of Shutting Up

When I grew up in a small village in Sweden, noone ever told me what I could not do. The streets were filled with the smiles of my community members walking briskly from here to there or gliding about on their comfortable bycicles and pennyfarthings. On my fourteenth birthday I recieved a pair of lime green roller skates. God only knows why they were the color of key lime pie but boy did I adore them. I wore them constantly, swooshing about over bumpy sidewalks and streets, whistleing the popular tunes of the 1980’s.

One day I decided to wear my roller skates to school. Nobody told me “no” at home and nobody told me “no” at school so I skated through the hallways of our musty old school house only slightly scuffing up the wooden schoolhouse floors in the process. On that particular day I was schedueled to give a presentation on the anatomy and neuro activity of mice. Having not thought at all about the need for shoes during the early hours of my dressing, I was scheduled to give my presentation while wearing my skates. Now I had gotten quite good at skating, turning and all together standing still a top my skates so I had little to no worry.

At 2pm I skated towards the front of my schoolhouse room. I held my note cards in my left hand and carried a tiny model of the skeleton of a mouse in my right. The room was silent as noone seemed to notice my skates or if they did they did not make a fuss about it. I began reading from my cards, it was a good presentation and I knew it. When I was finished the class applauded. I beamed and smiled and felt that sense of calm that accompanies a quality finished product. I began to take a bow but lost my footing. I held on tight to my cards and my tiny mouse skeleton as my right foot slipped out from beneath me and moved forward and my left foot following suit moved back. On my way down I thought only of lemon lime cupcakes.

When I landed, I was astounded to see that I had fallen straight into the splits. A perfect split with my cards and mouse skeleton held high above me. The class roared with cheers and hoorays. I had accidentally fallen into a moment of spectacular admiration from my classmates.

I pulled my back leg around to the front so both legs were stretched out before me. In one miraculous motion I managed to scoot myself into a ball position and shift my weight forward to a low standing position. I skated back to my desk low to the ground in a graceful squat. And that was that.

In my village we have a popular saying. “Fish do not talk to wise men.”