Rushing In

I don't want anything bad to happen. I really don't. But I have to admit I feel a strange sense of excitement when things happen. Sometimes I go charging right in to see the aftermath. Maybe it goes back to my years as a journalist where story chasing naturally took me into the heat of the excitement. It's really a rush like no other.

My friend Kim and I react to intense situations very differently. Once we were in a glass elevator in the middle of a very tall hotel. We could see all the way down into the lobby 10 or 12 floors below and we both watched, transfixed, as a group of policemen came running in the front doors with guns drawn. Kim and I both frantically started pushing buttons in the elevator--she was pushing the up arrow and I was pushing the down arrow over and over again.

We both looked at each other in amazement and yelled, "What are you doing?" at exactly the same time.

Her response: "There are policemen down there with guns drawn, we have to get as far away as we can."

My response: "There are policemen down there with guns drawn, we have to go see what's happening."

I thought about it later, and I'm sure that my reaction was irrational, but that seems to be my honest reaction; charge right in.

We were in Mexico during the latest 7.2 earthquake and in Coronado during several pretty big aftershocks. But I didn't feel frightened. Just kind of exhilarated. I should have felt fear I guess. I should have felt dread and anxiety and anxiousness. But instead I just felt excited. Something was happening and I might just be in the middle of it.

I'm pretty sure I should be a lot more careful what I ask for.