I thought about my neck injury. I went back to that point in time to some degree. I had this strange thought that maybe I knew it was going to happen and I chose to do it anyway. That seemed true for some reason. (When I was four, I suffered a neck injury. Mom says I had this rocking horse on springs that I rocked on furiously. One day the front springs broke and I was tossed on my head.     She wondered why I wouldn’t stop crying. I had damaged several vertebrae.)

I was possessed by the term “use me”. I thought about how he says we must use this experience to get somewhere. We are not just going along for a ride. I heard the term as something we all tell each other. I saw it as something that has no negative connotations. It is a natural way of being. I pictured us all in a square dance; doing the move called “right and left grand family” – where we all move through the circle in opposite directions by holding each other’s hands and pulling ourselves along. We are all using each other to pull ourselves along yet we are all moving and going forward.

by