The Zipper

I was working on the text of a lesson when I heard a child cry “Help!” Next thing I knew I was headed out our front door.

We live on a street of modest, well-cared-for homes with small yards. In Phoenix, yards are more often covered with gravel and decorated with cactus rather than grass, and as a result the local children use the street as their main playground.

Of the ten homes on our block, four have young children, making it a very busy street. I’ve seen bicycle races, battles between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, countless games of hide-and-seek, tag, and even a snowball fight (using snow trucked in from the local mountains, in the back of a childless neighbor’s pickup truck, for the purpose).

The street itself carries hints of all this, as broken bits of toys are left behind by the tides of play- -the propeller from a toy airplane, a piece of the handle of a light saber, the head of a tiny doll. Too small for adults to bother picking up, most will be washed away by the street sweeper, only to be replaced by subsequent tides.

On that afternoon it was the hour after the children returned from school, but before the adults returned from work. So when I heard a child cry “Help!” I rushed outside knowing that I might be the nearest adult.

A boy was standing on the sidewalk in front of our house, bent over, arms stretched out and down, with his coat pulled over his head.

“Billie?” I called as I hurried up.

“The zipper’s stuck in my hair,” Billie replied.

Taking a close look I saw that Billie was well and truly trapped. The zipper must have been stuck. He’d tried to remove the coat by pulling it over his head, only to have the zipper grab the hair on the top of his head halfway through the process. He couldn’t see, and couldn’t move without pulling on his hair.

I moved into my heart, and said, “Hang on, I’ll have you free in a minute.”

I aligned from my heart with Billie’s emotional body, to help keep him calm, and then moved part of my awareness into my intellect so I could assess the situation. I contemplated the scissors in the Swiss Army Knife in my pocket, but decided to try that last as if I cut Billie’s hair I’d have to explain why to his mom.

Holding the alignment from my heart with Billie, and with my intellect, I reached out. “Let’s see if I can free it,” I said.

Gripping his hair firmly, between the jacket and his head, I carefully worked the hair free, a few strands at a time. Once free, and jacket off, Billie thanked me and went on his way.

Joyful Blessings!

Glen