Unexpected Refuge

I ended up here when my regular dentist recommended me to this specific specialist to take care of a tricky dental situation. Today is likely my last visit here as the work has been completed and this specialist is releasing me back to my regular dentist.

I have sat in a lot of dentist’s chairs in my life. I bounced face first onto pavement when I was 11 or 12 years old after hitting a patch of gravel on my bicycle when I was racing my uncle. I picked myself up then walked into my parents yard as blood dried on my shirt and skin with my upper front four teeth resting jagged and broken in my gums. When I was 17 years old I failed to stop mom and dad’s green Dodge Coronet in time and plowed into the back of an old beat-up red Chevrolet Impala while a brown GMC pick-up sandwiched us from the rear. Somehow in all that movement, two of my front bottom teeth slammed into the steering wheel leaving me with a fat, busted lip, a cut tongue and those two broken teeth. These times don’t even explain the one time when I was even younger and an older dentist removed one of my back teeth. No one in the family remembers why he did this but when I mention that dentist’s name some family members just smile to indicate a more up-to-date knowledge of dental procedures had not reached this particular dentist at that time.

Then over the years, I have sat in a dentist’s chair and had cleanings, adjustments and all sorts of procedures designed to keep my teeth, or what’s left of them, intact and somewhat pretty. I have worn enough paper bibs to understand how I want them to rest on me when they are placed around my neck. I have sat there looking at the various tools around me dreading which one would be used on my mouth that very day. I have sat there wincing at a needle piercing some part of my mouth in an attempt to lessen the pain I would feel later all the while knowing the medication being administered increases the chances I will say or do something silly even later. I have rinsed and spit my fair share of blood, grit, mouthwash and fluoride stuff to know how to catch the dribble from my lip that feels larger than life from the medicine. I have had enough suction to pull my insides out. I have crushed a couple of boxes worth of tissues in my hand, one tissue at a time, in anticipation, or sometimes, in full realization of pain. I have sat there enough times with some instrument protruding from my mouth to learn how to carry on a halfway decent conversation with the dentist oblivious to my immediate impediment to talking at that moment. I have sat here enough times to know it is not the world's most relaxing place. I have been here. I have done that. I have the insurance claims and outstanding bills to show for it all.

But now, this place, this time.

This office sits on a busy corner on a busy street in a busy city. Mid-afternoon finds the waiting area so full I stand for a few minutes before I am called to the back for my appointment. The office is shared among five or six specialists so once a body walks out of the reception area it becomes a labyrinth of rooms and offices. On this day, I am led through the maze of rooms to one specific room and seated there while some preliminaries are resolved. This visit should be short, just a matter of looking at the work completed weeks earlier so this specialist can admire his handiwork then give his approval passing me back to my regular dentist.

For a few moments I sit here alone, waiting. Just above my line of sight is a row of windows divided by four thin partitions. All I can see from here is the blue sky, a few puffy clouds behind strings of electrical and phone lines running east to west. In the background I hear a song from yesterday softly playing:

“Put the message in the box

Put the box into the car

Drive the car around the world

Until you get heard.”

The rushing traffic on the nearby street fades. The busyness of the waiting area is a memory. All the many things going on in my world that crowd my heart and mind for space slip into this moment, forgotten, lost, quieted by the pretty blue sky, the passing white clouds, those lines stretching before my eyes and the hum of a familiar nearly forgotten song.

And, I sit here in this chair, like so many times before. This time, I exhale, close my eyes and smile, grateful to find a momentary refuge in an unexpected place and time.

World Party "Put The Message In A Box" written by Karl Edmond de Vere Wallinger