July 27, 2007
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elevators
In the elevator everyone is so still. It is like they are straining not to move or not to be seen as moving. People sort of close in on themselves contracting their personal space about them like a little invisible barrier forbidding any others to cross it.
It is such a tight enclosed space and so many people pack into them that there is a desire to shrink yourself as much as possible, to be as invisible and unnoticeable as possible. Conversations cease, expressions are wiped off of faces. It’s all quiet. Silent. Still. Nobody is looking at one another, except an occassional glare when someone breaks the taboo.
It’s like everybody is secretly thinking, “please God let this elevator reach where it is heading as soon as possible so I can get the hell off of it.”
I hate this stillness. It drives me to madness. I am not a person who stays still. I fidget. I move. I tap my heals. I rock in place. Drum my fingers. fuss with stray threads or cords. Shift my weight from one foot to the other. Pace about in place. Tap. Rock. Fuss. Shift. Shuffle. Shake. There’s no rhythm, no beat to which I follow, just my own intrinsic inability to ever stay still.I’ve always been this way. I don’t know why or how or where it came from but they are habits enshrined in me in the fulness of time and I am incapable of breaking. And I don’t see what the point of breaking them would be. They cause no harm, create no problems. Well, truthfully these things bother some people. I’ve even been told that it was so. Someone turns to me as says “stop fidgeting!” in an angry tone. And I do. For about five minutes and then all unknownst to me I’ve started fidgeting yet again. After a half a dozen tries like this the other eventually gives up.
And why should I have even tried to stop? Does my fidgeting bother them? Well maybe their stillness bothers me!
And it’s not just fidgeting. I move when moving too. My hands are ever in my pockets fussing with their contents. When I walk I walk the most unusual path, move in unexpected zig zag patterns. I step around the cracks or on them, if there is a thing to balance or a hill to climb I’ll climb it. And I move too quickly too, unless exhausted. I’d rather rotate around someone than walk besides them, or out pace them and walk back over and over. Truly a part of me wants to skip or hop about at times but that instinct at least I am, usually, able to constrain.
Someone once said that they can tell when I am really thinking really hard about something because it is the only time when I am ever completely still. I don’t know if that’s true. I think I’m still when I stop thinking altogether too and there are certainly times when I’ve been thinking hard that I don’t think I stopped shifting about. But that’d be pretty cool if it were true.
But in a elevator, I can do none of these things. I feel the strength and power of the social norm. Be still. Move not. Shrink. Disappear. That’s the atmosphere wrought by the elevator. It feels so radically oppressive. I really hate elevators. Escalators are a little better. People regularly move up and down them to speed up reaching their destination and they are more open air so movement seems more acceptable.
I wonder, are people afraid that if they move the elevator will come unhinged and come crashing down to the earth? Are they afraid that if they look about and move naturally that the others who ride with them will turn upon them like a pack of ravenous beasts and tear them limb from limb? Or is it just that nobody wants anybody else to think them weird?
When I am the only one on the elevator then I do my best to defy the traditions, to try and weaken their power over me. I pace about quite purposefully. And this gives me enormous amounts of pleasure. In particular it amuses me because I can imagine the path that pacing must be taking up in space relative to the Earth as opposed to relative from my own perspective. E.g. though it looks and feels like I am pacing in a circle, in reality my feet trace a spiraling pattern and if I pace in weirder patterns and the elevator goes up and down a few floors, the drawing of the path of my feet might be quite a bit more interesting still. And you can think even more interesting thoughts if you think about your path relative to other things in motion. It’s all so fascinating. Well at least these thoughts provide a momentary distraction.
But then the elevator stops and so do I. Someone gets on and the social weight of expected behavior comes crashing down upon me. And I wait again anxious, closed off, trying as hard as I can not to fidget.
