I often forget about the freshness of morning.<\/p>\n

Still unencumbered by whatever obstacles or sorrows the day might later present, everybody walking down the street had a crisp, optimistic look to them. Animated by the sunlight, they looked happy and ready for it all.<\/p>\n

I stood outside waiting for a cab, watching an older man I\u2019d become familiar with pulling weeds from a garden. Always wearing a baseball cap and a plaid, farmer\u2019s shirt, the man has a slow, gentle and slightly uncomprehending manner, as if perhaps stricken wordless by trauma at some point in his life. From the grand house behind the property he was working on, a man walked confidently out the front door.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t pull so hard!\u201d he said. The man in the baseball hat looked up, blinking, confused. \u201cWe talked about this,\u201d the confident man continued, \u201cuse your head!!\u201d He thumped his forefinger against his temple, underscoring this point. He then continued up the street, satisfied and looking like he felt he was at the top of his game, while the kneeling worker, demoralized now, \u00a0appeared as if he was feeling the exact opposite. It was 8:30 in the morning and this was the start to both of their days.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

There were about 10 people waiting for the elevators in the lobby at the Mt. Sinai hospital. An older woman with smooth, freshly polished skin smiled at everyone. She was pretty, wearing the sort of hat you\u2019d see at a fancy horse race and she carried her cane with style. \u201cLook at us, all watching the numbers to see which one comes first, it\u2019s like we\u2019re gambling at a casino!\u201d Given the hospital setting, I thought about this probably more than I should have.<\/p>\n

On the sixth floor I got off for my appointment and as I was checking in with the receptionist, the woman in the hat showed up. She was lost and when she was told that she was on the wrong floor– that CT scans were done on the 5^{th<\/sup> floor– a look of frustration and anger clouded her pleasant face. She turned to me, \u201cIt\u2019s the elevators! They\u2019re not working! The button said this was the 5th<\/sup> floor, the 5th<\/sup>, not 6th<\/sup>!\u201d and then she began to cry.<\/p>\n}

The receptionist was blessed with a Caribbean accent and liked to keep herself busy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have my church clothes, I have my supermarket clothes, I have my pharmacy clothes and I have my go-out-and-have-a-good-time-clothes. It\u2019s just the way that I am,\u201d she told nobody in particular.<\/p>\n

In constant movement, she was singing at her desk. She simply could not stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will praise you for the rest of our days. Hallelujah!\u201d she sang.<\/p>\n

Snapping her fingers and even sometimes dancing, she had all the sober looking \u00a0technicians giggling as they peeked over at her through paperwork. A heavier woman, also with a Caribbean accent, walked by shaking her head, \u201cListen Anne Murray, I will talk to you later,\u201d and pointing her finger, gave her a look that suggested a genial, running battle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got my praise on,\u201d the receptionist shot back, \u201cain\u2019t nothing going to go wrong this morning. You bring it.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I often forget about the freshness of morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[217,113,208,138,213,214,211,215,167,209,210,69,216,105,38,212],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2213"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2315,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213\/revisions\/2315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}