THE HEALING POWER OF MANHOLE COVERS
I work out with four other women three times a week in our neighbor’s garage/gym. The first time I worked out with them we ended the session with a short walk down the block with our coach to cool down. When we got to the end of the block everyone in our little group walked over to a manhole cover in the middle of the street and touched their toe to it. When they saw my quizzical look one of them said, “Oh, we always come down and touch the manhole cover and then head back.” I thought “Oh, ok” and touched the manhole cover with my toe and headed back with the rest of them. No one ever explained why they did this and I didn’t ask. It wasn’t long before it just felt like part of the workout. We workout, we walk down the block, we touch the manhole cover and we walk back, we chat a few minutes and then we all head in our different directions home.
One day we walked down the block and the manhole cover was gone. The streets were to be paved the following week and they had removed the manhole cover and put it to the side of the road in amongst the mud and grass. We all looked around and exclaimed that the manhole cover was gone. But then one of us spotted it about 15 feet away sitting in the grass. We shrugged and walked over to it and touched it with our toes and then headed back home.
This went on for a few weeks as they completed the street paving. Sometimes we would go down there and there would be a truck parked between the road and the manhole cover so we would have to go around the truck and through the mud to get to the manhole cover but we always did. We never talked about it, we never hesitated and it never occurred to us not to go to the trouble of getting to it. We just did it because the workout wasn’t complete unless we touched our toe to the manhole cover.
Recently one morning I went for a run with my son, Sam. He usually goes running with his brother, Jake every morning but Jake was out of town so I offered to accompany him. Sam led me through the park, over the bridge, past the duck pond, through the parking lot to the Embassy Suites hotel. As we approached the hotel he said “We’ll just go through the parking lot and then head down the street.” I nodded and then I watched as he ran up the stairs to the door of the hotel. I thought maybe he was going in for a drink at their drinking fountain but no, he touched the door and then came back down the stairs. I must have looked at him confused because he explained “Oh, we always touch that door when we go on our run and then we head back home.” I chuckled, walked up the stairs, touched the door and caught up with him. I understood and I wanted to lean into his ritual. Sounded a lot like our manhole cover.
It’s so interesting to me that we develop these rituals. What is it about touching that manhole cover or that door that is so important? What does that manhole cover symbolize? The end of our workout? A transition? A sense of community? The beginning of our day? Psychological comfort? The bonds between friends? That our time together is over? OCD? Is it ceremonial? Or is it some stupid thing that means absolutely nothing but that we can’t bring ourselves to stop? Does touching the door to the hotel mean the same to Jake and Sam that touching the manhole cover means to our workout group?
I can’t answer any of these questions but I do know this. Ending our workout with touching the manhole cover is important enough that we can’t bring ourselves not to do it. Somehow, it’s comforting and reassuring and means that the proper order of the universe is being maintained. And in this day and age as we continue to experience repercussions from the pandemic, as the election nears, as the hurricanes and fires continue, as wars rage on and as Jon and I head into retirement anything that reassures me that the proper order of the universe is being maintained is a definite plus.
So I think I will continue to touch my toe to the manhole cover.