Aware

When I was at Millsaps, one of my most favorite people was a guy named Jerry Jeff Berry.  An unusually brilliant guy; he had one of the most unique perspectives I've ever known.

As a teenager, he once tried to climb to the top of Kentucky Fried Chicken on North State Street because he wanted to touch the giant bucket on top--an impulse I completely understood.  Like many things he and I climbed in our youth, that roof wasn't meant for climbing, and he fell off, resulting in a coma that lasted for several weeks.  When people asked him what it was like being in a coma, he said: 

"One day, you'll open this eye.  The next day, you'll open this other eye.  The whole time, you're never really aware if you're aware."

I thought that's such a perfect description of my own life, of my perspective on life:  I'm never really aware if I'm aware.  

Many years later now, I don't know if that condition ever really changed.  At least now I'm aware that I'm not really sure if I'm aware.  

He had a pretty remarkable career after Millsaps, which included, for a short while, selling mattresses.  I thought, for a guy who questioned reality after falling off Kentucky Fried Chicken, providing people with something soft to land on must seem like such an utter act of kindness and wisdom.  

"Take this, my friend; you'll never know when you'll need it."