My whistle

I’ve been wearing a whistle. Just for the last few months. I found it among a few of my tchochkes when I moved Uptown last April. It’s pine green with a black lanyard. It has a compass on one flat side, a thermometer on the other. I think I bought it at an REI or a survival store in the 1900s.

A friend where I volunteer each week asked me why I was wearing it. I answered without thinking. It was kind of religious, I said. I surprised myself.

The thermometer is to know how things are right here.

To be aware of this time, this place, and that I’m in it.

The compass is to know where I’m going. To find a path, and choose a direction.

Purpose, perhaps.

The whistle itself is to act, to reach out, to communicate.

You’re not alone.

You may not be able to see others, but you can still be heard.

When you need help, or have help to offer, whistle.

A small seam runs symmetrically around and through this plastic whistle, where the left and right parts came together.

Duality, parts/whole, and a mark from the whistle’s history. That philosophy thing.

The lanyard was tied by a person. People make things. Making is human.

Make things.

There’s a small plastic bean that rattles inside the whistle. It changes the whistle’s sound.

Look inside.

Where you put your lips to blow, at the very edge is a small rim, a tiny ledge. The rim makes it easier to hold the whistle in your mouth without your hands. Something for your lips or teeth to grip.

Keep your hands free. Even the smallest things are useful.

There are no sharp corners.

What you don’t do matters.

And that lanyard is just the right length. It holds the whistle over my heart. This totem.

I like my whistle. I’ve never needed to use it for music or a hail. I’ve used the thermometer a few times when the commercial kitchen downstairs boils my place. The compass once when I was orienteering around Oakland for a solstice. So it’s not the most utilitarian thing. And it’s too unflattering to be a fashion statement.

I don’t know why it’s around my neck. What’s going on in my life that makes wearing it feel comforting? How have I changed that this is normal? Not sure.

I take a deep breath before I blow the whistle.

Perhaps that’s it. Remembering to breathe.

Then piercing the world.

Blow.