I suppose it depends on whether I’m the reason for the crisis. When I am the one who is causing the panic, say, because I have a gushing head wound, then I am the calm little center of the universe. I am the zen head wound master, calming everyone down, giving concise directions and generally putting a band-aid on the need for panic.

If I am not the center for the crisis, well, that puts a different spin on things. Say I am with someone who has a gushing head wound instead of receiving it myself, I tend to be not quite so calm. I do worry some and I find it harder to concentrate. My mind produces thoughts that go in a thousand different directions at once. They range from “One should put pressure on head wounds. I’ve seen it in the movies.” to “Blood is almost the same color of pomegranate juice. Interesting that I like pomegranate juice, but I don’t like pomegranate seeds at all.” In essence, this is not helpful. While I’m busy thinking, I stop and stare dreamily at a wall or whatever happens to be in front of me until we, my mind and I, can lasso all of these wild notions, sort out which might actually be helpful and throw the rest out the window (I almost used the word defenestrate there because I do so love that our language has a word for that, but I wasn’t sure if that sounded too highfalutin. Then I used it anyway.).

So, if you want calm at the center of a storm, I’d suggest hitting me over the head. Not hard enough to knock me out, but hard enough that people around me start panicking. Just hard enough that I see stars like Wile E. Coyote getting hit on the head with an Acme anvil. He’s dazed for a minute, but he bounces right back.

If you can manage that, and admittedly, it will be difficult to judge just how hard is too hard, I will turn from panicky wall-starer to competent Captain of the SS Failboat. I will captain that ship right into the damn harbor. All aboard!