COLLIDE

COLLIDEIMES

COLLIDE

10:20am, Saturday, May 22, 2021

I am compelled to write but also feel tired and can’t keep up with what’s behind my eyes. Energy is electric out in the world. The heat beginning to claw away at the breeze, and the internal human temperature is escalating. The streets are alive…

I have been restless on the inside, thinking, anxious about the movie and feeling old, feeling a lot of self-hatred, and internal unrest.

May 10th is a big date for my body, it remembers. I am breathing through it, but it is lingering… I am being relentless about staying connected.

Cooking, I’ve been cooking, burying my hands and fingers into food, as well as soil. Planting, re potting and feeding flowers on the deck. I focus on their growth, and am reminded, I am also growing.

Yesterday I cooked, I worked out, I watered, and went for a walk. Later in the day, needing more movement, I once again headed out to procure ingredients, more cooking, more tactile connection to the world around me, smells, touch, taste…

Angel was out front, she asked me where I was headed and we talked a while, the sky and the air perfect, warm, and whispering against my skin. I was even daring to step out in shorts. Something I never do, it’s because of a lifelong hatred for my legs. My legs are weird. When I look at them I don’t relate to them, like they are not mine or something. It’s as if my legs are someone else’, and I’m the top half. I’ve never understood them, their shape, their color, their, anything.

Anyway…

As I hugged Angel to head off, a screech and what sounded like an explosion literally enveloped us. A car had run through the intersection and sideswiped another car. I didn’t see it happen, I only heard it…

I turned and watched as a white car skid then flip. It rolled over twice, and landed on its side, up on the sidewalk. The other vehicle miraculously also headed up onto the sidewalk, down the street a little, and slammed into a tree. It was loud, fast, and then, for a moment, quiet. Everyone for a split moment, silently absorbing.

A car horn… And then people, running… Myself included.

I ran to the car and looked in the window, a woman, reaching to me, she was scared, but reaching… I asked her if she was the only person in the car, I was desperate to have her say yes. The thought of children in the back of the car was devouring me… She was alone…

The car was surrounded, people, trying to help, but everyone was manic, rapid, and on fire. It was madness, the energy. But it was all for the right reasons, wanting to help, but their help, was dangerous. I turned away from the car and towards the sea. I started touching people, on their shoulders, on their backs and arms, smiling, and looking them in the eye, trying to calm them. A man grabbed his cane and started smashing the back window, which he did, and glass exploded everywhere. Others at the back end of the car were trying to push it back up to standing. I moved through them, all of them men, touching, looking, and breathing with them for a moment, bringing them back, reminding them that moving anything was dangerous.

They slowly let go of the car and released themselves through voice, calling out to her, talking to her and each other…

Within minutes the street was also filled with police lights and ambulances, sirens, and voices, pleading.

Once the teams arrived we all stepped back and watched as the woman was cut out of her car. People pods, absorbing…

A young man thanked me for calming him, he was kind, and gentle inside, telling me he was a veteran, and he knew what I was saying was true… I reminded him that his intention was for good, and that’s all that matters. He was trying to help, not hurt, and he was spinning, on the inside, not thinking in the moment. He was so appreciative of me, and I of experiencing him.

A tornado of emotions and lives intersection in an intersection. Strangers, now all a part of one story, together. Life, life is like this even without tragedy, it gives me goosebumps when I think about it. In a split second, life is moving at an exponential rate, and we are all experiencing our own version of the same thing, over, and over, and over again. it’s so amazing.

I asked the men who were driving the other car if they were alright. They were still, stoic, and in shock. I could tell immediately that they were at fault. The way they were…

The young man I was looking at said yes, he was okay, and added, it’s my third accident. I told them I was happy they were okay, and stepped away. Their cars nose separated by a tree stump. Metal hugging it, the front end destroyed. It was a miracle they ended up where they did, they missed cars and a buildings wall by only feet.

I concocted a story in my head, as I do… Why didn’t he say anything about the other car when I asked him if he was okay? Why didn’t he express frustration, or concern, or anything? He was stuck, in the moment before what had happened, and where he was now. I could see him, behind his eyes…

Of course, I’m guessing, because I didn’t see it, but I see him, I see her, I saw the moment after and the movement within them all…

The streets and that corner are usually filled, busy with children and conversation. It’s a corner, like most corners in Brooklyn, busy. But at that moment, it was only them, in their cars, colliding.

We are all, constantly colliding.