I... uh.... mmmm....
huh.
Damn I can barely string sentences together this week (last week was worse when it came to continuously comprehensible streams of thought.)
My neck clicks now, my head is full of cotton candy and I've got a slight whistling sound coming out of my right lung (I won't even mention the high pitched keening sound coming from my knees and left wrist or the shaky legs as I walk up the stairs or the last week of either sleeping all the time or staring at the ceiling replaying last saturday night wondering why I couldn't just stay home, read an old book, watch the damn olympics its cold outside, baby its cold outside.
If only is hollow and stupid and doesn't quite work unless you really buy the whole multiple infinite worlds thing.
So quiet. So peaceful. So calm. Ben Harper and Jack Johnson floated in the background with their simple plan to change the world with their own two hands right about the time I lost my breath. Right about the time I realized that any sort of "control" that we have over our trajectory is no more than a coincidence, a bit of luck, an illusion, why can't I, what the hell, are my feet even touching the peddles, was that my head hitting the roof, is that tree in his own lane? By the time I figured out that nobody else drove on that little curving, hilly, forested, backroad, I was seeing stars, snowflakes, wisps of smoke and realizing that I had a thing that could help me contact my wife, if I could only figure out where it was, where I was, what I was (maybe if I put these legs out onto the road someone will run over them and realize they should stop, damn its cold).
She must have been close to hysteria when I finally made the connection, when I couldn't tell her where I was or rasp out much more than that I was really, deeply scared, cold, and confused, numb, when the ambulance driver finally talked to my son, when through some terrible bit of miscommunication theater they told him it was a fatal accident, when he called her to demand an explanation, to find damnit "my dad mom what the hell is going on where is he what did he do this time, he's alone out there somewhere, move", when the hospital couldn't tell her where the hospital was, when she was 5 blocks away and miles from home, when they took my cellphone away when she finally got it to ring, when she got within 30 feet of the twisted bit of metal and couldn't figure out what she was exactly looking at, when she played forward all the past memories of my silly mistakes, near misses and fumbling misteps with large fast moving vehicles over the past 20 odd years and god knows how many cars.
God knows.
He probably does know and she probably hasn't forgotten either, they keep a list of these things for me since my long term memory is not so long term, they tell me that I started with a 60's era bug for training, a vega stationwagon to teach my friends, a 65 bonneville convertible to take my girl to the prom, a 66 tempest which is not quite a goat, a 59 corvair conference room and a 60 dodge pioneer stationwagon rocketship, a 66 coronet, a 71 karmann convertible, a thing, a cadillac grandmamobile sedan deville... hmm they remind me that that was the last one that involved me and a totalled car... and my highschool sweetheart, the blues festival, a family of 16 in a car made for 4, a sunny day on lake shore drive, a crumble zone... well not in the 70's era cadillacs now that I think of it, a tow truck, and billy goats tavern until 11pm... yeah uh, back to the list... a rabbit, a honda civic, a saab, a bug, a bug, a chevy pickup, a subaru baja... a subaru baja so I could make it up my driveway and finally feel safe in these way too bumpy way too slick, way too vertical roads, a baja... isn't that some kinda new age brat?... yes it is, I am, we were, but now, yes god, yes lynn, I am, I am, I think, which is pretty great, alive yes, safe yes, warm yes, loved even when they want to kill me no?, but a bit worse for wear yes?.
I'm blessed (call it luck, karma, whatever makes you more comfortable in an overly politically correct world) with a few aches and pains, a little bit slower brain maybe for a while (I hope just for a while) and a whole bunch of new days ahead of me (which isn't such a bad deal when you weigh the options).
