Starting Tribe Weekend Off With a Bang
Nothing will reset one's life experience (and possibly the course of one's entire future) like a dozing highway driver hitting you from behind at 50 mph. The only car wrecks I've experienced prior to this one were in the days before airbags when we wouldn't even suffer seatbelt injuries because chances were we weren't wearing one. Despite the fact that my face (and body) feel they've been used in sparring practice by a prize fighter, I'm grateful an airbag intrusively entered my world yesterday.
Barb and I gleefully make our way north from the Grand Rapids airport, heading to spend a week of relaxation, naked swimming, meaningful conversation, dancing, laughter, food, and spirits (more than one kind if you count that cool yet spooky presence in the farmhouse where we have our Witches Dinner) with our besties. We sit idle in a traffic line in a construction zone, singing along to the stereo.
As I complete a text to one of our Chicago tribal sisters, my world becomes a powdery blur stinging my eyes and ringing in my ears so loud it's deafening; floating outside of my body in slow motion as I see the world through Instagram’s Vintage Vibe filter.
What is that smell?
I hear myself say out loud, though not quite sure I'm really moving my mouth, "Barb, we need to get out of the car. Something's wrong."
Yeah, something's wrong. The backseat of our car has just been forced several feet closer to the front seat, and... (is my mouth full of blood?)
As we exit the car, stunned, I can hear A Great Big World still blaring through the stereo speakers, and it all feels surreal as I focus my eyeballs to witness our rental car morphed into a giant accordion, metal and glass strewn along the asphalt, and someone in a yellow shirt running toward us. (Is the left side of my face caved in and bleeding?)
I sit on the side of the road because standing gives me the feeling of the ground rippling beneath me. I see Barb, dazed, and figure she too is trying to make sense of the chaos in her own body and head.
Long story short (which is a brevity miracle only because typing is beginning to exhaust my post-wreck metacarpals, and because I want to spare you the entire 6-hour ordeal from wreck to the delivery of a new rental car), we survived and thankfully have little more than friction-burned faces and extremely sore bodies to show for it. Oh, and the below photos.
By the way, my face was neither caved in nor bleeding, and if I am going to experience something like this sort of wreck, Barb is the girl with whom to do it. We kept each other's spirits high (sometimes via delirious belly laughter about god-knows-what since neither one of us was making much verbal sense for a good 24-hours). The fact that we see life in a similar way allowed us to validate and remind each other that every moment of existence is precious and offers us an opportunity to live boldly and authentically. We both seem to do a pretty decent job of this, but reminders are always good (some obviously more jarring and painful than others).
I've decided the wreck was metaphoric for me on a few levels, while also being a much needed recalibration of my focus. My laptop was destroyed in the wreckage, and even its loss puts closure on a chapter of life that had essentially expired.
So, it's onward to the continued adventure... me and my huge tube of Arnica gel.