"The Incident"
It's time I write about what happened. For the TLDR crowd, I slid over a patch of ice and escaped with my life, unharmed. The car, my mom's, was not okay. But for those of you who wish to know more, let me say a few things first.
One: sometimes my rational mind is at odds with my intuitive side. By intuitive side, I mean the part of me that senses things, that puts irrelevant details into patterns, that feels weird, bad things looming. By 'rational mind', I mean the part of me that is in control of logic, of the physical, of the moment. Often it's a real task reconciling the two.
Two: I felt a definite presence pulling me toward something unkind. That afternoon at lunch, my mom and dad were talking about the idea of angels -- not of winged types, but rather of people who show up at just the right time and do something wonderful. I was keen on their stories, but I didn't -- and still don't -- know if I could ever buy or ever encounter something like that happening to me. I believe in it, but I'm not sure I'll ever encounter it. I didn't that night. Anyway, I showered that day, too, and I thought about death a lot as the droplets hit my back and I stared into the foggy glass of the shower door. Sometimes you attract what you think about.
Three: I didn't have to leave the house that night. Like, really didn't have to. I had family over, and they were leaving to go back to California the next day, and I should have stayed with them. Greg invited me over, and I knew they were just going to drink (which I don't do), and I knew I would only be going to say hi, and that I could see them any time. But years of them getting together on New Year's with me sulking about it because I didn't go finally pushed me over the edge. I only stayed for an hour. An hour. I left his house at 10:15, well before anything significant in terms of New-Year's-Happenings. I can't say I regret what happened because what's done is done, but with strange occurrences come these sorts of thoughts.
Four: There exists an herb in ancient Persian medicine and folklore called Esfand. One burns it, according to ancient Persian tradition, in order to rid children of the so-called "Evil Eye" that is upon them.
Anyway, now I will tell you what happened as best as I can remember it. On New Year's Eve, I left Greg's house very promptly at 10:15. I checked my phone and tucked it into my handbag and I plugged my iPod in without any intention of touching them (and I didn't for the entire ride). I had gone to Greg's going one way, and came back using another route. I turned onto Wolf Hill road the way I have turned on to it a hundred - maybe a thousand times. A little ways down the road, there is a hill that is a blind turn for some, and steep/dangerous enough that the houses there have guard rails set up. I drove up the hill. The hill occurs right before an elementary school, and weather conditions were suspect, so I couldn't have been going more than 30. As soon as I thought the turn was done, something went wrong. Music was blasting, blood beating in my ears, and I realized my wheels weren't doing their job. The back and front of the car were going in two different directions. At this point the car was sliding forward over the double yellow line and I had a set of decisions to make very quickly. To my left, there was a picked-fenced house, and it was unclear if there was anyone coming in the distance in terms of oncoming traffic in the opposite lane. If I had let the car slide, I would have slid into oncoming traffic or eventually into a poll or the sidewalk of the school, which inclined down a hill. For whatever reason, I decided not to do it because I couldn't gauge oncoming traffic. As for the direction I had been going, I don't think there was anyone behind me. Therefore, I did not steer into the turn. I did not just let the car slide. I can't say that these were necessarily mistakes, because I could not judge the speed of cars that were potentially coming towards me. I tried, incorrectly, to stabilize the wheel. In doing so, the car started to spin. I watched the world whirl around me. Eventually my head locked in on the image of the lawn of the house which had been on my right - also down a small, but significant decline. Had I kept spinning, my car would have dipped into and down and I would have smashed into the car parked in the driveway, the garage, or the house itself. I will never know, because I didn't let go of the wheel and kept spinning. I saw a tree. I knew I was choosing to hit it, but I didn't think about what would happen. I absorbed a lot in that few seconds, and slipping over the ice certainly made time feel like it was bending, but I definitely didn't think fast enough about how my car was going to smack into the tree. It was simply spinning too fast. Things impacted, things burst, there was darkness, and the music kept playing. I closed my eyes for the millisecond it struck, but I didn't black out. I was entirely cognizant.
There was a jolt of adrenaline. My mind was rapt, swirling, calculating. After the impact, I think what I felt most was disbelief. It hit me harder than the tree did. You never think that you'll be the one to hit that stupid, insignificant little snippet of ice that will cause you a world of trouble. You think that you're in command of your car, and that because weather conditions were fine when you left the house, they will remain comprable when you're coming back. You think that because you drive a big, hefty car, it's not going to slip and slide. My uncle looked at the car later and mentioned that my tires were practically bald.
I looked out in front of me and the first thing I noticed very clearly was the immense, web-like pattern that the glass of the windshield had made. The side window didn't exist any more. Whether or not my sleeves and hair were littered with shards of glass or ice-rain, I'll never know. I looked around. The house on the other side of the street had its lights on and two people popped their head out and were looking at me. I flashed my lights, as if by doing so I could tell them I was okay. The engine and lights still worked. I unplugged my iPod, grabbed my phone and called my mom. I gingerly stepped out of the bent door (what remained of it, for it separated into three slices). There was an immense dent where tree hit car (you can look back at the pictures in my previous post for the visual). Long black panels, pieces of the car, were scattered on the ground.
The owners of the house weren't home. A man, their next-door neighbor, walked up to me. He said that his family was watching TV when they felt the earth shake, so he called the cops. The other man, from the house I saw with the lights on, walked up to us, too. One of them said the car probably wasn't totaled, but we're still waiting for the insurance people to tell us for sure.
It happened right across from Sarah's house. Sarah and her Dad definitely opened the door to a bizarre situation. (Imagine opening your door to your best friend having crashed a car that you've ridden in numerous times into a tree right across the street from your home. Ichh!) Eventually Dad and Uncle Max came, along with my two cousins, to help fix everything. One of my cousins came with his face half-shaven. I had to sign some stuff for the cop who eventually came. This all happened while we walked about in uncomfortable, awkward piles of snow and puddles of ice water (and, let us not forget, constant rain). They moved the car and covered it with something to protect the blown out window.
Eventually we all went home. As I fell asleep that night, my muscles still remembered the spinning. I felt them wishing they were still rotating clockwise. The car is still in front of Sarah's house. My parents aren't at all mad, just relieved. We joked about how mom wanted a new one, anyway. We'll see what happens. I'm left with certain choices to make now in terms of transportation, considering I wanted to commute to school next semester and gave up my room just a day or two before this happened.
So, you're probably thinking, what does burning a weed have to do with all of this?
That night, my mom told my dad she wanted to burn some esfand, for the sake of the New Year. Dad said it was late at night and that they were better off burning it later. As soon as he finished his sentence, the phone rang. I was on the other line, about to tell them what just happened to me.
Evil eye, indeed.
So what's the moral, here? Airbags save lives. Not driving on ice saves more lives. Perhaps there are things like "evil-eyes" or 6th-sense-like feelings or whatnot, but in the end, ice, physics, momentum, and the human brain count, too. I could be dead right now, but I'm not, because as much as I think about death or mortality, my will to live sends out its own signals, too. I can look back and dissect details, but I walked away with my life and nary a bruise, so it'd be a damn shame to keep looking backward.
One: sometimes my rational mind is at odds with my intuitive side. By intuitive side, I mean the part of me that senses things, that puts irrelevant details into patterns, that feels weird, bad things looming. By 'rational mind', I mean the part of me that is in control of logic, of the physical, of the moment. Often it's a real task reconciling the two.
Two: I felt a definite presence pulling me toward something unkind. That afternoon at lunch, my mom and dad were talking about the idea of angels -- not of winged types, but rather of people who show up at just the right time and do something wonderful. I was keen on their stories, but I didn't -- and still don't -- know if I could ever buy or ever encounter something like that happening to me. I believe in it, but I'm not sure I'll ever encounter it. I didn't that night. Anyway, I showered that day, too, and I thought about death a lot as the droplets hit my back and I stared into the foggy glass of the shower door. Sometimes you attract what you think about.
Three: I didn't have to leave the house that night. Like, really didn't have to. I had family over, and they were leaving to go back to California the next day, and I should have stayed with them. Greg invited me over, and I knew they were just going to drink (which I don't do), and I knew I would only be going to say hi, and that I could see them any time. But years of them getting together on New Year's with me sulking about it because I didn't go finally pushed me over the edge. I only stayed for an hour. An hour. I left his house at 10:15, well before anything significant in terms of New-Year's-Happenings. I can't say I regret what happened because what's done is done, but with strange occurrences come these sorts of thoughts.
Four: There exists an herb in ancient Persian medicine and folklore called Esfand. One burns it, according to ancient Persian tradition, in order to rid children of the so-called "Evil Eye" that is upon them.
Anyway, now I will tell you what happened as best as I can remember it. On New Year's Eve, I left Greg's house very promptly at 10:15. I checked my phone and tucked it into my handbag and I plugged my iPod in without any intention of touching them (and I didn't for the entire ride). I had gone to Greg's going one way, and came back using another route. I turned onto Wolf Hill road the way I have turned on to it a hundred - maybe a thousand times. A little ways down the road, there is a hill that is a blind turn for some, and steep/dangerous enough that the houses there have guard rails set up. I drove up the hill. The hill occurs right before an elementary school, and weather conditions were suspect, so I couldn't have been going more than 30. As soon as I thought the turn was done, something went wrong. Music was blasting, blood beating in my ears, and I realized my wheels weren't doing their job. The back and front of the car were going in two different directions. At this point the car was sliding forward over the double yellow line and I had a set of decisions to make very quickly. To my left, there was a picked-fenced house, and it was unclear if there was anyone coming in the distance in terms of oncoming traffic in the opposite lane. If I had let the car slide, I would have slid into oncoming traffic or eventually into a poll or the sidewalk of the school, which inclined down a hill. For whatever reason, I decided not to do it because I couldn't gauge oncoming traffic. As for the direction I had been going, I don't think there was anyone behind me. Therefore, I did not steer into the turn. I did not just let the car slide. I can't say that these were necessarily mistakes, because I could not judge the speed of cars that were potentially coming towards me. I tried, incorrectly, to stabilize the wheel. In doing so, the car started to spin. I watched the world whirl around me. Eventually my head locked in on the image of the lawn of the house which had been on my right - also down a small, but significant decline. Had I kept spinning, my car would have dipped into and down and I would have smashed into the car parked in the driveway, the garage, or the house itself. I will never know, because I didn't let go of the wheel and kept spinning. I saw a tree. I knew I was choosing to hit it, but I didn't think about what would happen. I absorbed a lot in that few seconds, and slipping over the ice certainly made time feel like it was bending, but I definitely didn't think fast enough about how my car was going to smack into the tree. It was simply spinning too fast. Things impacted, things burst, there was darkness, and the music kept playing. I closed my eyes for the millisecond it struck, but I didn't black out. I was entirely cognizant.
There was a jolt of adrenaline. My mind was rapt, swirling, calculating. After the impact, I think what I felt most was disbelief. It hit me harder than the tree did. You never think that you'll be the one to hit that stupid, insignificant little snippet of ice that will cause you a world of trouble. You think that you're in command of your car, and that because weather conditions were fine when you left the house, they will remain comprable when you're coming back. You think that because you drive a big, hefty car, it's not going to slip and slide. My uncle looked at the car later and mentioned that my tires were practically bald.
I looked out in front of me and the first thing I noticed very clearly was the immense, web-like pattern that the glass of the windshield had made. The side window didn't exist any more. Whether or not my sleeves and hair were littered with shards of glass or ice-rain, I'll never know. I looked around. The house on the other side of the street had its lights on and two people popped their head out and were looking at me. I flashed my lights, as if by doing so I could tell them I was okay. The engine and lights still worked. I unplugged my iPod, grabbed my phone and called my mom. I gingerly stepped out of the bent door (what remained of it, for it separated into three slices). There was an immense dent where tree hit car (you can look back at the pictures in my previous post for the visual). Long black panels, pieces of the car, were scattered on the ground.
The owners of the house weren't home. A man, their next-door neighbor, walked up to me. He said that his family was watching TV when they felt the earth shake, so he called the cops. The other man, from the house I saw with the lights on, walked up to us, too. One of them said the car probably wasn't totaled, but we're still waiting for the insurance people to tell us for sure.
It happened right across from Sarah's house. Sarah and her Dad definitely opened the door to a bizarre situation. (Imagine opening your door to your best friend having crashed a car that you've ridden in numerous times into a tree right across the street from your home. Ichh!) Eventually Dad and Uncle Max came, along with my two cousins, to help fix everything. One of my cousins came with his face half-shaven. I had to sign some stuff for the cop who eventually came. This all happened while we walked about in uncomfortable, awkward piles of snow and puddles of ice water (and, let us not forget, constant rain). They moved the car and covered it with something to protect the blown out window.
Eventually we all went home. As I fell asleep that night, my muscles still remembered the spinning. I felt them wishing they were still rotating clockwise. The car is still in front of Sarah's house. My parents aren't at all mad, just relieved. We joked about how mom wanted a new one, anyway. We'll see what happens. I'm left with certain choices to make now in terms of transportation, considering I wanted to commute to school next semester and gave up my room just a day or two before this happened.
So, you're probably thinking, what does burning a weed have to do with all of this?
That night, my mom told my dad she wanted to burn some esfand, for the sake of the New Year. Dad said it was late at night and that they were better off burning it later. As soon as he finished his sentence, the phone rang. I was on the other line, about to tell them what just happened to me.
Evil eye, indeed.
So what's the moral, here? Airbags save lives. Not driving on ice saves more lives. Perhaps there are things like "evil-eyes" or 6th-sense-like feelings or whatnot, but in the end, ice, physics, momentum, and the human brain count, too. I could be dead right now, but I'm not, because as much as I think about death or mortality, my will to live sends out its own signals, too. I can look back and dissect details, but I walked away with my life and nary a bruise, so it'd be a damn shame to keep looking backward.