Emergencies, Car Accidents, Etc

Hey, darlin. Many of you noticed that ttalk didn’t come through for the first Sunday in 2.5 years this week. (color me impressed! and grateful that you are here with me)

Ttalk didn’t come through on Sunday for the first time in 2.5 years because I was in a really bad car crash that day. Miraculously I came out with a couple of bruises (the car, not so much). Took me a few days to write about it though.

(As such I’d advise a heavy trigger/content warning for below the dash if you have auto collision or emergency related trauma)
(And am sending you my love)
(t)

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When the car hits the side of the Taconic State Parkway I don’t think anything.

I’m in my mom’s Subaru, en route upstate to visit Sima.
I am listening, hilariously, to a This American Life episode called “Wait - Do you have the map?”

The episode outlines moments when we have no lived experience to guide us. When we have to draw out the map for ourselves. I realize, as I listen, that I have so many moments like this. So many new maps I have created for previously unheard of situations.

(And then an animal runs out on the Taconic to comically ask me, “What about now, motherfucker?”)

The squirrel (or chipmunk? who knows, but that critter is still alive / perhaps I am his guardian angel) runs out in front of my mother’s Subaru.

I swerve (Life lesson - Don’t! Do! That!).
Hit the side of the Taconic State Parkway.
Yell a profanity.

(Later on when P.J. the tow truck driver points out that the car’s right front tire is basically detached I realize I probably should have thought something)

But when the car hits the side of the Taconic State Parkway I don’t think anything.
I begin, instead, the first of my 180 degree spins.

The moment breaks into a thousand moments before me. A hazy slow motion I’ve heard of, but with which I heretofore don’t have experience. I am aware, only, of my hands on the wheel.

(Later on Aaron, the angel sheriff, will show me the long stretch of tire tracks that temporarily inscribe my trajectory on asphalt)
(Like a balloon with its air leaking out)
(Dancing jerkily all over the Taconic State Parkway)

The balloon loses its air
The car meets the guard rail
Five successive bangs ring out

And I am present.

(Uneventful, or perhaps I’m still mired in a cloud of dissociation as I write)
(Can anything really prepare you for death or the startling nearness to it?)
(Later on I learn that the creek / diving hole below the site of this crash is a natural anomaly, thousands of years old and unbelievably deep)
(Everyone else who learns this says, “Wow, that must have been so terrifying.”)

But when the car meets the guard rail I don’t feel any fear.
I feel, instead, a very calm, very clear idea of what to do.

(And, finally, think something.)

“We’re going over this guard rail now, t. Time to relax.”

(But guard rails, as it happens, are very strong)

And the car does not fall off the cliff.

It leans like a comical joke on three very strong metal wires. Time, up until this second hazy and dreamlike, snaps like a rubber band into painful and real focus.

As soon as I realize I am not, in fact, going over this guard rail, my zen evaporates.

I return to my plentiful garden of Jewish neuroses.
Scream an obscenity at the absolute top of my lungs.
Look to the passenger side of the car - destroyed. My side of the car - fine. My body - somehow completely intact.

I also realize I need to get out of this car because a man in a red SUV has pulled up in front of me.

The man in the red SUV is a sweetie who just watched this whole affair while driving behind me. Maybe 65-70 years old. He has horn rimmed glasses, very little hair and a puffy cargo vest that may or may not have been purchased at LL Bean.

The man in the red SUV is also panicking.

I exit my car with every intent of placating him. The first words out of my mouth are (loudly), “I’m fine.”

(Because I am, if nothing else, a woman in 2023)
(Raised by people who did their very best to teach me I am allowed to have feelings)
(But raised, still, on Earth and more specifically in America)
(So fuck the car, fuck my body, it is overwhelmingly important that I get this panicked horn-rimmed man to relax.)

For some infuriating reason (maybe the totaled car behind us? who knows) he does not seem convinced.

“I’m fine,” I tell him again. “I just need to call AAA.”

He points to my chest, which has sustained a marked bruise from where my body flew against the seatbelt.
Gesticulates, wildly, at the car behind us.

“I really don’t think you’re fine,” he says.

(Man, what is this guy’s deal?!)

I tell him again. “I’m fine. I just need to call AAA.”

(I wish I could quickly explain my history of fixing everyone else’s problems to Mr. Horn-Rim)
(Or the patently Jewish experience of living your entire life in semi-crisis, which does not lend well to being late for a coffee date but does, in fact, prepare you quite well for a real crisis like this)

But there’s no time. God, there’s no time, Mr. Horn-Rim, and I need to call AAA. I beg him to please leave me alone. He climbs into his red SUV with a look of desperate confusion in his eyes and obliges.

The man in the pickup truck shows up not one minute later.

The man in the pickup truck is a weathered caricature of American masculinity. Maybe 50 years old. He has a beard, an Iron Maiden t-shirt and a lit cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

“I’m fine,” I shout at him.

“No, the fuck, you’re not,” he shouts back. “You’re standing in the middle of the fucking highway and you need to move this car.”

(Ruh roh.)

Lit cigarette man has a point. I look at what has actually happened and for a moment my shock/dissociation drops. I very nearly panic. Maybe even show a little emotion.

(Lit cigarette man is some kind of super hero though?)
(Or perhaps he has experience with women in 2023 and our myriad complexities)
(He shoves the car off the guard rail)
(Climbs in it)
(Somehow gets it to sputter and start)

And careens it across the highway to a clearing. He then runs across the highway, gets in his pickup truck and reverses it to the clearing as well.

(Lit cigarette man! For president!)
(Later I learn that the Taconic has almost no clearings, thus making this the single best place on the entire fracking parkway to have crashed)
(One of the many wild miracles of this bonkers experience)

Lit cigarette man tells me to not attempt to drive this car. Helps me call the police. I learn what a mile marker, something I have name dropped in so many songs, actually is. Then he tells me that he’s on a work drive and needs to leave.

I call Dylan, who by now I hope you feel is your best friend, by proxy. His response wins.

“Is your body okay?”
(Yes)
“Is your mind okay?”
(No)

He lets me cry. And then he asks the most important question.

“Are we ready to joke about this yet?”

(Absofuckinlutely.)

Dylan holds space, sob-laughs with me about yet another thing the universe wants to throw at me, gently sasses me for the fact that I care (much) more about destroying my mother’s car than the fact that I just narrowly averted death. His levity allows me to be of sound mind when Aaron, the angel sheriff arrives.

And then it all goes quickly, or slowly, or something.
By the nature of the passage of time things shift.
José is alerted.
José calls Sima.
I tell them both not to come, because I’ve got this (lol!).
Aaron calls P.J. the tow truck man.

When P.J. the tow truck man arrives he cheerfully tells me, “I pick up a lot of cars here! Some of the drivers are dead!”

(Thanks, P.J.!)

I pull my cowboy boots, my Stetson hat, I don’t know what else out of that car and load it into P.J.’s. It occurs to me, for a second, that what I’m looking at encapsulates it all, so I take a photo for you (I’m glad I didn’t grab any of the car).

P.J. drops me off at a way upstate New York gas station where Sima is waiting with tea that has a lot of honey in it. I’m grateful she did not agree with me, because, it turns out, I very much do not have this.

And then it all goes quickly, or slowly, or something.
By the nature of the passage of time things shift.
My family generously reminds me that my life is worth more than any car.
Insurance companies get called.
Rental cars get rented.

My brain returns.

After Sima drops me off and the limbs have been iced I think a lot of things. I have a very clear idea of how my brain should be working, since my body has not been harmed.

My brain disagrees.

I do not want to share the news with anyone, because my body has not been harmed and it seems strange and unnecessary to make people worry.

(I have never judged, but also never related to, pictures of people’s gnarled cars with declarations of newfound clarity post crash)
(But Valentine’s Day is here)
(And social media is weird)
(So JJ and I are confused?)

Is there a card or post to indicate, “José James is the love of my life, now please accept my broken sweetie brain that is trying its best to love him slash not remember the sound of that guard rail”?

There isn’t, so I don’t write it. I try and focus instead on him, on my breathing, on the chalk hearts some sweetie has drawn all over Hastings on Hudson.

We take a train into Manhattan. José is patient, has planned a cutie Valentine’s Day hang with all my favorite things.

(postcard shopping)
(dog petting)

(caffe reggio, the seat that’s in the wall, an order of profiterole while sitting under the Chopin bust)

José James is the love of my life. He accepts my broken sweetie brain that is trying its best to love him slash not remember the sound of that guard rail.

The next day I fly home.

And then it all goes quickly, or slowly, or something.
By the nature of the passage of time things shift.
Daniel drops off beef bourguignon that Patrick made (holy man is it delicious). Sam and Dylan check in every day.

I shift between feeling fine and feeling completely insane. The fog of dissociation is my constant companion. Things feel like a movie, things feel completely fine, things feel like they aren’t here.

My body has not been harmed.

My brain disagrees.

It’s Thursday now. I keep typing. I sort of feel like I should wait to press send on this (will I be able to write another one in four days? I remain terrified of disappointing literally anyone in the history of the universe!) and then I sort of feel like maybe that’s why everyone reads these here ttalks, anyway.

For an honest (albeit semi-dissociative at this moment) accounting of wherever I am.

So I close my laptop.
Eat Rice Krispies.
Get in a lavender bubble bath.

Once out of the lavender bubble bath I eat Daniel and Patrick’s beef bourguignon (holy man is it delicious). I fashion an iced coffee with rose water and my very own cardamom syrup (holy man is it delicious).

I open up the laptop again.

And there it is, right at the edge of my field of vision.

(Is it a bit of hope?)
(Maybe a bit of healing?)

Or maybe, underneath it all, a little girl who was so grateful that Sima showed up with a tea full of honey even when I told her not to. And feels the same about you, when she’s calm and lavender-bathed enough to admit it.

If there is a lesson here I’m not quite sure I’ve learned it just yet. But god damn do I love you, and god damn is this rose cardamom latte / beef bourguignon delicious.

And maybe that’s enough for now.

More next week. Or in four days, if I can manage it.
t