Thankful for One More Day

The morning sun was at my back as I drove North on Highway 8. I was hovering just below the speed limit as I approached the Potosi city limits.

There is no turning lane on the highway in that spot, so when I saw a car passing the pick-up, I realized that the truck was in my lane. I slammed on my brakes, gripping the steering wheel with my left hand and throwing my right hand to my horn. 

The grey and black Ford F-150 looked like a wall of steel standing before me as I braced for impact. 

The left front end of his truck struck my front driver's side. His truck scraped down the side of my car, and I watched the shoulder of the road move all too quickly beneath my tires.

I felt my car leave the road, then the shoulder of the road, and finally come to a stop nose-down in a six-foot ditch.

I put the car in park. By the time I got out and turned to look at the scene of the accident, the truck's driver was already halfway between his truck and my car, asking me if I was alright, and

apologizing.

Adrenaline pumping, my hands began to shake. Soon my arms and shoulders began to shiver and shake, too. 

By the time the police reports were written, the car was on a tow truck and I had arrived at the auto shop, I was sick to my stomach and exhausted.

My dad helped me with the phone calls and paperwork for insurance and a rental car, and then I worked a 7 hour day, leaving the office well after 9 p.m. 

I slept for 12 hours last night though, and spent today with a sadness in my stomach that I can't explain.

The sadness was there yesterday as well. I wished someone would hug me so that I could let the tears flow. Instead, I worked. Today I cleaned and unpacked more boxes, and only now, after midnight, in my bed alone, are a few tears falling.

I wasn't afraid. As I braced for impact, I felt at peace with whatever was about to happen.  

What a strange thing - to be aware of that sense of peace even as a Ford truck is pummeling the car you're driving. I think I resigned myself in that moment that I was prepared for whatever hand God was dealing me. 

I was a blessed woman to have landed in the cozy 6-foot ditch that I landed in (rather than in any number of 50+ foot drop-offs along that highway), and while I was at peace with whatever was going to happen, I am so, so thankful that I was given another day to wake up and live today. 

Smalltowngirl

Taken 3/14/09 in Potosi, MO

Twenty Four Hours

I gripped the rungs of the ladder, excited. Kids laughed and hollared and water splashed in the pool beneath me as I placed my foot on the first cool, metal rung.

Quickly, I ascended, afraid to look down. The top of the ladder came quickly, and as my eyes became level with the diving board, I realized for the first time exactly how high in the air I was.

What would happen if, at the top, you froze and couldn't get yourself down? Would they call in the fire department like the do when a cat gets stuck in a tree?

All of time stood still for a moment. Butterfiles rose up in my stomach, and fear trickled slowly from my core, into my arms and legs, and on to my fingers and toes. 

It was quiet from the top. A place of relative solitude. The kids down below looked small, and even the lifeguards - in their towers of authority - were beneath me. 

I was on my own, and while I wanted to feel the rush of the dive, I was terrified to actually jump from the diving board now that I was standing on it. 

Whether it was fear of humiliation, the uncertainty of what would happen if I simply sat on the diving board and refused to come down, or my innate sense of courage and adventure, I'm not sure. 

I walked to the edge though. I took a deep breath, and I jumped, a scream of terror and delight escaping my lips as my body hung in the air and began plummeting down. 

When I crashed into the water and made my way back up for air, I couldn't imagine not having had the courage to make that leap.

***

"How are you feeling about the move?" 

With twenty-four hours left, maybe this helps answer that question.

***

These are the People in My Neighborhood

Welcome to Fort Green, Brooklyn. This is a beautiful neighborhood of four-story brownstone buildings, independent markets, restaurants, cafes, and one of New York City's oldest parks. 

The skeletons in the closet of this rapidly gentrifying community's not so distant past include drugs, gangs, and violence. It seems that some of those skeletons are out of the closet again, both figuratively and literally.

Not too long ago, a deconstructed human body was found on the street across from the park. The body, wrapped in plastic and stuffed into a cardboard box, appeared to have been put out for the Department of Sanitation to pick up with the trash. 

I understand that it was the liquid seeping from the box that drew passersby to report the box to the authorities. I was shaken up, not only by the crime, but by it's proximity to my own apartment; less than one block.

Only a few days later, a man walked into a barber shop in Fort Green and open fired. I've willed myself to forget what the casualties were. This incident was a few blocks further than the first from my apartment.

Last night, another human body was found wrapped in plastic and stuffed into a cardboard box on the same street as before, across from the park, less than one block from where I live.

Thinking about these crimes, I hear the old song from Sesame Street, "These are the people in  your neighborhood" play in my mind, with a Tom Waits-style creaking, screaching, eerly, spooky accompaniment. 

It's hard to imagine who the person is in my neighborhood that would do this.

People in Your Neighborhood

Written by Jeffrey Moss

(Lyrics taken from: http://members.tripod.com/Tiny_dancer/ssalbums.html)

Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood? 
In your neighborhood? 
In your neighborhood? 
Say, who are the people in your neighborhood? 
The people that you meet each day 

Oh, the postman always brings the mail 
Through rain or snow or sleet or hail 
I'll work and work the whole day through 
To get your letters safe to you 

'Cause a postman is a person in your neighborhood 
In your neighborhood 
He's in your neighborhood 
A postman is a person in your neighborhood 
A person that you meet each day 

Oh, a fireman is brave it's said 
His engine is a shiny red 
If there's a fire anywhere about 
Well, I'll be sure to put it out 

'Cause a fireman is a person in your neighborhood 
In your neighborhood 
He's in your neighborhood 

And a postman is a person in your neighborhood 

Well, they're the people that you meet 
When you're walking down the street 
They're the people that you meet each day 

The baker is the one who makes 
Your bread and rolls and pies and cakes 
If you want something sweet to eat, go see 
The baker in the bakery 

A teacher works the whole day through 
To teach important things to you 
He'll teach you things you won't forget 
Like numbers and the alphabet 

A barber has a great big chair 
You sit in it, he cuts your hair 
He'll snip and clip and never rest 
Until your haircut looks its best 

The bus driver drives fast or slow 
To take you where you want to go 
When you get in and pay your fare 
She will drive you anywhere 

A dentist cares for all your teeth 
The top ones and the ones beneath 
So if you have an aching tooth 
He'll fix it quick, and that's the truth 

The doctor makes you well real quick 
If by chance you're feeling sick 
She works and works the whole day long 
To help you feel well and strong 

The grocer sells the things you eat 
Like bread and eggs, cheese and meat 
No matter what you're looking for 
You'll find it at the grocery store 

The shoemaker is always there 
To take care of the shoes you wear 
With his hammer, nails, and glue 
He'll fix your shoes as good as new 

The cleaner is the one who knows 
How to clean and press your clothes 
He'll take a jacket, suit, or vest 
And clean it so you'll look your best 

The trash collector works each day 
He'll always take your trash away 
He drives the biggest truck you've seen 
To keep the city streets all clean 

Breaking Things to Fix Them

We began talking. I apologized for snapping at you during brunch. You accepted my apology. Things seemed okay, but I had a lot on my mind. We were sitting on the white couch, and you reached out for me. I needed to talk, not to be held. Even now, when you aren't here to hold me, I don't regret that decision.

An hour later, I took your keys off my keychain and set them quietly on your book shelf. You walked out of the apartment as I started to gather the things of mine that had gradually accumulated in your space. I wanted to slip as gently and quietly as I could out your front door, and I wanted the hurt to stop hurting. I didn't want to leave any traces of myself behind to haunt you.

I thought that maybe you were leaving - that you would take a walk and I'd be gone when you came back. A moment later the door creaked open, and you appeared with two sturdy shopping bags. It wasn't until a few hours later that I realized you'd taken them from the stack someone in your building had left in your entryway. I packed my things.

I said to you what I wanted to say. You were standing next to the radiator. You looked like someone had crushed you when I said what I did. I guess that it really wasn't until that moment that you realized how I felt about you. You had already made your decision though, and I needed to go.

You put my bags in the backseat of the cab, and then you wrapped your arms around me. I can still smell the leather of your coat. I could not hug you back. The heaving sobs rose from deep inside me - from caverns of emotions that I thought would be foverever closed. You had opened them up, and now they echoed my heartbreak.

I sat in the cab and watched you walk down the sidewalk defeated, shoulders slumped and arms hanging low. I thought to myself, "I love you," and I asked the driver through choked sobs, "why do men do this?" even though I knew that man didn't do this.

I had prayed for two weeks that our future would be made clear to me. Saturday night we laughed and teased and watched movies, and we fell asleep happy. The next day, I watched those words come out of your mouth, and I heard the tone in  your voice. I think that you were as surprised to hear yourself say those words as I was.

I feel as if someone has punched me in the heart. Looking back at my life, though, I have never had a bruise that didn't heal. And the healing that you offered my heart, Jeff, far exceeds the hurt that you've left in it. Thank you for that.

Fear of one thing

I have yet to find a time in life when fear has served me well. As a rule, I'm not scared of much. I'm brave enough to do things that people who know me can only shake their heads at, but there's one thing that sends all my bravery fleeing.

Neil Young is playing on the speakers in the Tea Lounge, and I'm sitting cross-legged against the exposed brick wall, propped up on pillows, laptop sitting (appropriately) on my lap. Not long ago, I took a break from my editing job to buy myself a glass of California pinot noir from the bar.

I curled back up on my pillow against the wall, wine glass in hand, realizing that my focus was gone for the night. Every time a tall shadow came through the doorway, my eyes moved from my monitor to the door. My editing was a hopeless cause. My heart was elsewhere.

A few hours before, my fear had taken over, making me snappy and grouchy. It always happens this way; I become attached to someone, I feel frightened and I push the person away. Why am I so afraid? And why can't I control my fear of love the way I always have my fears of other things?

I've lost my concentration, hoping that maybe, just maybe, I'll see his tall shadow walk through the door. In twenty-five minutes, the tea lounge will close. My wine glass will go empty and alone into the sink for someone to wash and dry, and I'll walk myself the ten blocks to my smoky sublet on the other side of the Slope.

I can't stop asking myself why, when I know better, I still allow myself to become so afraid of love. Maybe it's not too late for me to learn.