Flip of the coin:
The clock said eight oclock. Had it been that long? Another Friday, another 10 hour work day. It seemed like as good a time as any to go home and begin my weekend. When I get into these work modes where Im deep into what I am doing, time is irrelevant. I get sucked in and every sound is pushed off into the distance. When someone tries to talk to me, I always have to ask them what they said, because the first time all I heard was distant voices but I couldnt make out any of it. I had to come out of that deep working mental state to respond to them. Thats why I like to work alone and stay late a few nights a week. There are no distractions. Theres no one to bring me out. Theres nothing but the work. I can absorb myself into that mindset and be very productive.
However, when I sometimes come up out of that place, it can be hard to return, especially after 10 hours of work. My mind begins to lose focus. I find myself trying harder to perform. Im trying hard to find my way back there. Then I stop again. Okay fatigue, you win. Lets get that weekend started. Its been a tough week, and I can hardly wait to hit these weekends and have my moments belong to me once again.
I lock up the building, set the alarms and hop on my bike for the ride home. From work to home, its about 30 minutes walking but only about 12 by bike. I mount my trusty Schwinn steed and prepare to depart, but first I need music.
I recently made a mix-CD of tunes that incorporate strings or horns. Its another crazy attempt at harnessing beauty, which for the record, I believe cannot be done. What I mean is, beauty evolves. Beauty is always moving. You can try to trap it, but even if you somehow could, youll never keep it. Beauty is everywhere and it is very strong. Its so strong that it overwhelms us sometimes. The one thing I know about beauty is that you cant stop it; you can only hope to contain it. That is, if thats what you truly want to do. A case in point is this CD. It has 18 amazing songs which are simply soaked in what I find beautiful. But the truth is, in 3 weeks, Ill want to switch a few songs on it. Then a short time after, Ill want to switch a few more. Eventually Ill end up making a new CD. There is no end, there is only beauty.
With a press of a button, Elvis Costellos God Give Me Strength filled my ears with powerful emotions, sadness, beauty, and the sounds I love to hear. I take a deep breath. I sigh, smile and push down on the right pedal to begin the short trip home. Soon I will be peaceful. Ill have a sandwich in one hand and a cool beverage in the other. There will be no bedtime. There will only be my time.
I turn onto Lafayette Avenue as the song changes on the CD. Lafayette is my least favorite part of the ride. Its a little run down and dirty. You can see a few vacant lots where houses once stood that were ravaged by fire or something else. Its still daylight, but theres no need for my sunglasses now. At times like this one of my favorite little games to play is to try to get home before the streetlights come on. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I dont. There are no prizes to be had, only amusement. Today was different though. This wasnt some Tuesday ride home from work, this was a Friday. I was going to milk it. I was going to savor this ride to the next few days.
The next song was an older track by a band called Whiskeytown. If you dont know who they are, they were Ryan Adams band before he went solo over 5 years ago. They were one of the better alternative-country bands around in the mid-90s. I must confess I didnt like all their songs, but some of the slower ones were really good. Their song Dont Wanna Know Why began and I got excited. This song has plenty. There are the strings, the soft guitar, piano, the scruffy vocals, and the pretty female backing vocal that really stands out in the chorus. Dont wanna know why you like me, I dont care.
When I ride my bike and listen to such enchanting tunes, my eyes are straight ahead on the road, but much like when Im in my work trance, my mind is a split second away. Thats why all I saw was a red flash coming right at me and the next thing I knew I was on the side of the road trying to sit up to get a look at who nearly killed me.
The car was a half block away and so was my mind. I was screaming bloody murder at that car. I doubt even if I was in possession of all my faculties I couldve gotten a license plate or anything like that, but all I could do in my enraged state was scream obscenities at that car. The first thing I thought was The Red Menace strikes again. Once the car made it a block down, turned and had sped out of my sight, I began to wonder if I were hurt. Sometimes you dont realize you are hurt because you are caught in a moment, such as I was. I landed hard on the street slamming the right side of my body into it. My right knee was all cut up. My right elbow was also. There were significant pains coming from my right shoulder and right inner thigh. I got to my feet to see if I could stand and quickly realized that I could, although my right knee had a good deal of soreness to go with the good deal of blood. That car nearly hit me dead on. I could have been dead.
In fact something was dead. I looked over to my bike to get back on and resume my trip but it was not coming with me. Everything underneath my handle bars was dented badly, and my front rim was bent at a 90 degree angle. Strangely though, the front tire still had air in it. I thought about ways to salvage the bike, but the anger inside of me couldnt let me think clearly. Was I going to carry the bike home? I still had at least 20 minutes to walk to get there. There was no one for me to call. In fact, I was a few blocks from a telephone anyway.
I took one last look at my partially crushed friend. It wasnt an expensive bike, so it really wasnt worth trying to salvage, but my sanity on the other hand, was. My eyes returned to the middle of the street. I was wondering if I dropped anything in the fall. At this point only 2 things are going through my mind: anger and why? Why would someone coming down the street suddenly veer right into where I was? What kind of a sick person would run someone off the road so violently?
Upon one last look into the street the answer was revealed. This was a narrow 2 way street. The kind where the cars can only park on one side of the road for there to even be one lane in either direction. If something were in the street that would make someone swerve, they would pretty much be in the other lane for a second or two. Perhaps it was something like the massive pothole on the other side of the street. It wasnt terribly deep but it was at least 3 feet wide. Thats why they came over so far towards me. They nearly ran into me head on to avoid a pothole they must have caught sight of at the last possible second. I began to wonder if they even noticed me. Or if they noticed what their actions had done.
As I began the walk home, my mind replayed the entire scene over and over. I was coming one way on my bike clinging to the side of the road near the parked cars. The red car was coming the other way towards me at a high rate of speed, at least 30 MPH, but probably closer to 40. Since its really a side street, you can travel recklessly fast on a road like this without concern over stoplights or heavy traffic. When the car had closed to about 15 feet away from me it suddenly swerved so that it was coming right at me. My reaction was to turn hard right away from the car. Luckily I had just moved into a large gap between parked cars on my right so I was able to do this manuever. I turned hard right and the car swerved back to its lane missing me by 1 to 2 feet. Had I not attempted to get out of the way, it would have been very close indeed. Upon my hard right turn, I made it a few feet to the side of the road before I came to a very abrupt stop.
I had turned my wheel so hard to the right that after a second the wheel had been turned too far and the obtuse angle of the front wheel and frame became an acute one. This caused the bike to stop immediately and threw me off of it straight forward where I landed hard on my right side just a few inches from the curb. The whole incident probably took 3 seconds to play out but seemed to me like a few minutes.
.
By now I was a few blocks along. With a partial limp and grinding teeth I was joined by 2 friends in conversation. Well call them Mr. White and Mr. Red. They took their places upon either of my shoulders, probably so that theyd have a good location to speak very close to my ears. Mr. White was saying reassuring things such as; at least it wasnt any worse, while Mr. Red was saying things of a negative nature like kill the next bastard in a red car.
Once it began to dawn on me that neither little friend was saying what I wanted to hear, I cast them aside to begin my own penetrating thought about the nature of this accident. On one hand I began to wonder if I were lucky to have escaped that moment with small cuts, scrapes, and bruises. But this other dark thought entered my mind as I contemplated if I were unlucky to have been at that exact place at that exact moment. The pothole was where it was. If I had been 5 seconds sooner or later, this wouldnt have happened. Perhaps it was bad luck that I was there to be hurt. Was it good luck or bad luck? Maybe Ben Kenobi was right, maybe there is no such thing as luck. Then why did this happen? Is there a lesson to be learned? Was this some kind of warning? Is this some sort of test? Let the overanalyzing begin.
The clock said eight oclock. Had it been that long? Another Friday, another 10 hour work day. It seemed like as good a time as any to go home and begin my weekend. When I get into these work modes where Im deep into what I am doing, time is irrelevant. I get sucked in and every sound is pushed off into the distance. When someone tries to talk to me, I always have to ask them what they said, because the first time all I heard was distant voices but I couldnt make out any of it. I had to come out of that deep working mental state to respond to them. Thats why I like to work alone and stay late a few nights a week. There are no distractions. Theres no one to bring me out. Theres nothing but the work. I can absorb myself into that mindset and be very productive.
However, when I sometimes come up out of that place, it can be hard to return, especially after 10 hours of work. My mind begins to lose focus. I find myself trying harder to perform. Im trying hard to find my way back there. Then I stop again. Okay fatigue, you win. Lets get that weekend started. Its been a tough week, and I can hardly wait to hit these weekends and have my moments belong to me once again.
I lock up the building, set the alarms and hop on my bike for the ride home. From work to home, its about 30 minutes walking but only about 12 by bike. I mount my trusty Schwinn steed and prepare to depart, but first I need music.
I recently made a mix-CD of tunes that incorporate strings or horns. Its another crazy attempt at harnessing beauty, which for the record, I believe cannot be done. What I mean is, beauty evolves. Beauty is always moving. You can try to trap it, but even if you somehow could, youll never keep it. Beauty is everywhere and it is very strong. Its so strong that it overwhelms us sometimes. The one thing I know about beauty is that you cant stop it; you can only hope to contain it. That is, if thats what you truly want to do. A case in point is this CD. It has 18 amazing songs which are simply soaked in what I find beautiful. But the truth is, in 3 weeks, Ill want to switch a few songs on it. Then a short time after, Ill want to switch a few more. Eventually Ill end up making a new CD. There is no end, there is only beauty.
With a press of a button, Elvis Costellos God Give Me Strength filled my ears with powerful emotions, sadness, beauty, and the sounds I love to hear. I take a deep breath. I sigh, smile and push down on the right pedal to begin the short trip home. Soon I will be peaceful. Ill have a sandwich in one hand and a cool beverage in the other. There will be no bedtime. There will only be my time.
I turn onto Lafayette Avenue as the song changes on the CD. Lafayette is my least favorite part of the ride. Its a little run down and dirty. You can see a few vacant lots where houses once stood that were ravaged by fire or something else. Its still daylight, but theres no need for my sunglasses now. At times like this one of my favorite little games to play is to try to get home before the streetlights come on. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I dont. There are no prizes to be had, only amusement. Today was different though. This wasnt some Tuesday ride home from work, this was a Friday. I was going to milk it. I was going to savor this ride to the next few days.
The next song was an older track by a band called Whiskeytown. If you dont know who they are, they were Ryan Adams band before he went solo over 5 years ago. They were one of the better alternative-country bands around in the mid-90s. I must confess I didnt like all their songs, but some of the slower ones were really good. Their song Dont Wanna Know Why began and I got excited. This song has plenty. There are the strings, the soft guitar, piano, the scruffy vocals, and the pretty female backing vocal that really stands out in the chorus. Dont wanna know why you like me, I dont care.
When I ride my bike and listen to such enchanting tunes, my eyes are straight ahead on the road, but much like when Im in my work trance, my mind is a split second away. Thats why all I saw was a red flash coming right at me and the next thing I knew I was on the side of the road trying to sit up to get a look at who nearly killed me.
The car was a half block away and so was my mind. I was screaming bloody murder at that car. I doubt even if I was in possession of all my faculties I couldve gotten a license plate or anything like that, but all I could do in my enraged state was scream obscenities at that car. The first thing I thought was The Red Menace strikes again. Once the car made it a block down, turned and had sped out of my sight, I began to wonder if I were hurt. Sometimes you dont realize you are hurt because you are caught in a moment, such as I was. I landed hard on the street slamming the right side of my body into it. My right knee was all cut up. My right elbow was also. There were significant pains coming from my right shoulder and right inner thigh. I got to my feet to see if I could stand and quickly realized that I could, although my right knee had a good deal of soreness to go with the good deal of blood. That car nearly hit me dead on. I could have been dead.
In fact something was dead. I looked over to my bike to get back on and resume my trip but it was not coming with me. Everything underneath my handle bars was dented badly, and my front rim was bent at a 90 degree angle. Strangely though, the front tire still had air in it. I thought about ways to salvage the bike, but the anger inside of me couldnt let me think clearly. Was I going to carry the bike home? I still had at least 20 minutes to walk to get there. There was no one for me to call. In fact, I was a few blocks from a telephone anyway.
I took one last look at my partially crushed friend. It wasnt an expensive bike, so it really wasnt worth trying to salvage, but my sanity on the other hand, was. My eyes returned to the middle of the street. I was wondering if I dropped anything in the fall. At this point only 2 things are going through my mind: anger and why? Why would someone coming down the street suddenly veer right into where I was? What kind of a sick person would run someone off the road so violently?
Upon one last look into the street the answer was revealed. This was a narrow 2 way street. The kind where the cars can only park on one side of the road for there to even be one lane in either direction. If something were in the street that would make someone swerve, they would pretty much be in the other lane for a second or two. Perhaps it was something like the massive pothole on the other side of the street. It wasnt terribly deep but it was at least 3 feet wide. Thats why they came over so far towards me. They nearly ran into me head on to avoid a pothole they must have caught sight of at the last possible second. I began to wonder if they even noticed me. Or if they noticed what their actions had done.
As I began the walk home, my mind replayed the entire scene over and over. I was coming one way on my bike clinging to the side of the road near the parked cars. The red car was coming the other way towards me at a high rate of speed, at least 30 MPH, but probably closer to 40. Since its really a side street, you can travel recklessly fast on a road like this without concern over stoplights or heavy traffic. When the car had closed to about 15 feet away from me it suddenly swerved so that it was coming right at me. My reaction was to turn hard right away from the car. Luckily I had just moved into a large gap between parked cars on my right so I was able to do this manuever. I turned hard right and the car swerved back to its lane missing me by 1 to 2 feet. Had I not attempted to get out of the way, it would have been very close indeed. Upon my hard right turn, I made it a few feet to the side of the road before I came to a very abrupt stop.
I had turned my wheel so hard to the right that after a second the wheel had been turned too far and the obtuse angle of the front wheel and frame became an acute one. This caused the bike to stop immediately and threw me off of it straight forward where I landed hard on my right side just a few inches from the curb. The whole incident probably took 3 seconds to play out but seemed to me like a few minutes.
.
By now I was a few blocks along. With a partial limp and grinding teeth I was joined by 2 friends in conversation. Well call them Mr. White and Mr. Red. They took their places upon either of my shoulders, probably so that theyd have a good location to speak very close to my ears. Mr. White was saying reassuring things such as; at least it wasnt any worse, while Mr. Red was saying things of a negative nature like kill the next bastard in a red car.
Once it began to dawn on me that neither little friend was saying what I wanted to hear, I cast them aside to begin my own penetrating thought about the nature of this accident. On one hand I began to wonder if I were lucky to have escaped that moment with small cuts, scrapes, and bruises. But this other dark thought entered my mind as I contemplated if I were unlucky to have been at that exact place at that exact moment. The pothole was where it was. If I had been 5 seconds sooner or later, this wouldnt have happened. Perhaps it was bad luck that I was there to be hurt. Was it good luck or bad luck? Maybe Ben Kenobi was right, maybe there is no such thing as luck. Then why did this happen? Is there a lesson to be learned? Was this some kind of warning? Is this some sort of test? Let the overanalyzing begin.
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i'm ok. stuff and stuff.