it was a head-on collision at the front corner of the vehicle, then the car rolled. in the passenger seat, she took the full brunt of both impacts. her husband is standing by the bed, holding her hand. he walked away with little more than a deep gash on his elbow and some bruises. the same for her son, who was in the backseat.
i watched her chest rise and fall with the swoosh of the ventilator. her hair laid straight up on her pillow, as if it was windblown. tubing from her mouth. her arms. her skull. she lay twisted and seemingly uncomfortable with both legs in casts and an arm lifted in traction. her swollen face gave no indication that the woman i knew was present. talk to her, husband said, tell her you're here. she might be able to hear us. i think she can hear me, he says. i'm not so sure, i think silently. is she in there?
what makes us who we are? when does the source of our soul expire? does it just move on? can it leave our fleshy shell for a while, then come back? if so, can we--on this side of consciousness--influence the time and speed with which it chooses to return? i wonder. we start at nowhere and for a while we are now here, then we go back to no where. is her source still viable inside her.
t-vak was with me. among the three of us we had over 17 of friendship. and we were at a loss for what to do. we prayed. we annointed her hands, feet and head with crosses drawn in holy water. we annointed her with our tears. and we summoned the source of life, the unmitigating light of love, creativity and hope to return to her. we begged that all the powers of sorcery in the goodness of the universe would come into that glass-walled room and fill up her shell with laughter again.
at the very moment the sperm snuggles into the egg, a cataclysmic miracle explodes and in an instant all you will ever be, from your hair color to your nail biting, to your gorgeous blue eyes and jiggly forearms--everything is in that particle of dna. you are a speck. like a peach seed in soil, our potential is completely present at the very moment of the cataclysmic miracle that turns your dad's spooge into you.
and if that source remains in her; as she lay twisted, bruised, incoherent. if we, on this side, try by means of prayer and holy water and positive thoughts and verbal affirmations to cooerce her spirit back to this side--to manipulate her source. are we not engaged in sorcery? i am okay with that, by the way. but... just thinking out loud.
walking with her kids out to the parking garage i was just about knocked down with feeling sorry for them. the image of my old friend twisted and mangled in that bed haunted me. hounded me. burned onto the inside of my eyelids and glowed in my brain when i shut them. tall and thin, her just-teenage son and daughter seemed almost uneffected by the scene we'd just left. daughter skipped a little. son smiled. sat in the backseat quietly like most boys his age. and as i sat with them at lunch, i welled up with pride for them, and for what great people they were becoming. i admired their strength in the face of such sadness. i embraced my own sympathy for them, while still nodding to their faith in the source to make it all right again.
nothing is solid. in a microscope, magnified to a molecular level, everything is made up particles that are vibrating wildly. there is space between the particles. what holds us together? the source of all life and creativity and beauty flows between us, holding us together and also connecting us to everything and everyone. we are seemless with each other, with nature, with sunlight, with darkness. it's the blanket theory (see i <3>Huckabees).
mark wahlberg was on the today show about a week ago promoting the new M.Night Shyamalan movie, The Happening. i'm not much into celebrities; so i don't know much about mark wahlberg. he loooked good in boogie nights. his brother was a new kid. i think. anyway, mark was there on the plaza making nice-nice with Meredith Matt and Ann. yawn. but as they were going to commercial and thanked him, mark said, "my life is good. my faith is strong and i have true happiness." i thought that was really cool, and not just something you pop off to throw it to commercial.
we're all connected. we're all connected to the source. as we embrace the source, live by the law of love, creativity, beauty, as the source does, we become sorcerers (of the source). as we are of the source, we can beckon the source to create what we want out of this life. i'm comforted to know that i'm connected to a woman in a hospital bed in austin; that i'm able to tap into the source of everything that is good and hopeful and true and clear and to know that even bloated up celebrities can sometimes be cool humans.
just thinking out loud. you may now resume your regularly scheduled life.
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