we were traveling across town last night, here in tucson.
a dark and stormy night.
at a cross walk in front of our car, a fellow in a wheel chair struggled with the dark rain. his legs were folded cross legged and had no shoes, just red socks. but he looked young enough and spry in his leather jacket and shaggy blond hair. the rain was just extra nuisance. his face held the look of us all saddled with a workload just below our capacity, but saddled none the less. he had strength. he was soaked.
when you’re at the front row of such an exhibition, it’s there for you to pause to consider. the entire car did, especially the children. sitting in wonder how this happens and how we would handle it and all that we don’t see coming to change our lives.
- – – - – - – – -
a little later in the grocery store parking lot, i had the urge to back into the parking spot instead of drive in forward like everyone else. i like to listen to this impulses.
the wife and daughter jumped out into the rain to get the shopping done fast and me and the son sat in the car a bit for no reason; enjoying the quiet moment of father son talk i figured.
but we were at the front row again.
a very large white pick-up truck pulled up directly in front of us blocking our car and the car parked next to ours. a woman came out with a cart full of grocery bags and began to pile the stuff in the cab while someone else sat at the wheel. it was still raining and dark. we watched the woman struggle against the rain, bags threatening to tear from saturation, her back to the parked cars directly behind her. her focus intent on not letting the food spill.
it was so dark that the older woman who got into the parked car next to us didn’t notice the giant white pick-up truck blocking her way behind her. she started her engine. it was hard to see her through the wet glass and tinted windows. and hard to hear anything outside because of the loud sound of the rain. no one in tucson is ever used to a storm since they are so seldom, and you can see the constant look of simple confusion on driver’s faces.
her car began to move, backing up as if nothing was behind her.
my son and i were the only ones who could see what was unfolding. the car was about to crash into the giant white pick-up truck behind her, and worse, crush the legs of the woman loading it. i frantically looked over to the driver of the car backing up, to get her attention, but the layers of dark glass that separated us and the loud rain made it all impossible to yell at her. it felt like a bad dream. then it all seemed like it was going in slow motion, which means the brain must have begun racing ahead of the actions. i nailed our horn deliberate and delivered 2 loud blasts.
it felt like more then a horn. it felt like a scream. like a steamship fog horn. like an intercepting missile. like voodoo.
like a game changer.
the car stopped, inches from the back of the wet woman’s legs.
that woman loading the truck never noticed the car had been coming to change her life. she turned to look at my car in simple stormy confusion from the horn beeps, and then instructed her friend at the wheel to move a head to finish packing her groceries.
the older woman at the wheel was a confused silhouette. her life would have been changed forever too. she must have wondered how she could not have seen that giant white pick-up truck. the dark rain pouring down her rear window held the woman from the truck in an invisible dripping squiggle. held no image of her.
and that was that.
the rain continued.
the older woman backed out and missed our car by 2 millimeters. the pick-up truck woman finished packing her truck.
i sat there stunned.
wondering how different these events would have been if we would have parked like everyone else and not backed in.
or left the car when the girls went into the shop instead of waiting in the car for just a few minutes more.
i got out into the rain to explain to the woman who was about to get into her truck now. i did not want the burden of being the only one that realized all of which had just happened.
the woman turned to me as i to her. was about to shout to her through the loud rain just as a giant black SUV pulled in between us to take the empty parking spot. it blocked our view of each other long enough for the instigating rain to prod her to get out of it and shut the door so as never to be informed of any of it.
it perplexed me. why i was the only one to witness these events that would not have any effect on my life, but still allowed to change the events that would have permanently changed the lives of two people that now never would be aware of any of it.
on the drive home i puzzled over the meaning of it all. my wife reminded me of the fellow in the wheel chair crossing the street earlier that night as if he had a part in it all too. yes. of course. some kind of vision for those aware enough to understand it all.
somehow it all tied together.
but i don’t know how.
there is a stern poetry in there. a sacred choreography. a series of entangled lives being held susceptible in the balance. an intervening force, powerful and invisible, that none of the affected ones will ever know anything about. what goes on here ?
i leave it to you.
maybe you can help decipher these events.
but what ever it means…
i think at least it might mean a happier new year
… even if we don’t know it.