There’s something I really don’t like about finishing things. \u00a0Good at starting. \u00a0Good at ongoing. \u00a0Good at thinking about. \u00a0Finishing: \u00a0very depressing.<\/p>\n
So. \u00a0I had just finished organizing the entire program for a SWAA conference one year, along with two colleagues. \u00a0SWAA would be the Southwestern Anthropological Association. \u00a0And we planned some real conference treats. \u00a0Had the Ohlone coming up with their lawyers on a panel to confront UC Berkeley archaeologists on the disposition of indigenous remains. \u00a0That seemed like fun. \u00a0Had Alan Dundes coming to give the keynote at the banquet \u201a serving chicken while they would slowly discover inbetween bites, that he was giving a graphic Freudian interpretation of cock fights. \u00a0I love putting together wicked conferences.<\/p>\n
But the program was done. \u00a0And it was great. \u00a0And I was in a terrific mood. \u00a0All bad signs.<\/p>\n
And I was pretty close to the House of Bagels. \u00a0And thought, well, why not pick up some hummies for the kids before picking them up from school. \u00a0What a good mommy am I! \u00a0The very best. \u00a0And the kids just love hamantaschen. \u00a0See? \u00a0Good mood.<\/p>\n
Bad sign.<\/p>\n
Such a soccer mom! \u00a0Such a mommy mom! \u00a0I had actually wanted a Peugeot, but William Jeanes, who was at that time editor-in-chief and publisher of Car and Driver Magazine, and Csere Csaba who was later editor-in-chief until 2008 \u2014 had both talked me into a Volvo when I consulted with them by phone. \u00a0I bought my Volvo kicking and screaming, but with Car and Driver hot shots backing me up, I got exactly the price Csaba told me I should get \u2014 and lots of extras too. \u00a0I did milk the connection a bit, I must admit. \u00a0I love buying cars, to tell the truth. \u00a0I find it great fun. \u00a0And I love car magazines \u2014 a secret pleasure.<\/p>\n
So. \u00a0I had a Volvo station wagon with even the little seats facing backwards in the way back. \u00a0It was before the SUV thing really hit the soccer mom crowd. \u00a0Not that I was a very good soccer mom. \u00a0Couldn’t follow the game. \u00a0Just wanted to be sure my kids didn’t get hurt. \u00a0Didn’t give a damn who won or lost as long as the kids were having fun. \u00a0Which they weren’t ’cause all the other parents were screaming at them from the sidelines. \u00a0Except for me and this other guy. \u00a0I always brought a book or papers to grade. \u00a0But ended up chatting with him. \u00a0Head of one of the Gurdjieff Institutes in the city.<\/p>\n
House of Bagels was only a few blocks away. \u00a0Plenty of time. \u00a0Beautiful weather \u2014 light drizzle, sweet breeze.<\/p>\n
And then it hit me.<\/p>\n
I thought he was stopped at his red light, way back there \u2014 but when next I looked, he was in my face. \u00a0Literally. \u00a0An 18-wheeler with most of its payload had lost its brakes and slammed into the driver’s side front door and hood of my precious soccer mom Volvo. \u00a0The driver’s side window had been rolled up against the rain, light as it was, and so when he hit \u2014 he shattered all the shatterproof glass. \u00a0All into the left side of my face. \u00a0I looked just like the Ice Queen, with shards from head to toe. \u00a0Mostly head. \u00a0Like a tiara. \u00a0Like Edward’s vampire face, all shimmery with glass. Little square chunks of glass absolutely everywhere.<\/p>\n
It was all in slow motion. \u00a0Common for these events.<\/p>\n
And when my Volvo stopped, I didn’t recognize where I was. \u00a0Had no idea. \u00a0The streets looked turned around. Nothing was familiar. And I was trapped inside this crumpled cage.<\/p>\n
My Volvo gave its life for me.<\/p>\n
And then I heard the Voice. \u00a0It was a first, for me. \u00a0I was a virgin in the auditory hallucination department.<\/p>\n
“When you are attacked,” he said, “remember to get your breathing together.”<\/p>\n
I recognized that voice. \u00a0It was my Aikido Sensei, Jack Wada.<\/p>\n
I got my breathing together. \u00a0Everything slowed. \u00a0I was very calm. \u00a0I brushed the glass off the seat and tried to slide across to the passenger side.<\/p>\n
“And don’t forget your car keys,” he added before I got too far. \u00a0“You’re going to need them.”<\/p>\n
The keys hadn’t even occurred to me. \u00a0It was very calm. \u00a0Very quiet inside the car, even my sensei’s voice was very calm. \u00a0Outside the car, things seemed moving very very slowly. \u00a0Later, I told the judge that the truck had been moving at around 5 mph \u2014 while the trucker had said he lost the brakes at 30 mph. \u00a0My time sense was way off.<\/p>\n
Someone came and tried to pull me out from the other side. \u00a0The truck driver, it turned out. \u00a0I needed to get out before someone else hit the car. \u00a0I took my keys. \u00a0Jack shut up for a while. \u00a0There were cops. \u00a0The fire department. \u00a0Statements. \u00a0Witnesses. \u00a0I could see their mouths moving but couldn’t hear a thing. \u00a0And then this cop smile at me.<\/p>\n
“You’re gonna make a fortune!” he said. \u00a0 “Volvo loves shit like this. \u00a0You really should be dead! \u00a0They’ll put you in a commercial.”<\/p>\n
“They’ll give you a brand new car,” a fireman said. \u00a0Everyone was very enthusiastic. \u00a0 They kept shoving me toward the ambulance anyway. \u00a0I shook some of the glass out of my hair. \u00a0There was glass inside my pockets when I reached for a tissue. \u00a0Glass everywhere. \u00a0Ice Queen. \u00a0Ice Queen inside a very quiet place.<\/p>\n
I saw a phone booth and headed for it. \u00a0My car phone was smashed in the accident. \u00a0There weren’t ubiquitous mobiles quite yet. \u00a0I called my shrink. \u00a0Owen, I said, I need to reschedule. \u00a0I called my husband.<\/p>\n
“You know how you say I never call you?” I said. \u00a0“How I never need you?<\/p>\n
“I need you now.”<\/p>\n
Another shrink. \u00a0Somehow he got to me really fast, and I was grateful. \u00a0I didn’t want to get into that ambulance. Bad juju, for some reason.<\/p>\n
At the ER they picked glass out of my face for hours. \u00a0Chunk by chunk. \u00a0The surgeon looked at me and smiled.<\/p>\n
” Wow,” \u00a0she said. “All that blood goes really well with your dress and necklace.” \u00a0I had on this Egyptian necklace that looked like drops of blood, with hamsas. \u00a0“You look like a fashion statement,” she said.<\/p>\n
They called in one of those super-duper plastic surgeon to stitch my face back up again. \u00a0I counted 28 stitches, but I have no idea how accurate that was. \u00a0Not sure I counted every one. \u00a0And every single chunk of glass had missed my eye and nerves. \u00a0Well, wow.<\/p>\n
Last week at Pesach, a man walked in wearing my 18-wheeler blood dress. \u00a0My mom had washed the blood all out, but I’d given the dress away anyway. \u00a0So I told him the story of the dress. \u00a0Perfect for Pesach \u2014 with all that lamb’s blood on the lintel of the door… \u00a0The man didn’t say another word all night. \u00a0I don’t think it was the dress, though. \u00a0It was his first Pesach.<\/p>\n
So. \u00a0Bad news to say that something’s finished.<\/p>\n
“You’re not finished,” my Volvo said. \u00a0“There’s plenty more to do.” \u00a0And then it died. \u00a0And this is my belated kaddish for my Volvo.<\/p>\n
But since that time, I think I’ve learned my lesson. \u00a0Never admit to a job completed and well done.<\/p>\n
Back at the dojo, I told my sensei what had happened. \u00a0“I can’t train,” I said,”until all the stitches are out.”<\/p>\n
And a doorway opened right that very second. \u00a0My sensei started talking, started teaching me \u2014 of visions and miracles, accidents and healing, comic books and TV shows, and secrets of the masters. \u00a0Lots of doors opened after that. \u00a0Voices and visions, knowing things I didn’t know before. I slowed down (I don’t mean my driving). \u00a0I listened a whole lot more.<\/p>\n
“Too bad,” said Mrs Tzaddik, “you didn’t get hit sooner.”<\/p>\n
“And harder,” she added. \u00a0“It took you a very long time.”<\/p>\n
I shrugged. \u00a0What can you say to that?<\/p>\n
Bad thought.<\/p>\n
Good sign.<\/p>\n
I went out and bought another Volvo.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There’s something I really don’t like about finishing things. \u00a0Good at starting. \u00a0Good at ongoing. \u00a0Good at thinking about. \u00a0Finishing: \u00a0very depressing. So. \u00a0I had just finished organizing the entire program for a SWAA conference one year, along with two colleagues. \u00a0SWAA would be the Southwestern Anthropological Association. \u00a0And we planned some real conference treats….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[250,216,222],"tags":[131,471,478,477,476,470,474,475,172,473,469],"class_list":["post-3023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","category-kaddish-in-two-part-harmony","category-tzaddik-stories","tag-aikido","tag-car-and-driver-magazine","tag-hamantaschen","tag-hearing-voices","tag-jack-wada-sensei","tag-moms","tag-soccer-moms","tag-swaa","tag-trauma","tag-visions","tag-volvo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3023"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3032,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023\/revisions\/3032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}