The Beginning

“I've passed the point of no return. Do you know what that is, Beth? That's the point in a journey where it's longer to go back to the beginning. It's like when those astronauts got in trouble. I don't know, somebody messed up, and they had to get them back to Earth. But they had passed the point of no return. They were on the other side of the moon and were out of contact for like hours. Everybody waited to see if a bunch of dead guys in a can would pop out the other side. Well, that's me. I'm on the other side of the moon now and everybody is going to have to wait until I pop out.”
– Bill Foster “Falling Down” 1993

People are assholes. I was almost run down by a car, a black Mercedes M-Class to be exact, and what did I get besides a little exercise when I had to literally jump out of the way…

“I’m sorry.”

“What the fuck!?!”

“You’re wearing dark clothes! I can’t see you! Wear something I can…”

“Fucking bitch!”

“… see asshole!”

It’s my fault. I forgot they stopped putting headlights in cars anymore or eyes in your fucking skull. It’s my fault I grabbed a dark sweatshirt because it was cool outside. It’s my fault for leaving my apartment to walk to the store to get a few groceries. It’s my fault for keeping my eyes on you as you made your left turn in my direction. It’s my fault I jumped out of the way and made you look like a classless piece of shit! Yes, bitch, it is MY fault… AND WHAT are you going to do about it besides roll down your window and scream obscenities at me as you step on the gas and fly down this nice residential street? Meanwhile, after jotting down your license plate number I took care to memorize on my way to pick up the beans and tomato sauce I was in route to get before I interrupted YOUR day by getting in the way of your $50,000 car, that plate number will ultimately lead me to your address, the place you call home, a home you perhaps have left on foot one day to pick up a couple groceries. It’s not hard. Information is what we thrive on. We watch TV, listen to the radio, surf the internet, read books and magazines, and gossip on a cell phone while we walk through isle 5 of Albertson’s grocery store. You aren’t really looking for anything. The conversation seems to be what you came to isle 5 for, not the ice cream, bread, and other assorted baked goods or frozen waffles it contains. I like your brown hair. And you dress the way I like women to dress, smart and sexy. I’m pretty sure I don’t like your mouth, not the way you chose to speak to me out on the street, the guy you may have killed if he didn’t decide to actually jump out of the way. I’m into dirty talk, but there was so much hate and self-importance in your voice and I’m just not sure if we would be right for one another. I know you don’t notice me behind you. You are the type that doesn’t take notice of other people. You probably had no idea that a homeless woman asked you for help on your way in the door. Don’t worry, I told her I’d buy her something to eat. I’ve bought food for her before. She likes bread and cheese. Nothing particular, just bread and cheese, although one time she wanted a cookie. She’s on drugs. I don’t talk to her about that, but I am pretty sure it’s meth. She looks worse every time I see her. She is new out here too. Probably arrived about 3-4 months ago. She looked a lot better back then. I’m worried about her, but what am I going to do? I can’t take her in. I just hope she finds her way.

“Excuse me,” I say. I’ve decided to grab a pint of Ben & Jerry’s while I’m waiting for you to do something besides talk about where you are going to meet your friends. I only buy this stuff when it is on sale. Should I get two? No. I am allowed to indulge every now and again, but one pint is one more that I’ll regret anyway.

I know your name, Veronica. I know where you live. I know that your deadbolt sticks sometimes. I know what color your underwear is. And I know that I like it. You turn me on, but I can never forget that it was you that decided to blame me when you almost ran into my 200 pound body with your 5,000 pound car. I’ll follow you back home. I just want to make sure you are safe. Don’t be scared. Sometimes things just add up and the anger has to come out. It’s not all your fault. You were just the pin that pricked my balloon. For years and years I’ve let this shit bottle up. Asshole after asshole doing the things they do to earn the title. Too many people thinking the world revolves around them or owes them something more than someone else.

I love small cameras. I took a video of you while you checked out with that bottle of Pinot, Brie cheese, and French baguette. Mastercard is so great! They are accepted in so many places. I have a Mastercard too. I know your pin is not your birthday, which is nine Tuesdays from this Tuesday. It is a number I am unfamiliar with, but I am sure there is a good reason behind it, just as there is a good reason why you almost ran me over with your Mercedes M-Class. Don’t forget your Mastercard expires 09/09. I’m sure they’ll send you a new card like they do every few years for me, but just in case, you know, be aware.

It’s not you, it’s me. I just don’t like the feeling of being trapped and if I am feeling that way then it is probably happening. What can we do about this? Perhaps you’d like to take a ride with me and talk about it? It would be a nice drive this time of night. Not a lot of traffic. Just you and I. We can talk about where we are in our relationship. I know, it’s not an M-Class, but Chevy still makes a good American car. And these older models have trunks that are much larger than one you would find in a Mercedes. You are comfortable, right? Lucky for you, you are a small woman, but even luckier than that you don’t have to share the trunk with someone else. I’m kidding. You’re the first person to ride in my trunk and probably the last. We’ll be there soon. The desert is a quiet place. I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but wait until you see the stars. And this Pinot will go well with the moment.

“Well there's this passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you." I been sayin' that shit for years. And if you ever heard it, it meant your ass. I never gave much thought what it meant. I just thought it was some cold-blooded shit to say to a motherfucker before I popped a cap in his ass. I saw some shit this mornin' made me think twice. See now I'm thinkin', maybe it means you're the evil man. And I'm the righteous man. And Mr. 9 Milimeter here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could mean you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. Now I'd like that. But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd.”
– Jules Winfield “Pulp Fiction” 1994

I’m tryin’ too.

The shit is hitting the fan. Currently. Right now. I’m not talking about the mess we are in economically. I speak of where we are heading as a society… as a race. I don’t have to tell you things are bad, you can turn on the local, national, or world news and see the look on the faces of the newscasters. Where’s our stories about pie-eating contests and rubber ducky races? And why the fuck does that news woman have a smirk on her face after telling me another father decided to kill his family before ending what he should have started the process with; his life. There is no emotion. Why should there be anyway? We hear these stories every day. We are desensitized to all this shit. What the hell happened to the human race to make it so… inhumane? Were we always this way? Did we ever care for one another? Is it our ability to reason that makes us unreasonable?

From the time we are born we are told who/what we are and what/who everything else in the world is. We are given the box of labels and we conform. Domestication is a process each of us pass through, unfortunately that process is filled with ideas that are not truth. I am not an expert, just an observer like most everyone else, but it’s not hard to see that our failure as a society is centered on a lack of respect for each other and ourselves. No other living thing has an ego. Trees do not look at other trees as less important, but humans judge everyone and everything without fail. We have it in our head that we are more or less entitled than that person over there. We are not taught that everyone and everything is the same. It’s all energy. You are energy. I am energy. The desk I am writing at, the computer, the beer off to my right and the bottle it sits in… all energy. In essence we are all one. Everything is connected.

Yes, a woman almost hit me with her car. I reacted. She reacted to my reaction. That’s how it works. It’s all a chain. Where did it start? Perhaps at the beginning of time as we know it. It matters not because it will continue either way. Energy never dies. The energy that was exchanged during that moment (every moment) plays a role in everything. Your actions and reactions affect so much more than just you. In truth, the incident probably led her to go home a little pissed off. Maybe that anger spilled over into something else and ultimately led to her getting into a fight with her boyfriend. The next day she goes into work with that shit on her mind and makes a mistake that causes the boss to bring her in to his/her office to have a chat about her attitude and work ethic. It’s all a chain. It didn’t start with me walking across the street, but I could have perhaps helped change the energy.

I was nearly hit by a car as I crossed the street. It’s moments like these that get the heart pumping and make you realize each step in life is important because it could be your last. Plus, it didn’t blow up into something bigger than it really was…

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s my fault. I didn’t see you.”

“No harm, no foul.”

It was probably my fault. I was wearing a dark sweatshirt at night. I need to take responsibility for myself. I try to be very aware of my surroundings. When someone is walking toward me, I make sure they have room to walk by. If I get to a door before another person, I’ll hold it open for them. It’s the little things you can do… the things that say, “Hey, I know we’re all living together in the same place and I respect that. I know I’m not alone.” It’s easier to be nice/respectful than not be. It takes a lot of energy to be angry/bitter/selfish. I am learning that more and more as I practice it. And it takes practice. If we all practiced this every day… this life becomes heaven. Imagine that. It is possible to live in that world, after all, life is a miracle.

Imagine you could travel at the speed of light (186,282 miles per second). You could take a trip around the world and still be back in time to blink your eyes. The moon and back in about 2 1/2 seconds. Take a long Sunday drive. In less than 5 1/2 hours you would find yourself at the edge of our solar system. Remembering that a light year is the distance light can travel in a year (roughly 5,865,696,000,000 miles) it would take you nearly 5 years to reach the nearest star to our solar system (Centauri A). Looks like this Sunday drive is turning into a permanent vacation. Continuing through the Milky Way you find yourself entering the gas and nebulous material that gives our galaxy its name. You have traveled for 100 years, more than a lifetime for almost all humans. You continue to log millions of miles every minute, but after one, five, ten, no, fifty thousand years your journey has really only just begun. At some point you leave our galaxy, but it’ll take 100,000 years before the Milky Way would become recognizable as a whole to your eyes. Our galaxy is a part of a cluster of 30 galaxies. 5 million years after your departure that cluster fills your view. 50 million years later you would enter the next cluster of galaxies, a slightly larger cluster which contains around 2,000 galaxies. If you could live, not forever, but a number that seems like forever, say 10 billion years…the edge is there, but that may just be the beginning. You are at the edge of the visible Universe, 10 billion light years away from where you sit right now. That’s 10,000,000,000 x 5,865,696,000,000 miles away. And that’s just to the edge of what we can see. The edge closest to Earth. There are 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, a galaxy that is but 1 of 125 billion galaxies that make up the visible Universe.

All of that and there is but 1 me and 1 you. And while on a basic level we are the same, we are also unique to the Universe. There will never be another moment like this one right now. There will never be another me. There will never be another you.

Nearly 2 human beings die every second here on this planet. Over 150,000 unique lives end every day. In the time it takes you to read this sentence, roughly 10 lives have ended their journey here on Earth. One life for every 2 words. But with death comes new life. Twice as many unique lives begin their own journey every second. Life is a cycle. If you were to live to the young age of 70, nearly 15 billion people would have taken a breath along with you at some point. Life is amazing. Whether or not you believe in a God, you have to believe in the miracle that is life. You are the proof.

While these numbers are perhaps more than we can comprehend, our problems/issues/troubles/worries/insecurities are not. We are the miracle. It’s time we act the part.

There is a cat that lives in my building. Nicki has no tail. He looks like a small bobcat. There is a place he sits, on a wall where our steps meet the sidewalk, and as people pass he meows. Most of them stop and pet him. He loves the attention. They love giving it to him. At times he’ll run to his spot on the brick wall as someone passes. Like a magnet he draws them in. And they always walk away with a smile. That is the kind of energy we should be exchanging.