Ok, so first of all, I’m fine. I really am ok, save for a gnarly bruise on my calf and a case of very rattled nerves. I’m so definitely unscathed compared to how bad it could have been, that I feel embarrassed for even using the phrase I was hit by a car to describe what happened. It’s technically accurate, but I think a better description is probably a car bumped into me.

Does it really matter how I say it? I guess I feel that if I’d started off by saying a car bumped into me it would sound like I was being cute, and that would not only minimize what happened to me, but also the accidents of the several people I know who have gotten hit by cars and who were very seriously injured. I’m also thinking of all the clients I’ve worked with who have lost someone this way.

What happened is this: a woman who clearly had not defrosted her windshield, who I knew was running late for work (Tell Me You’re An Intuitive Without Telling Me You’re An Intuitive) turned right at a stop sign into the crosswalk where I was. She suddenly saw me. She slammed on her brakes. Two seconds later than just in time.

I reflexively put my hands out to stop the car when I realized it wasn’t going to stop in time, my phone flew out of my left hand and yet I somehow clung to my reusable coffee cup with my right. Probably since it contained a perfect oat milk latte from Time and Tide Coffee where I had stopped only minutes before (I think it may have dented the hood). Priorities intact, I then swore a blue streak that probably defrosted all the other cars up and down the block. Any sailors in the house? You’d be proud.

The driver got out of the car, eyes wide and clearly horrified by what she had done. She immediately apologized and asked if I was ok. We both teared up. I felt so awful for her. She insisted on giving me her contact details, and I asked her for a hug so we both could calm down. We clung onto each other for dear life, truly, each of us wanting to return to the day we were having before this had happened. Because whatever kind of day had started out being infinitely better than the one we were in then, in which one of us had been hit by a car. And the other had made a series of decisions that I’m sure she didn’t know would lead to her now being a person who had hit someone with her car.

I got back into my body brain first. It occurred to me that it was the last day for online voter registration here in Maine.

I may or may not have asked her if she was registered to vote.

After we hugged again, and I‘d promised her I would let her know how I was doing, I finished my walk home, thrilled to be able to actually be walking home. Each step felt like a miracle.

To get across the busiest street on my route, I chose this one particular crosswalk with really good visibility, made eye contact with the car that stopped for me, and smiled while I gave them a thank you wave. Getting a nod in return, I stepped into the street and paused, checking to make sure the oncoming traffic could also see me.

I always do this as a matter of course, it just felt more intentional on a morning when I had, you know, been hit by a car already.

But while I was standing there in front of the car that had stopped for me, a woman in a pest control company van blew right past me, close enough that I could see she was staring intently down into her phone, which was on her lap, her other hand barely on the wheel. I stood there frozen in fear. I realized that she’d not only hadn’t seen me, she’d never even know it.

And then I fucking lost it.

I rage walked the rest of the way home, adding that morning’s drama to a catalog of other near misses from the last few weeks:

~A woman with her dog on a long training leash saw me approaching them while riding my bike on the Eastern Trail, and let it wander right into my path anyway, forcing me to slam on my brakes so hard I thought I was going ass over teakettle for sure. She said nothing,

~A couple who scooped up their unleashed Yorkie with only seconds to spare as I came around a corner on the same trail, and smiled good morning at me completely unaware they had almost set a tragedy in motion,

~Two entirely other  occasions when someone nearly drove into me because they were on their phones. My shouting stopped one driver, and the other drove past an instant before I stepped into a (you guessed it) crosswalk,

~And my personal favorite (sarcasm), when I rode up on two women walking a good distance ahead of me, but so engrossed in their conversation they didn’t realize that they were beginning to walk in a widening V pattern apart from each other, and that it was going to be impossible for me to pass on either side of them. But they also suddenly stopped, talking across the path to each other, but not close enough to create room for me to pass either on the left, the right, or God forbid, the middle (I did think I might have to blow between them to avoid either slamming on my breaks, or ride straight into the woods off the path.  So I shouted them out of their reverie with a hearty “ON YOUR RIGHT”,  just in the nick of time. Woman On The Right turned and laughed at me, as if I had embarrassed myself by like omg being sooooo dramatic.

Friends, I know that you know that I never say this but: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE???

I’m kidding. I think.

I mean, I already know the answer. Everyone is abjectly terrified right now. No one is in their bodies. They’re either terrified because they‘ve been propagandized to believe in the onslaught of dark fascist lies that pretend to be the truth, or they’re terrified that we live in a country where there are enough people who actually believe those lies, to support the hate they justify.

It’s impossible to be present when we’re toxic with anxiety. We shrink into ourselves when we are afraid. The self-centered fear that can take over is ugly.

I’ve been writing for a while about how to keep living with joy and purpose in a world that is struggling against the waves of right-wing extremism that are (unfortunately now a worldwide phenomenon) crashing over country after country. Toxic entitlement and power becomes justifiable when we forget who we really are, that our greatest strengths as human beings are compassion and empathy. When we give in to the idea that it’s ok to blame and hurt other people for our pain, when we feel like it’s ok to retreat into a “better than” position, and to disqualify, objectify and “other” our human siblings, we are not our true selves. Especially if we fall victim to the biggest lie of all, that we deserve only good and easy and smooth in our lives.

But it’s never decent to turn our backs on those who have less, who are different, or who are vulnerable.

The way through this dark time is to refuse to give in to it. Joy and hope are the lifelines out of the prison of bigotry and self-centeredness that fear shoves us into. Sometimes we need to fake it till we make it, practicing  love even if we don’t feel it.

But the way forward is always to keep our eyes open. To really look at ourselves, first. And then to remember our own and other’s humanity is not invisible. It’s there, right there. We only need to see it.