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 make me 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 and I was definitely getting hit, then my phone flew out of my left hand and 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 could have defrosted all the 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 it had started out being was 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 dumb series of decisions that led to her now being a person who’d 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 way home, I chose one particular crosswalk with the best 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 across the street could also see me.

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

But while I was standing there just off the curb 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 into her lap, into her phone, her other hand barely on the wheel. I stood there frozen, realizing she’d never even know she hadn’t seen me. And then I fucking lost it.

I rage walked the rest of the way home, adding that morning’s close call 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,

~Two other separate occasions when someone nearly drove into me because they were on their phones. My shouting stopped one driver, and the other never saw me.

~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,

~And my personal favorite when I came upon two women on foot ahead of me a ways up, engrossed in their conversation and not realizing that they were beginning to walk in a widening V pattern, so far apart from each other that it was impossible for me to pass on either side of them, but they also suddenly held this formation in such a way as to prevent enough room to pass between them, so when I realized I was essentially going to have to slam on my breaks and fall, run off the path and fall or shout them out of their reverie, I chose the latter 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 being 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, who 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 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. When we believe 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 chapter is to refuse to give in to it. Joy and hope are the lifeline out of the prison of bigotry and self-centeredness that fear shoves us into. Sometimes we need to practice it even if we don’t feel it.

But the way forward is to keep the lights on, to keep our eyes open. To really look at ourselves, first. And to stop making our own and other’s humanity invisible. We need to see and be seen.