preface: earlier this year, sparkle and i both read a dreadful blog posting by a mutual acquaintance. sappy analogies, overwrought emotion...it had the feeling of a melodramatic high school journal entry wherein the relationship between love and the development of a flower is explored. it left us gagging a bit - and then quickly deciding that we needed to do our own bad blog-off. i detest melodrama more than just about anything. i try very hard to be logical, grounded, pragmatic, and real. so, i felt somewhat chastened this week when, after some particularly trying events, i found myself crying cinematic tears alone in my truck, thinking of the different ways in which my life reminded me of the movie "crash". the calmed-down, rational voice in my head intervened. 'wendy', i said to myself, 'you're starting to think in the style of that really bad blog. pull yourself together. play some of that led zeppelin on your ipod. stop viewing this week in such broad cinematic strokes.' so i've calmed down. senses have dulled. but, i figured i might as well write the first mini-installment of the long-awaited bad blog-off anyways."It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something. "
Crash. That movie touched me soooooooo much. this week, i have felt so low, and so lonely. it's weird how you can be surrounded by people and still feel so alone. on tuesday when i was driving from work to school, i got in an accident on the 10. it was so weird. it should've been so much worse, but somehow the three cars involved - well, everyone was okay. it was frightening, put things in perspective. three different people brought together by an accident that was wholly unremarkable for this city, but that still had the possibility of altering or even ending our lives. i felt a lot of grace, like someone was looking out for me, and for lloyd and raquel too.
i think people are brought together in really unusual ways sometimes. that book, '
the five love languages' - it's so true. i speak two languages - the language of touch and of quality time. and i've been aching lately, for real human contact - nothing extraordinary, just something normal and genuine. and an arm around my shoulder or something. someone who's willing to come into my space, penetrate whatever barriers i must be putting up, or whatever barriers are so common to the people in this city. and...somehow, there was a strange connection b/w us, victims, as the city continued to drive by indifferent to the change that had just occurred in our lives. lloyd and i spent a lot of time talking in his office the next day. he felt like it was some strange cosmic thing that had brought us together. we're friends now. when i left, he gave me a hug. the night of the accident, i crashed - figuratively - into a homeless man name lovell. we shared a meal at burger king. he was amazing, so human, and our interaction so real. we held hands for a moment before we parted ways. i needed that touch, and the universe provided it for me in really unexpected ways.
(cue strings): i think life is like that, you know. full of accidents, full of the unexpected. it looks chaotic and messy up close. but there's someone looking out for us, someone who cares and knows what we need, and we find those needs met by other humans in small ways, in ways they probably don't even realize. humans are messy, and we hurt each other, and we don't get out of our own heads and experiences often enough to see how we affect each other for better or worse. and like garth brooks said, if we knew how it was all going to end, we might have chosen never to get involved because of the the pain we'd experience. but, opposition in all things, right? "i could've missed the pain, but i'da had to miss the dance." life really IS a chaotic, messy human dance, but i'm so grateful to be in it, part of it, dancing.
note: i did get in an accident, and i am okay. i did hug lloyd, and i did hold hands with a homeless man, and i have been feeling lonely. that does not mean, however, that it is ever okay to write an essay on the truth of garth brooks lyrics as applied to your own life. blogs are supposed to be fun, not the sort of thing that could have the 'pearl harbor' music as its underscore. the end.
these are my shoes. i bought them around the year 2001. i was wearing these shoes when i ran 2 miles for the first time ever. i wore them in my first 5 & 10k races. i wore them when i thought i was going to be a marine. i wore them when i pretended like i was a marine in the volkslauf mud run. they have served me well. they deserve to be laid to rest with honor.
this is my 'hood. i've lived in palms 90034 for 4 years and 3.5 weeks. these are the streets i roam at night, the nonexistent parking spots for which i'm eternally searching, and the many active dog-walkers milling about.
these are my shoes - and a pair of kat's shoes that were retired as well - which received their well-deserved honorable aerial burial late last night.
