accident

i ran into a car while riding the bike and if i didn't hit the car with my head i fell onto my head when landing in the road. i scraped up my shoulder and my knuckles pretty bad, and i had cuts and swelling on my face.

i got lucky and walked away and only an informal nurse's examination that day at a party made me worried. she told me, beer in hand, that i might have an orbital fracture. my brow was swollen and numb, with cuts above an below my eye. she said it was not bad if the eye was not hurt, but in a day or two i might begin to lose some vision if there were interior trauma.

she told me to try to notice especially my peripheral vision. i had made collision with my left side, and the left part of my left eyeball might be weakened. i thought about this sidelong sightline, the corner at the hook of my checking my left, namesake for this page. i haven't lost the peripheral sight, but i keep sharping my eye down that corner, to see it hasn't gone missing.

you have to look really, straight ahead, then make yourself aware of the periphery, to see it. a bottle of orange peels. some worn out sneakers. i don't even remember now the car striking me.

fingers crossed

Here's how it happens: from somewhere--or nowhere--comes a piece of good news. But it isn't final, yet. You've been told something "may happen." If it did happen, you'd be excited--so excited you might use an old timey phrase like "over the moon." You'd be over the moon if this thing happened. Like, let's say, a job that might get you out of your miserable one comes around--a friend puts in a word. Or an agent requests the rest of the novel you've been killing yourself over for five years.

But instead of letting yourself be over the moon, instantly, you shift: It probably won't happen. Don't get your hopes up. Don't get too excited. Wait and see. Nothing is definite yet. You put in the caveats, doubts, hesitations. You kill your joy; you strangle your imagination of the future. Why do you do this? Because, you think, by downplaying it now, you're protecting yourself. You think you can mitigate disappointment by inoculation. You think you will be less sad, if nothing comes of it, because you never believed, entirely. It's a desire not to be hoodwinked--you were smart enough to know anything you might lose was already accounted for. You think you're saving yourself future pain.

This, I think, is a lie--maybe even a malicious lie. Why rob yourself of the pleasures of imagination, a better future, the dream of a more complete, more satisfying life? If what "may happen" turns into "what didn't happen"--are you really better off for having not allowed yourself a week or two of hope, comfort--joy? Are you really one iota less disappointed because you imagined disappointment? All the pre-sentiments of loss aren't really any preparation for the actual thing--the actual loss usually hurts in unexpected ways. So if you're not saving yourself any pain--if the quantity of disappointment is unavoidably the same when it comes to pass, whether you spent time imagining or not--why not give in? Let it be, for it's moment, a happy thing. When you cross your fingers, that's a pleasure for it's own sake, in its own time, that can and should exist undiminished and immune from the ravages of whatever actually comes to pass.