If you are going to crash your car and nearly die taking five people with you, this is how to do it.
Last Saturday I picked up my 'musical brothers' friends Tom - wonderful soulman blues lead guitarist, Marlon - funk man soul brother bassist, and Jamie - producer extraordinaire all round cool and lovely cat, and we drove out to Avondale.
It was the weekend of recording my demo. Yes my demo!!! Oh my goodness, dreams maybe can come true.
Because I am as lucky as bees are happy making honey, Jamie has a friend who lets us use his barn converted into a studio for recording purposes.
When we get there it is just One Of Those Days. It's been cold for so long and this day is really warm. The sky opens up it's blue arms. We are down a road and down a drive way and the bush and native trees crackle as they warm up and there's a river which trinkles, it's all good.
Jamie sets up the electronic stuff, wires and mike stands and boards of wood and carpet etc. dem boys so clever with stuff. And becase i haven't got two technical brain cells to rub together, and they boys don't know i've got muscles, (even when they do know they don't like to see a girl liftin things) I get to mostly sit out in the sun on the porch. We've brought up some cold ones and I have a cider. Marlon and i reminisce about old school days.
So we get in the studio and we do our first song. First take is good but I'm a little rushed. second take is better, a few tiny mistakes. Third take is damn near perfect. There is a feeling that happens between you and other people when you play music together. It is akin to being with a best, best friend, who you know inside out and are 110% yourself around, and you talk to each other and what you have is a conversation.
Usually, people talk, and they talk from the inside of themselves out, like they're talking from a well, and they can't see where the words go, and they can only hear themselves, and they don't much care. Then the other person replies from up at the top of the well, yelling down, but by the time the sound reaches well person, it's faint, and the intonation has been lost, and the meaning with it. This is how people talk to each other, all over the world. But with this best, best friend, your conversation is like a song, and you both sing parts. Your words and their words are like ingredients in a soup, distinguishable, but irrevocably mixed, more delicious together.
Playing music with people is a bit like that. You are getting lost in your part but you are floating along on their part, your spirits are rising and falling together. No I am not on drugs. I have been in the past, but not right now.
I love to look over and see Tom bending the blues out of his guitar, to my songs, I mean, they're our songs now, but they're about my love, found and lost, so it's even more, muchness. I love to glance right and see Marlon, his whole body making the bassline, anyone could get lost in his basslines. I really love these two guys you know. And here they are making a song I wrote jump up off the floor, grab you by the shirt collar and kiss you til your lip bleeds.
After that, we decide it's time to go get a pie. We pile into my car. I think: I don't really want to drive. But my car is blocking Jamies so it makes sense. We get in the car. I am driving, Tom to my left. Marlon is behind me. Jamie is in the back seat passenger side. We drive up BlackBridge Road. It's a typical bright and shiny new zealand day. As we drive we laugh and talk. I check the speedo and stay below 60. I am not trying to drive fast. We come to a one lane bridge. When I see it that ad flashes in my head. That ad where teh drunk guy hits teh one lane bridge and flips his car and kills his mates. And in my head a voice says without words: look after your mates. I slow down to go over the bridge. The road undulates, up and down, up and down, the trees on the side of the road cast dappled and shifting shadows on the road. I am here, I think that I am aware, I think that I am driving and therefore, I know whats going on around me.
When I play this back in my head, I hear Jamie say, you're going to want to turn up here. But at the time, I was drifting in my thoughts and don't compute it. Shortly following that Jamie says STOP. and then by the time Jamie is saying STOP STOP STOP I am passing over the double yellow lines at 60km an hour.
60km an hour does not seem fast when you're driving down an empty road in the middle of the day. But when you are travelling 60kmph over a stop sign into your unknown and uncertain future, it is faster than a speeding train.
Within the split seconds that you can react in emergencies, I percieve to my right: is there a car coming from this direction? No, I carry on straight, still the safer option than to break hard going 60km. I percieve to the left, is there a... yes, there is. A car is coming around the bend and we are on course to meet it at this intersection.
I break hard and pull the wheel hard to the right.
There is a moment of complete silence and suspension before we hit th other car, all the world is empty, time is nothing. The noise it makes hitting the other car, us going 60km and them 100km an hour, is big, but it is not bigger than the FEELING of hitting the other car, which is quite earth shattering. Like a giant mallet the size of a ... well, car... hitting you with all it's force, as though the blow is meant to silence you as well.
Due to whatever law of physics we are acting under, this blow shunts us into a clockwise 360 spin.
As we spin I am fully conscious and what I feel is my body being thrown by incredible gravitational force up into the left hand corner of the car, my body straining against the seat belt, my head plastered against the passenger seat, the force through my neck is incredible.
As we spin I am fully conscious, the day is warm and sunny, it is warm inside the car, my body is warm, my body is in one piece, my body is beautiful and alive and it works fine and all I have to do is keep it that way.
As we spin I am fully conscious and I see the car that I hit flipping through the air exactly like in an action movie. It flips sideways, it flys up into the air abot a meter and it flips, flips again, and crashes into a corrugated iron bus stop. Flattening the busstop.
As we spin i am fully conscious and I push my will out into the universe, as strong as i can make it, and my will says this: EVERYONE SURVIVES.
We come to a stop. Myself and one other person are yelling is everyone alright? is everyone alright? marlon and jamie say yes. in hindsight tom does not say yes but he gets out of the car. I put the car in park and get out of the car. Everyone can move. There is no blood. Immediately following this realisation I run to the other car ten meters away, it is lying on it's side next to the bus stop.
My legs are goverened by two forces, one propels me forward, wanting to get there as quickly as possible to help them as quickly as possible, the other is holding my legs back like glue with the sickening dread at what i might find...
I reach their car, i can see them through the skylight, they are screaming.
Are you alright? i scream at them. They say the are. The driver screams "don't let me die in here" she is trying to get out through the skylight, i try to pull it, i have no strength, my hands are feeble tools. I say to her, you are NOT going to die in there, you are fine, we're going to get you out. But I don't know how.
A man turns up, actually he's off tele, he's on that 'manage your money' show, the army guy. In a very, loud, stern, and soothingly authoritative voice he says: my name is ... (can't remember now, john?) and i am a first aider, are there any other first aiders?
I say yes, but so meekly, because i feel as if i have done enough damage and how can they trust me, to help people, me, who just nearly killed them.
They get out of them car, they are so relieved to get out of that car. They are two young girls, maybe 16 nd 14. They are not bleeding or broken. They are shocked, teary, but as I apologise over and over, they say to me, it's okay, it's okay. This is my first taste of the bottomless depth of humans ability to be compassionate. It is then that I think to myself, tom? tom was very quiet. and i sprint back to see that tom is cradling his right arm and a big lump is sticking up out of his collarbone, it looks broken. He rapidly turns whitey green and needs to sit down.
Medics are turning their attention to him.
The emergency services turn up within the blink of an eye, cops, ambulance guys, fire fighters, about 15 of them. And you know what they each do? They ask who was in each vehicle, and once asking if we are okay, can breath, no pain, they look totally inredulous and say 'everyones alright'. They each do this. 'everyones alright??'
I won't go into every detail. It is a long time we are standing on the side of the road. My car is a 'total loss' for sure. Do you know even writing this i LOVE that car, and i know it contributed to saving our lives, you know why? because it CRUMPLED. Only a week earlier i had been saying how they can't handle knocks and they just crumple (after hitting somones towbar). Well yes, they do crumple, that is how they save your life. It is sad to see that car demolished. I am drowing in realisations and feelings. This really happened. It was my fault. I nearly killed everyone of these people. This is not something I can hide from. I look into their faces and say i'm so sorry i'm so sorry, but i am also keenly aware that i don't even deserve their compassion, how dare i put them in the position of having to say 'it's okay'. Have them comfort me. No, they should be allowed to be mad, and to feel that it is not okay. So I am caught between apologising, and not wanting to seem that I am trying to elicit their forgiveness. Everyone is so shaken. Jamie has his arm around me numerous times, rubbing my back, and i think, i want someone to hug me, to say it is alright, but i don't deserve it. I can't believe he can smile at me. The mother of the two girls gives me rescue remedy, she sees the contorted look on my face and she hugs me and rubs my arms and tells me it's alright, it's only cars, it's alright. and i cannot believe her generosity. I nearly killed both of her children. How can people be so... good.
I am not good. I am careless. I am in trouble with the law. My car is gone. I will have to tell my dad. This is always the worst part of every mistake i have ever made, telling dad. Dad who is so sensible and practical and who TOLD me to drive carefully and pay attention, but then who doesn't say i told you so when you don't heed his advice and you screw something up. Dad who gives me everything, and helps me fix up my each and every mistake. Oh dad. I'm sorry. I've done it again. Your stupid daughter, it's not your fault, you taught me everything right, but i just don't listen.
The cop is lovely, he is calm, and while he has that stern cop thing going on, he's a person too, and he doesn't pull that one on me like: you are a bad citizen who broke the law. I think he sympathises. He's lovely. He takes my statement. I'm sure he writes it in a way to try and make me seem like a good person who truely did have a very bad accident.
The cop tells me I am very lucky, that when he heard what they radio'd through he fully expected to find bodies. I know I am very lucky. I just don't know why.
The mother of the kids in the other car had said, buy a lotto ticket tonight and i thought, no, you buy a lotto ticket, you deserve it, i've had all the lucky i feel it is fair to take.
Tom goes in the ambulance because he has a shoulder injury. We go back to the barn. the boys pack up. i give my statement. We drive to the hospital. everything at the hospital takes forever. we are there til 8. miracle upon miracle, tom hasn't broken his collarbone, but he has torn his ac joint, not good, coudl be worse.
dad comes to pick me up out of my mess and take us home.
My body is starting to hurt, a hurt i haven't felt before. Funnily enough, a hurt that feels like I have been hit hard by several 2 by 4's from several angles.
I want to be a sick cat and crawl into a hole. I want to be a sick bird and hide in my nest.
Guilt and gratitude. Guilt and gratitude. I am overwhelmed by both.
Why me god? why did you save me?
Well the date part is that when it happens i text the guy from date one. I text him and tell him what's happened because... because i want someone to be on my side and to care, but i can't bring myself to tell my family yet, to worry them, to put them out. And he texts back and we text to and fro from the time of the crash, around 1.30pm, til 8pm that night. He's understanding, he says tell me what i can do, he asks if i've had dinner, he could make some for me, he says things to cheer me up, stupid, aweful things, wrong things that shouldn't be said, and they make me smile just like they're meant to. What a good guy. He comes over to see me afterwards too, i'm exhausted and wired and i can't be alone, i need to be distracted. Date one (wll think of a better alias soon!) comes and distracts me, he picks me up, we go to his house and watch the rugby half heartedly, we sit on the couch and he puts his arm around me and kisses my cheek and takes my mind off the crash and he doesn't think i'm an evil, careless person who nearly killed their friends, and his believing that of me is holding me together.
So that is date 3, and half of date 4. Then on sunday without any complaint he drives me to the supermarket to get food for tom, then drives me to see tom, and he sits and talks with tom who he has never met, while i do things in the kitchen, then he drives us home again, then to my dads, meets my dad (no big deal people!), so i can pick up dads spare car, follows me home, comes in and we lie on my bed and talk til bedtime. This is date 5 and 6.
Which would probably make you ask if this guy is hammering the nail in the coffin of this blog. I don't know kids, watch this space.
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