This probably won’t come as a surprise, but I love Bette Midler. I guess there are certain requirements you have to meet if you want to be a card-carrying homosexual, and I’m proud to say I checked that one off at an early age. For this I blame my late Uncle Monty, who, although straight, also loved The Divine Miss M. (I suppose this is allowed). I remember sitting in his dentist’s chair as a child this one weekend when it was just the two of us at his office. Uncle Monty loved music, and that particular day he had Miss Otis Regrets on repeat. Just that one song, over and over for maybe an hour. It was the first time I’d heard anyone do that, play a song so many times that it becomes forever a part of you.

This morning, on the way to a funeral, I was in a car accident. It happened in Fort Smith where Free Ferry turns into 74th, this sort-of blind curve that leads into a steep hill. I made the curve, and as I came onto 74th, a rather sizable and stupid turtle was (slowly) crossing the road. So I swerved to the right side of my lane, and then back to the left, successfully dodging the son of a bitch. But the car in front of me had come to a dead halt–in the middle of the damn road!–I guess to play Jesus and save one of God’s more ignorant creatures. Slamming on my brakes, I stopped just in time to miss hitting them.

But the guy in the pickup truck behind me–didn’t.

It’s funny how moments like that one both slow down and speed up all at once, like a rubber band that’s pulled slowly backwards and then snaps forward–BAM!–and it’s over. A rubber band snapping–that’s what my neck felt like. And then all at once my coffee was splattered across my dash, my change scattered all over the floor, the baseball cap that was on my head–in the backseat.

For a few minutes, it felt like a dream. I’d only slept a few hours the night before–I’d just had the shit knocked out of me–everything was being processed about as slowing as that fucking turtle was crossing the road. I pulled my car over, so did the others. A lady yelled from the accident site, “Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said.

An old man crawled out of the pickup truck. He had hearing aids. He looked confused. He said, “What happened?”

The lady and maybe her son were then next to us. Is everyone okay? And then they were gone, back to the accident site, kicking the remains of my back bumper into the grass. At the same time–I think–the tortoise rescue team either moved the turtle off the road or picked it up and put it in their car like a couple of cat burglars except–obviously–different. I don’t remember them saying anything during this whole process, and then they–what the actual hell?–got in their car and drove off. Assholes. (This is me learning to express myself.)

The old man gave me his business card. I gave him mine. His hands were shaking. He couldn’t find his insurance. And then he did. I walked down to the accident site and looked around. My magnetic hide-a-key had come off my bumper. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used that thing. I lock my keys in my car constantly. I picked it up. Tearing a piece of styrofoam off my bumper, I put it in my front seat and called my insurance company. The man still seemed confused. I was on the phone with my agent, but he kept talking, saying–I think that’s the wrong insurance card–No, it’ll work–Do we need to call the police? No, we don’t. My agent says we don’t have to if we don’t want to–I don’t want to. I’m going to be late for the funeral.

The man drove off, and then I did. I didn’t even think to look at his truck, see how badly it was damaged. Then on the phone with his insurance company, I pulled into a hospital parking lot and filed a claim. The lady was super nice, but she actually said, “I hope the turtle is okay.” I thought about the fact that my neck had recently functioned like a slingshot, the fact that I could hear birds chirping through the open spaces in my trunk, the fact that my guardian angel is obviously getting paid about as much as I am lately.

I replied, “That turtle can die.”

Next I drove to the funeral, my bumper scrapping my tire the whole way, myself leaned back like a gangster because I couldn’t get my broken seat to return to its full and upright position. At the funeral parking lot, I got out and looked at the damage again. My bumper looks like a park bench, I thought. It’s so dented in, you could curl up and take a nap on that thing–like a cat, like a whole bunch of cats.

By this time I was thinking more clearly, so I called my parents. I’m okay, but I was in a wreck. I’ve gotta go, but don’t ever park your car in the middle of a street to save a reptile. Then I called my chiropractor and my massage therapist. Both of them said they could see me today, but it would mean leaving the funeral early. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

For the next six hours, I was in and out of offices. The chiropractor, who was at least a seven and a half, said it was “nothing major.” I thought about saying, “Nothing major! Do you want to see my rear end?” but figured he wouldn’t know I was talking about my car. He said I had a slight compression in my neck joints, probably due to tight muscles. So he adjusted me, ran some ultrasound to reduce inflammation, and told me to come back next week. Then I went to my friend Justin’s house because I had time to kill and didn’t know what else to do.

Well, Justin, who knows a ton about cars and pretty much everything, is what we affectionately call a wet blanket. So he took one look at my car, pointed out that the entire frame was compromised and compared it to a can of soda pop that’s been stepped on by a circus performer. He said, “There’s no going back. It’s totaled. See how this door won’t open and that wheel is no longer perpendicular to the ground?”

“That’s a bad thing?” I said.

“Yeah. And you probably won’t get much money for it.”

(Pause.)

“Where did you say you keep your beer?”

My massage therapist, Ron, was a miracle. Is a miracle. (Go see him.) He worked on me for about thirty minutes, got my muscles to relax, and put bright blue Kinesio Tape on my neck, which is supposed to promote healing and blood flow to injured muscles. That’s me (with the tape) and Ron in the photo up top.

Next I went back to Justin’s, and we got lunch. Justin, who prefers the term “realist” to “pessimist,” said I should go to the doctor and request x-rays. That way, in the event that I’m really screwed up, there’s proof from the day of the accident. So Justin drove, and that’s what we did.

The receptionist at the doctor’s office had a basket of pens with a label on it that said, “Pens,” but when I first noticed it, I honestly thought it read, “Penis.” God knows what Freud would say about that, but I just figured it meant I’m ready to start dating again.

The doctor said there were no broken bones, nothing out of place. Phew! He also said it was a good idea that I came in early, that I got ahead of things, and he wrote a prescription for a muscle relaxer, an anti-inflammatory, and–Score!–a pain pill. So my last stop today was the pharmacy. Well, no, I take that back. I went to Starbucks for a White Chocolate Mocha and a chocolate chip cookie so I could go home, take drugs, get fat, smoke cigarettes, and generally feel sorry for myself. (My therapist has previously endorsed this sort of behavior on exceptionally difficult days. She calls it “comforting.”)

When I got home, I pulled my car, Polly, into my parents’ garage. I got the car from my Grandpa Pauline after she passed away, and it occurred to me this evening that I would probably never drive her again. At least in Polly–no more trips to see my Aunt Terri, Uncle Monty’s wife, in Tulsa–no more trips to see my therapist. In a strange way, it felt like a death. At the same time, I was glad I didn’t buy those new car mats I’ve been thinking about for over a year.

It’s funny how grief and joy get all mixed up. As I stood at the end of the garage and alternated oral fixations–coffee, cookie, cigarette–I put my earbuds in and searched for Bette Midler’s Experience the Divine: Greatest Hits, an album I’ve had on repeat off and on for over fifteen years. For probably twenty minutes I played From a Distance over and over. It’s about the idea that “from a distance,” everything looks beautiful, everything is just right, everything is–okay. It says, “God is watching us–from a distance.”

I thought about the fact that some days God feels so far away. Some days life is already a lot to handle, more questions than answers really. And then a couple of turtle-lovers and a guy who’s not paying attention come along and fuck things up even more than they already are. It’s like everything is falling apart. But then again, in my case, I got excellent, immediate care. What’s more, insurance paid for everything. So far, I haven’t spent a dime. So in that sense, it felt like everything was coming together, that God was anything but far away.

In one of the most profound books I’ve read about healing trauma, I learned that the physical body often releases trauma through crying and even shaking, as might be evidenced–respectively–by a small child, or a duck that ruffles its feathers after a fight. Before I knew this, I didn’t trust my body to cry, to curl up in a ball if it wanted to. Most of today, I’ve been in “I can handle this” mode. I haven’t been angry, upset, sad, or worried. But this evening while listening to From a Distance, all the emotions hit me, just a hard as that fucking truck did. So when I started to cry, I didn’t push back the tears. I welcomed them. And when my body started shaking, I slumped down into a ball, leaned against the side of the house, and tried to make room within me for all of life’s mysteries. I can only imagine that from a distance, it was quite a beautiful thing to see.