Crash!

      I screamed the whole long, extended, slow-motion moment before my Toyota Yaris hit the BMW SUV that pulled out in front of it.

      Mike, who was driving my car, cried in alarm, "Are you all right?" but I wasn't sure what "all right" meant in this case, and I said, "I don't know," as I struggled to unbuckle the life-saving seat belt. What I did know was that my door wouldn't open. Mike appeared instantly on the outside of the door and with superhuman force wrenched it open. Then we stood in the road, looking at my Yaris strewn in parts on the road, our weekly hike up Table Rock Mountain at daybreak also in shatters

      The woman in the BMW who had slid through the stop sign without caution was full of apologies and concern for us. I was alarmed to see she had a baby, but the baby had been in a car seat in the back and I think didn't even know anything out of the ordinary had happened or why so many people – cops, emergency workers, strangers, her grandparents, who had raced immediately to the site – were milling around. She was fine. As was everyone else, more or less.

      The driver who had caused the accident took immediate responsibility and was only concerned about everyone's well-being. When the policeman asked me if I wanted him to issue her a citation for running the stop sign, I said, no, she didn't need that on top of everything else. The policeman, the emergency vehicle drivers, and a witness to the accident who left his name and contact information with me all said the accident was clearly her fault. I was doing the young woman a favor not to issue her a citation, so I was a little annoyed when, later, she insisted on placing partial blame on Mike with the insurance company.

      When I tell people I was in a "little accident," they often look askance, as though there were no such thing. My massage therapist, Haley May, with May Massage Arts, told me that such an impact is always hard on the body. Nonetheless, it was, in fact, a little accident. I know enough to be grateful. The tow truck driver, who had lost a daughter in an automobile accident years ago, kept saying, "It's just a bunch of metal. You're alive; that's what counts." But he didn't need to remind me. It really was a little accident.

      Mike and I both have pain from ligaments that got strained by the pull of the seat belt across our chests. I have a big round bruise on my left breast, at first black and blue, now green and yellow, and one long, across-the-belly bruise where the seat belt stretched across my lap. It looks like a forest fire: striated vertically, black, with streaks of red and green.

      The day after the accident, I left for Georgia and sat for hours on an airplane, then more hours in a car. When I returned to the Rogue Valley, Haley told me she had a cancellation and could get me in for a massage two days later. As soon as she started working on me, I thought, "I really need this." 

      The bruises are healing. Sore muscles are relaxing. I can breathe deeply and turn over in bed without pain. The Yaris is in the wrecking yard. Fortunately, I had had two cars, so I could drive my RAV4 while I was looking for a replacement for the Yaris. I need a four-wheel-drive vehicle to get up my driveway in winter, but the RAV4 is 20 years old and has about 300,000 miles on it, so I needed the Yaris for ordinary driving. Now I decided to replace two cars with one, which would be an all-wheel-drive but more like a car than a truck, a description a Subaru fits better than any other make.

      Therefore, behold now the Subaru Crosstrek in my carport.