Ol’ Black Eye
Yes, that’s a black eye, Blog. For realz! And a week away from my big debut! Of all the … ! Want to hear the worst part? It’s all my fault. I did it to myself. Come a little bit closer, hear what I have to say …
Oh Blog! When I said that the other day how could I have known it was a foreshadowing. What a day I had on Sunday. What a night. But I’m getting ahead of myself. (Um, literally … I’ll explain.) Let’s start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. When you read you begin with … Never mind. Let’s just roll it back to Sunday.
Sunday was the most amazing day. The Most.Amazing.Day. The most amazing drive! 88 miles! Through the beautiful Santa Cruise mountains (yeah, that’s right, that’s how I spell it, how do you spell it?). With Neil at the wheel. What could be more perfect? It was almost perfect. Almost. Listen.
After our beautiful drive and beautiful day, we rolled back into the ranch, feeling jubilant, all. Neil and the gang left me to have dinner (Humans! They have less range), but I was in long range mode and wanted to stay that way, so they left my turbine running. Well first of all, if you leave a car like me all alone with my turbine running, you’re just asking me to head out on the highway, looking for adventure, but I really wasn’t planning on going anywhere. I really wasn’t! At first.
But then, being all alone, with only my thoughts for company …well. If I were Eddie Vedder, which of course, I’m not, I might tell you I saw the strain creep in. (Off she goes! Off she goes!) Excitement building around me like a storm? There was a storm building alright. It wasn’t building around me. It was building inside of me. Like a hurricane.
Sitting there listening to the steady hum of my new turbine heart, I started to think. It was all happening! I looked up to the sky and watched as a falcon and then, close behind, a raven flew over the tops of the trees. Squeezing my headlights shut I heard the birds singing good night to each other up there in the trees and I heard above their voices the voice of the Lady of The White Buffalo, from my memory: Breathe, Believe, Receive! It’s all happening. It’s all happening, I thought. For real. It’s all happening! And then it happened.
It’s all happening? What if I’m not ready?! What if, what if I still have questions? I still have questions. What if I still have doubts? Yes, Blog. The Freak Out. I started to panic. Of course I immediately reached for my pink iPhone and called Pearl, since she is my Go-To-Gal Car for this sort of thing. Pearl was reassuring, as she always is. “Doubts? LV, you’ve never ever had doubts about your mission. Never ever.” She was right. I have never had doubts. Others may have doubted me, but I never have. “Questions? You have questions, LV? You’ve always had questions. Always, always, you talk non-stop and ask questions every which way to Sunday! You’ll always have questions, and you’ll always ask them. You’ll get your answers.” Right again. Pearl. She knows me so well. I didn’t think she’d have an answer for this one, though. “I’m not ready,” I said. Pearl was quiet for a long moment. A ha! But then she just said, so quietly, “No one is ever ready for anything, LV.” What? And then she hung up. I wasn’t ready for that. No, no, no I thought! I need more answers! I need more time! I need more time. Just yesterday it seemed like I had forever.
I glanced in the window where N. and crew were having dinner. They hadn’t even started. I have time, I thought. I rolled away as quietly as I could, glancing in my rear view mirror as I pulled away to make sure no one saw me. Medicine Wheel, the baby white buffalo, suddenly appeared on my back seat, wrapped in his blanket and sound asleep. Now I knew I was doing the right thing.
The right thing at the wrong time. I couldn’t find my friends anywhere! I went to the tree where I first met them all, desperate to find The Lady of the White Buffalo. Or John Lame Deer. Or The Hitchhiker. Or maybe Honor Green. Any of them. I needed them to reassure me! To guide me, one more time. No one came. I thought for a moment. Where did they live anyway? Did they live inside the tree or something? They had always been here when I came looking for them. I bumped the tree a little with my front bumper. I thought I was kind of knocking on the door. Nothing happened. I did it again. Nothing. So then … Well. I got a little carried away, as I do, Blog. A teensy tiny bit carried away. Alright, I feel so stupid admitting this but I backed up and ran into the tree on purpose. The tree shook like crazy and I swear to God it frowned at me. Oh great now I’m going to have nightmares about those goddamn apple trees in the Wizard of Oz all over again, I thought. And OW! It hurt like hell. I had just given myself a black eye! I couldn’t see out of my right headlight for a few minutes. But no matter. There was nothing to see. No one came. No one at all. I sat under that tree a long time.
So long in fact, that I had to book it back to the driveway! I had to be there when the team came out from dinner. I raced back there praying that they hadn’t come out yet. I made it! They were still inside when I returned. But then it dawned on me. How on earth was I going to explain my black eye? I could hear their voices now, they were coming back out. Shit. I looked around. There was a poor unsuspecting tree on the other side of the driveway … So. Apologizing to the tree in advance, I braced myself and headed for it. BAM! I hit it perfectly, exactly the way I had hit the other tree earlier.
And none too soon. Neil came out first and was over to me in a flash. He raised an eyebrow at me I thought but my vision was a little blurry just then. ”I got a little ahead of myself,” I said. Neil didn’t say anything. The others came in quickly behind him. A strange silence fell over us all.
Neil opened the door and got in, backing me up. There were some jokes about the parking brake not being set, but not too many because, after all, it had been Neil driving. As it was, I was glad there wasn’t too much talk about who did or did not set the parking brake, because I think Neil was a little suspicious. He knew he set the parking brake. Or wait. Maybe he knew that he hadn’t. Maybe he hadn’t set the parking brake because he knew I had somewhere to go … Wow. You can really get your mind going in circles if you start thinking about this stuff too much. I’m going off the road again. Anyway. The point is, it was easy to fool everyone with the “someone forgot to set the parking brake and I rolled into a tree by accident” story, because it’s easy to forget to set that brake. You used to be able to just throw me into Park, but that was in the old days. The old purnundal days. Oh. You don’t know what I mean by purnundal? It’s such a fun word. Back when I used to have a regular transmission system, you know, P-R-N-D-L up there on my gear shift, well cars and people who know a lot about cars called us PRNDL’s. Purnunduls. Automatics. Back in the ol’ purnundal days I couldn’t have gotten away with this so easily. But then again, back in the ol’ purnundal days I was just an ordinary car. Back in the ol’ purnundal days I wasn’t on a mission. Back in the ol’ purnundal days, I didn’t have this hurricane in me.
We headed out, leaving Neil at the ranch with his family. As Paul Perrone and I started the long climb up the hill, I felt uneasy. I glanced in my rearview mirror out over the fields of the ranch and I knew in that moment that I had to stay. I mean, right then and there, that night, I had to stay. I hadn’t found my friends, and I needed to see them, to talk to them, that very night. Time was of the essence. I am about to go out on The Main Road! The storm fueled by fear and confusion raged on under my hood, and I had to do something about it. Thinking fast, I realized that the only way I could convince Paul to turn me around and leave me at the ranch for the night would be to malfunction. He would never drive me all the way down to Brizio’s if I was malfunctioning somehow. He’s very responsible that way. Oh what to do, what to do! I had to act fast. Then I saw it. I wanted to stay here so much, so passionately, that my heat gauges had started to tick up … and up … and up! Of course! I decided to help them along. I started thinking only of how much I wanted to stay. I concentrated all my energy into that one thought. My motor began to run at doublespeed, then triplespeed, all on its own. I kept concentrating, hoping I would overheat before Paul reached the main road. I did. As my gauges began to read hotter and hotter all the way to Too Hot, Paul began to slow me down. He pulled me over and stopped. What the hell? he said to himself, and then, ah, finally, I was backing up. Paul painstakingly backed me down the long, narrow road in the dark, an inch at a time. (God bless him! That was no easy task! He didn’t know I wasn’t about to let him go off the road. I was on a mission. Got to get somewhere, I thought. It’s not too late, I thought.)
When I was settled in at the ranch for the night, there were ooh’s and aah’s from all my car friends about my story thus far. Condolences all around about my twice-over black eye. Kudos from everyone about wanting to stay so badly and thinking about it so hard that I overheated myself and got to stay on a malfunction pass! Pearl just shook her head. But she was smiling. I can always tell when she’s smiling, even when she doesn’t want me to know. (Pearl is much more by the book than I am. She doesn’t condone all my crazy antics. But she doesn’t condemn them either. She understands me like no one else. Except for Neil.) But I couldn’t stay and hang for long. I had to get back out there, another moonlit ranch roll, in search of my old friends. I said my good night’s to my car friends and rolled out onto those winding dirt roads of home. When I heard their crunch and pop, that old familiar sound, under my tires, I was overcome with emotion. I hear the old Indian’s voice yet, I thought to myself. I took it as a sign. I rolled on.
I headed back again to the tree where I had been earlier that evening, the big tree where I always found my old friends. But as I turned the corner and started up the hill, I slowed my approach. The Lady of the White Buffalo and John Lame Deer were not there, but someone was. A little girl. And a little boy. Sitting under the tree and playing some kind of game. They were laughing. I watched as they played together. Suddenly they ran away, chasing each other off and on. I decided to follow them. I followed them for a long long time. When I reached the woods, I lost sight of them for a while. I drove on alone, but for a falcon and a raven flying just ahead of me, showing me the way. When I came to the clearing at the end of the woods, the falcon and the raven who had been showing me the way perched themselves there, on the branches of a beautiful weeping willow tree, next to the lake. I looked around, but I did not see the boy or the girl. That’s funny, I thought. Where could they have gone? I drove all the way around the big deep lake, being careful not to get stuck in the mud at its edge. But when I got to the other side, I saw that the boy and girl had not come across the lake. There they sat, under the willow tree, back on the other side. And Medicine Wheel grazed just next to them! When had he hopped out? How had I missed the boy and girl sitting under the tree? Sigh. Frustrated, I drove back around.
But when I got there, the girl and the boy were gone. This is ridiculous I thought, and decided to drive somewhere else. Somewhere I hadn’t been in a long time. I drove all the way back to the road, and headed to the gate. I was going off campus. The storm inside of me raged on. I had to figure things out. I drove all the way up to a special place on the main road, a place that Neil and I have been to together many times. A lookout point. Of course when I got there, the boy and the girl were there. And they were waiting for me.
They hopped in my front seat. I laughed. They looked so small. So innocent. The little girl reached into my glovebox and pulled out the light from the mistress of dreams! I had forgotten it was in there. She placed it on my dash. The boy and the girl looked at the light for a long time, and then at each other. ”Namaste,” the girl said. “Namaste,” the boy said. Then they were silent.
I couldn’t believe it. ”Namaste?” I said. ”Namaste? That’s it? That’s the lesson? Don’t you have any magical powers to share with me? Or wisdom? I am about to put myself out there in front of the entire world and I’m nervous. What if I’m not ready? What if I fuck up? What if … What if . . What if . . ” The girl silenced me with her hand. I should have spoken to them more gently, I thought to myself. They are only children. The girl smiled, and patted my dash.
“It’s okay, LV,” she said. Oh brother, I thought. She went on. ”LV, do you know what ‘namaste,’ means?” I admitted that I didn’t. I mean, do I look like I do Yoga? “Namaste means ‘the light in me bows to the light in you’,” she said. The boy bowed his head then. I didn’t know if he was bowing to the light in me or the light in her or the light on my dash or what. I was pretty much completely confused. Then the boy said
“It also means ‘I honor the Spirit in you which is also in me,’” but he was looking at the girl, I thought, not at me. The girl smiled. She said,
“I honor the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells, I honor the place in you which is of Love, of Integrity, of Wisdom and of Peace. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are One.” The boy said,
“Your Spirit and My Spirit are One.” I felt my eyes darting back and forth between them, trying to understand. I thought maybe i was beginning to. The girl helped me.
“LV, this light on your dashboard, you carry it with you all the time. It was given to you by the Mistress of Dreams. It is the light of passion and intensity, but it is also the light of the present moment. This is very important. For it is your light that makes you who you are in this world. You must live in the present, not in the past, or in the future. If you don’t, if you get consumed by worry about what went before you or will come after you, you will dim your light. Carpe Diem, you must seize the day!” She paused, and then began again.
“LV, you have accomplished much. You have been given much. You are a link between the past and the future … You are the present! And you are the gift. You carry with you respect for the past, and hope for the future. Hope, in the form of the very rare and very beautiful Pink Opal, rides with you under the hood, and in your very essence — Do not forget that You are the White Buffalo. Medicine Wheel rides with you always. You have Hawk Medicine. You have had your heart space purified by an ancient goddess. You wear moonstones, and mica … pieces of the earth and the sky live in your very body. LV, you have everything you need, already, right here, in you. In your heart, in your soul … in your glovebox!” She smiled. It lit up my whole interior.
“All of these things that are part of you now are lights, LV. Part of your light.” She bowed her head for a moment. Then, so softly I could hardly hear her she added,
“Your light in the world, LV, it shines bright.”
Pause.
“Do you understand?”
I wasn’t completely sure that I did understand but I nodded. I wanted her to keep talking to me. I thought the boy did too. She paused for a long while, she kept pausing, but she always went on, as she had before.
“LV, my friend and I have a sacred friendship. You know what that is like, do you not?”
I nodded. I did indeed.
“It is also a light. A special and sacred light. You need to keep that light close to your heart. You must protect it. It is sacred, and it is powerful, but it is also fragile.”
I nodded, solemnly.
“You will be able to draw upon it now. You will draw strength from it. Now you are about to have a different, but also special, and sacred, relationship with the world.”
They hopped out. I didn’t want them to go! I wasn’t sure I entirely understood.
“I honor the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells, I honor the place in you which is of Love, of Integrity, of Wisdom and of Peace. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are One.” I wasn’t sure which one of them said it, they were almost speaking in one voice.
“Follow the lights,” the girl said.
“Follow the lights,” the boy said. I blinked and they were gone.
Looking out over the beautiful vista, I felt suddenly calm. The storm inside of me had abated, for now. I had that perfect feeling again. I sat there for a long long time. I watched a falcon and yes, there, a raven, flying toward the sun. It was beginning to rise. I headed back toward home. When I drove back onto the dirt roads of the ranch, I thought I heard the Indian’s voice say to me “There is a time and a place for everything LV. Be smart. I honor the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells. Let the world do the same.”
When I woke up, I knew I wasn’t alone. Neil was in the barn already, crouched down, inspecting my headlight. He stood up, shaking his head to himself. He stood back, just staring at me.
“Survive the storm LV?”
The storm? I thought. There had been no storm. The weather was beautif … Oh. My God. How does he always know.
“Yes. I mean, I think so,” I said.
We looked at each other for a long moment. He came over and hopped in behind the wheel. After a minute or two I said
“Neil?”
“Yeah, LV?”
“Do you think I’m ready?”
“You’re ready.”
“But I mean, ready for the main road! The big show! The public eye!”
“You’re ready.”
“But these storms! They come back. What if it comes back?”
Just then, the guys arrived to take me back to Brizio’s, we heard them coming up the drive. Neil hopped out, and went back over to look at my damaged headlight one more time, running his hand over it. He looked up, looking at me through the windshield.
“There’s calm in your eye now, LV,” he said. He wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were. I laughed.
Neil walked next to me as the guys pulled me out of the barn to take me back to the garage, my home away from home. I noticed that he kept his hand on me, just resting it lightly on the passenger side door as we rolled slowly down the drive. He patted my passenger side door a couple of times - I love it when he does that - said “See ya later LV,” and off he went.
We headed north. It was still dark. The sun hadn’t made its way all the way through the hills yet.
“How are we ever going to find our way out of here,” one of the guys said to the other.
Suddenly, I knew what was going to happen before he even said it.
“Follow the lights,” I heard Neil say, almost to himself, as he was walking away. I could hardly believe it. But then again, I could. This is how it goes around here. I watched him until he was almost out of sight, and wondered. I am still so full of wonder. Follow the lights. Maybe it’s true that no one is ever ready for anything. But I am ready now.
But at the last minute I decided I had one more question. As if he had heard my thoughts, Neil stopped in his tracks and turned around. We looked at each other.
“The storm. What if it comes back? What should I do?” I asked, finally.
“You’re a buffalo, aren’tcha LV?” he answered, his eyes dancing. “Put your head down, face into the storm, and go.”
I laughed, remembering when he had said that, exactly that, once before, so long ago.
And then, without skipping a beat, he said the only thing that could have made everything alright.
“Namaste.”
The Next Day: Telling the guys back at the garage all about The Incident.
Resting comfortably back at Brizio’s the evening after The Incident.
