What a Life I Lead

when the suuuuun breaks freeeeeeeee.......
It's stuck in my head, okay?
All I've been listening to are Fleet Foxes lately.
BUT WAIT!
Let's, as they say, not put the cart before the horse. Or the horse before the baboon. You know. I mean, I'll just tell you the story of last weekend in the order it happened.
Thursday dawns hot. My room doesn't dawn, but it's hotter than outside. After I go to work or something I come home and a whole mess of friends gather at my place of residence and promptly begin dancing. Just kidding. That didn't happen. But what did happen was that we all got in my car because I felt bad because I never ever drive anywhere. This will be important later on, children. I drive to Salt Lake. We take about a week to find a parking spot. But lucky for us, when we finally did find a spot a week later, the concert was still going on so we walked to it. I smuggled some snackage in under my shirt so I looked a little chubby but the guys checking bags didn't question it which also somehow made me feel offended, like how dare they think I should be chubby? So then we met up with our entire high school and some to spare and enjoyed the magnificent ambiance of the Decemberists playing in the background of our socializing. Because, unfortunately, it had been so long since many of us had seen each other there was a lot of catching up and being stupid to do before we could be properly quiet and appreciative of the music. But, regardless of distraction, it was still a wonderful show. AND THEN afterwards, we decided to walk to Wendy's. The line was even longer than a week. We started talking about these magic soda machines some people have, and then Ashley said they have some at Jordan Commons, and we started getting really excited, so excited we decided to just skip Wendy's and get a raspberry Sprite at Jordan Commons instead, since it was on the way home anyway. Filled with anticipation of those effervescent elixirs of which we soon should partake, we got back in the car and hustled on over to the freeway entrance, where we were, by another vehicle of no mean size, quite suddenly and inconsiderately crashed into.
NO we weren't hurt! So don't worry! I can't say the same for my little car though. However, with only the bumper crunched and the trunk folded, I had to stand there on the road and pat her on the hood and say, "good ol' Taurus." Because had she been of a less, ah, sturdy make, I think she (and her occupants) would have puttered off the scene much worse in the way of damages. In fact, we were quite fortunate. All in all, Mr. Cop told us there were at least ten cars involved in this thing. Ten. It was like I was watching a little slice of humanity there for the hour and a half we sat parked on the bridge. Firemen passed asking through open windows if anyone was hurt. The man driving the vehicle-of-no-mean-size who hit into me stood next to his car, elbows on the hood, cradling his head in his hands as a bearded man swept up broken glass and shook out sawdust to mop up I-hope-it-was-oil-not-blood. The car behind him was carried past us in the loving arms of a tow truck. Lights flashed. The woman whose car I bumped (might be even an exaggeration) took off after discovering my car undamaged, leaving whispers of "no insurance" in her wake. A white jeep fifty yards and three cars ahead of us stood sideways, acting as canvas for blue-red-blue-red paint flung from now silent police cars. An ambulance drove away. Fireworks popped to our left blocks away. My head spun with it all.
Of course, everything was sorted out. We drove off that blocked bridge after completing whatever paperwork was necessary like road-weary war heroes, leaving behind a few cars still tangled in red tape or sitting in broken glass like fallen comrades in the night. It was something, driving back to the roads of noise and greenyellowred lights and cars with laughing people in them after those hours spent idling in our own aftermath. I can't quite explain it, I can't explain. Feeling ourselves deserving of sustenance, we drove around a bit wondering why the world, if there were any justice in it, did not immediately drop it in our laps. We pulled into a McDonald's and ordered food and I pulled up to the window, handing the man money slowly, perhaps hoping to make him aware of the very unreality I was in at that moment. He simply handed me my change. We stopped at Alberto's for their legendary horchata, my Balm in Gilead, and then got on the freeway, and I held tight to the wheel, hearing the wind dance in and through the void in my trunk, cringing as cars in their wheeling lights and tornado sounds whirled past us. We put Bon Iver on to calm us down. The lights were so bright. Somehow, we made it home; the last leg we traveled in silence, Justin Vernon sweeping through the speakers with his night-voice like he was healing us.
I lay (laid?) in bed. I thought, "What does one read after a car crash?" McCarthy held nothing of interest. Neruda just the breeze outside the window. Even Rumi had little to say to me. So I read the scriptures, of course, and went to bed, and didn't dream.
I would tell you if I could about how I changed. Perhaps not much outwardly, but the whole fabric of my understanding shifted just a little, as it does gradually with normal things like growing up and time passing--but at times that shifting seems like plants growing. In the evening, the beans don't reach the top of the poles. In the morning, they've curled over them and back twice again. But with this, it was like I turned back too soon and caught the hand moving the cloth, like the vines jumped three inches when I forgot to blink. I've grown up just a little, and just a little faster than I otherwise would have. Perhaps that sounds dramatic. I don't know. It's hard for me to tell when I'm being dramatic anymore. Usually I just try to stick to the truth.
But anyway. We drove back to Salt Lake the next night (not me driving) to see Fleet Foxes perform at Red Butte Gardens. And let me tell you, I've never been to a more purely hippie concert. A good 2/3 of attendees were yesteryear hippies, all dolled up in their floor-length dresses and vegan-friendly sandals with their lawn chairs, cargo shorts, beards and ponytails. Everybody brought dinners. Blankets. Their most eclectic outfits. Little to no marijuana. If there was any alcohol, it was partaken of in the sleepy way, not the party way. They asked us if we'd like our ticket envelopes recycled when we had our stubs ripped. People were surprisingly calm, surprisingly courteous, everything chill as can be. And I loved it. And the BAND. Davies, they were incredible! Again, it was something I can't explain. The mountains drank it all up and played it back to them in a different key, the stars hummed along in their paths.
And that's why I've been listening to Fleet Foxes a lot lately.

Blue-Spotted Tail -- Fleet Foxes