A Once Twice Thrice Brush With Death

They say Buddhists believe in multiple lives. Buddhists say cats have 9 lives. And cats have nothing to say on the matter, because they are cats. If they could speak I'd imagine they would say one life is enough.

One can only eat so much canned garbage, lick yourself, and poop in a sand filled box.

Birthdays typically represent the unique ability to look at your life thus far and prophesize, noodle will you, over the road ahead. At 18 I looked at my life and said "wow I've managed not to kill myself for 18 years!" At 21, it was much of the same. By 28 it was the the 10 year mark of being an adult, and not killing myself. Everyday presents a series of moments, or a singular one, that runs the risk of ending the show, that's all she wrote, thank you and good night, don't forget to tip your waitress, don't let the door hit you on the way out, see ya, fuck off, peace out, end this here rodeo.

I've been tasked with a power as I like to call it, the uncanny ability to know, "oh yes I can die doing this." Skydiving, for example, too unsafe for me. A first date with a guy I don't know much about, driving in the back roads of the Angeles National Forest. Death eminent. A shady apartment in Soho.

Even with my power, death has been a factor to be reckoned with more often than I'd like.

My stomach turned with hunger. A hunger that usually doesn't present itself so early in one that doesn't eat breakfast. The air was cracked up one notch just enough to tousle my updo, and ventilate the car, but not enough to cool skin clothed in a light summer dress, begging for the overcast sky to clear the way for just another Los Angeles end of summer early morning day. Busy bodies abound. In cars and on streets, jamming freeways and Starbucks, canyon roads and daycares. Life moving fastly, ever swiftly, but unnoticed, in a car who's passenger had thoughts of hunger and bills, replayed conversations, anxiety and regrets. And so my head wasn't in the busy bodies of today, but somewhere else. Where it was, when it entered an intersection, on a wholly green light, with no thoughts of "you could die doing this", or an "abort mission" but a merrily going about the business of the mundane, when by a cat's whisker, smaller than a Buddhists wants, a speeding car thou a red light missed me, my car, my life, and allowed me to someday be 29, but today be 28, to appreciate the significance of something so nearly missing, to be. To not be in a place far far away of worry of things, but here, still. To just be.

Multiple times or 9 times over, just being - me, for another day.