Sixth Sense

Flat top of the Maverick from the rolling

I found the photo of my brother's car that he had his accident in when he was a teenager in 1970.  It is a miracle that he is alive.  It was a brand new Ford Maverick, red exterior and black interior.  Quite a snazzy car for a young driver.

My story of this event was my first encounter with a Sixth Sense.  When I hit the age of 13 up until I was 17, I went through a phase of frightening, wake up in the night, dreams on a regular basis.  I dreamt of my Grandmother dying often.  Whether it coincided with my Step-Grandmother telling me that she believed in Reincarnation or that she believed in Channeling and in fact had lived other lives in other times, it certainly laid some mental groundwork in my thoughts.  Once when I was in 4th or 5th grade she visited us and played a tape of her talking about her Channeling experience.  It was creepy and odd to hear her speak this way my having been raised in the Presbyterian Church Sunday School with a strict version of Bible Stories.  We didn't discuss Reincarnation or Channeling or what that was.   I became curious but laid it to rest. 

On the night of the accident I had dreams of my brother being hurt though I couldn't interpret if he had died or not.  It was a troubling sleep where I tried to change my dreams but I kept going back to him.  Somewhere in an awaken moment I heard voices in the house though I knew the hour was late into the night.  I couldn't understand what was being said and fell to sleep hearing their muffled voices.

What happened was that my brother had been in a serious car accident on the Monterey Salinas Highway just at the Laureles Grade.  He had gone out with his girlfriend that night and was returning home to Salinas after he had dropped her off at her home in Pacific Grove when he fell asleep at the wheel.  Amazingly he suffered only minor injuries of a broken rib, scrapes and bruising.  He wasn't wearing a seatbelt and that may have been what saved him.

Falling asleep, in that relaxed state, he slid down and avoided being potential decapitated or certainly seriously injured.  His car rolled and hit a tree in the end.  At the time even though it is a Highway, it was a quiet road at night, mostly just a country road with very few residences.  I don't know how long it was before someone discovered the accident but in the 70's there were no cell phones so someone would have to find a house somewhere to call for help.

In the morning when I came out of my room, I was told that he had been in an accident and in the hospital.  

I was relieved that he was okay but to digest the fact that I had dreamed he had been hurt only to find out that indeed he had been hurt did scare me. How was I to understand that I could have dreamed something and that it happened?  What if more of my dreams became real?  

I like to think that my being a teen helped me to pass through without any residual effect.  I did have good dreams too.  This did have the effect of my interest in spirits, ghosts stories and hauntings outside my church upbringing and what I wanted to believe or question. 

Celluloid

    She and I are walking towards the building with multipane widows
       covered in green curtains that do not let me know what is behind them

     We walk inside a door, like the kind at any store up and down
        the town we live in, glass which you push firmly to open

    The room has young adults sitting on vinyl couches and chairs
        it feels like a time long ago when drive-ins and soda fountains were around

     They look at us, the mother tall and proud, the child meek and timid,
         they look at us as we walk past the desks off to the side of a room that feels too long

     The man has a grey hair with a white short beard, I sense kindness 
         the polite greeting of my mom and he while I stand mute and lost

     The room is emptied, just us three, and I am taller, she is older and less of presence
         the question and answer begin and I am getting taller and stronger

     My voice builds with longing of what I missed
        "I missed you mom.  I missed you wanting me when I got older".

      She has become rigid and uncomfortable, her words I can not hear
         only her lips and mouth open and close, tightness when pressed together.

      "I couldn't be me, I had to be what you wanted.  You wouldn't let me breathe".
          Words fall from my mouth like alphabet soup letters, forming sentences and phrases.

       I see around me the slow fading in of the young adults that have begun to appear.
           Their faces supporting me as they become clearer, eyes on me not her

       The scene like a celluloid movie, that flickers and displays a scene of us
            "I am your mother, I know what is best for you"

       The man speaks to her, "She is not for you to keep tucked in a drawer".
             I am growing and she is aging as the film continues on the reel.

        Is it dark or light,  the colors are faded,  flashes of brightness and the room
            is real once more,  the young adults are smiling 

         My mother is old and weak, she is sad at her loss of control over me
             "You are wrong, she needs me" her words are desperate

         The man talks gently to her even though she repels his words
               For once I am forgiven for being me, by a man who listened


          The room of young adults has come to life, the child I was walks towards the door
                 her pure white ankle socks on chubby legs runs


          I push through to bright sunlight
                  the sound of the reel clicks, clicks, clicks


            

        * I had a dream last night of this.  So oddly it floated to my head.  We had watched a show on PBS of film making where I think the flash of celluloid came from.  The ankle socks from my friend Lori who shared a photo from her childhood wearing while ankle socks.  The constant theme of my mom and I and my struggle to be loved by her unconditionally.   The man represented the therapist we went to back in 2004.  He did not help "us" during that time but thankfully in my dream he did.

          So relieved to have written this down before it was lost on the day.  I did not turn on music knowing that the sound of songs would erase my thoughts.