Premonition, Intuition, Coincidence

The first spring I spent in Los Angeles, I got into a serious car accident.

If you've spent any time driving here in LA, you know we don't believe in left turn signals out here. Instead, a driver has to pull into an intersection, wait until the light turns red and then turn left. This little left-on-red game is really fun now that they have red light photo tickets out here, but that's another story.

That spring day, I was hit by someone who ran a red light. I don't mean "sort of" ran the light either. I mean, really ran the red light. Like it had been red for at least five seconds and I was the second car turning on red. I was going south, turning left (east). The van was heading north, speeding at like 50 mph.

I remember the instant I realized that the van was running the light and was going to hit me. I grabbed onto the steering wheel really hard and leaned back because I knew the airbag in my car was going to really hurt. I remember praying for God to protect me. I also remember thinking,, "I knew this was going to happen!"

Twenty minutes earlier, I'd given a report to the Compton school police since someone had keyed part of the hood of my brand new car in a supposedly secure district lot. The officer was nice but clear that I'd probably never get reimbursed the cost of fixing the hood.

I calmed down and tried to see the bright side. I remember telling him, "Well, at least it's just the hood. The whole car could get totaled in a car crash. Thank goodness that hasn't happened yet."

I got in my car and drove away. I remember feeling such a weird energy. I remember thinking that I should pull over somewhere and just take some deep breaths, get my equilibrium back, but I needed to be somewhere else and I didn't want to be late.

The driver hit me so hard that it cracked the engine of my car. The front and passenger side were completely crushed. I thought I was dead and I vaguely remember being pulled out of the car, wondering if this was heaven or the other place. The paramedics just kept trying to get me to talk. I don't remember much but I know they had me laid in the back of an ambulance, wrapped in something because I'd gone into shock. I know I had to be restrained after I said things like, "I'm gonna beat that bitch's ass! She killed my car!"

They didn't take me to the hospital because I refused. So they left me on the sidewalk and told me I should call someone to pick me up. I didn't have a cell phone back in '99. Almost no one I knew had a cell phone. But a pretty large crowd had gathered and a kind stranger had a phone and let me borrow it. I called my teaching supervisor who was also a friend. He dropped everything and came and got me off the curb.

He took me home with him because he was worried about me and didn't think I should be alone. I remember that it was the night the Phantom Menace opened up and he was nice enough to somehow give me one of the tickets he had for the midnight show. So there I was in the theater, completely out of it, sitting around with people dressed up as Wookies and Darth Vader. There were folks play-acting light saber battles in the aisles while waiting for the movie to begin.

As I replayed the sequence of events in my head, I wondered if I'd somehow put the accident in motion by saying that at least my car hadn't been totaled yet. I wondered if it was some sort of premonition on my part, or if it was just coincidence. I sat there watching the beginning of the downfall of Anakin, bothered that I hadn't been listening to my intuition.

Indeed, my car was 100% totaled. I walked away with cuts on my feet from the clutch and brake pedals, a busted lip and some bruises on my face from the airbag. I would find out later that the driver had a full-sized van full of children, was here illegally and had no car insurance. No one in the van was seriously hurt, thank goodness.

She later disappeared. All the information she'd given the police at the scene of the accident was false so there was no way to track her down.

All these years later, I still think about that accident every single day. I wonder if I could have prevented it if I'd just listened to my gut, pulled into a Rite-Aid and gone to buy a pack of gum.

So what do you think? Do you believe it was a premonition on my part to have, twenty minutes earlier, talked about my car not being totaled, or just coincidence? Do you think the weird feeling I had that I should pull over was my intuition ?

A Sonnet For Dreamers

Body breathing, softly your spirit calls
When weary eyes close seeking solace true.
Embracing silence after darkness falls
Can you hear my soul calling back to you?

Your deepest desire, a vision real
Heart open, unveiled, before you I stand.
Intuition’s muse sharing words that heal,
Dreams revealed, your tender touch warms my hand.


Yet I disappear with dawn’s precious light
Your eyes opened by morning songbird cries.
Memory clinging till again comes night
Magical wish swiftly closing your eyes.

Inhale my essence, in this love’s dream state
Never to meet in sunshine, such cruel fate.