Crash of the Gods

As a student of myth, I've been trained to look at everyday events through an archetypal lens. This is not the only way to understand life, but it's often useful. I've found, though, that it's one thing to gleefully deconstruct a favorite film in terms of mythic themes and another to apply the same lens to difficult events in your own life.

Take the fender-bender I was involved in last week. At the time it was happening, I was calm but very annoyed. What a nuisance, on top of other things I had to deal with! I was on my way to read and drink iced coffee at Starbucks. It was a sunny April afternoon. I was coming up to a busy intersection when I heard an ambulance approaching from the left and stopped. A couple of seconds later, I felt the impact as someone hit me pretty hard from the rear. My first reaction was simply to feel stunned -- what happened? And then I felt aggravated. I put on my caution lights and got out to talk to the other driver.

This driver was in a large Ford pick-up, for which the bumper of my little Toyota was no match. I stated the obvious, which was that he had hit me. He said I had stopped in front of him. I pointed out that I had stopped for an ambulance, to which he had no real reply. Then he asked if I wanted to just exchange insurance information or call the police. I told him I would call the police, to which he replied, "Well, call them then." He didn't ask if I was OK or seem apologetic. He smiled through the entire conversation as if we were on some kind of a lark.

I called the police and waited 45 minutes for an officer to arrive. While we were waiting, the other driver came up to my window and asked if I knew how long it would be until someone came. I told him I didn't know. He asked if I wanted to go ahead and exchange insurance information. I told him I wanted to wait for the police; a little while later, an officer arrived. After we moved our cars out of traffic, the officer took our statements and told me I could get the report online. I told him I had a bit of a headache and would probably get checked out to make sure I was OK.

Since we were in the parking lot of a hospital, I went into the emergency room there. Besides asking a lot of questions and putting me through some range of motion exercises, the staff also recommended an X-ray for my arm, which was by then slightly sore. Figuring it was better to be safe, I had the X-ray, which showed I had no fracture. I was told the headache was due to an adrenaline rush.

OK, so much for the facts. Now, as one professor I know likes to say, which gods were present?

As I got out of my car and faced the other driver, I felt competing emotions. A car crash is a violent event, and the presence of all that adrenaline proves that the body reacts to it as such. I know I was feeling a bit under attack as I got out of my car, but another voice in my head reminded me of the importance of being calm. If you had been been nearby, watching the scene unfold, you would have seen the glinting armor and flashing helmet of warlike Athena emerging from the driver's side of that small Toyota. A goddess of war, yes, but not one who relies on brute strength; she is also known for wisdom and counsel. I'm glad she was there.

What of the other driver? I wasn't in his skin, so I can't answer for his state of mind (as far as I know, he hasn't contacted his adjuster yet, so I still don't know what he was thinking). However, his smile and veneer of joking make me think of no one so much as the trickster, Hermes (minus the charm the latter sometimes exudes). There's an element of the trickster in most accidents, but some hint of gaiety in the man's face, inappropriate under the circumstance, made this impression even stronger. He was clearly at fault, and perhaps acting clownish was his defense.

Then the officer, the representative of law and order, arrived. He was strictly professional and took the reports with a seasoned efficiency that spoke of having repeated the same scene many times. He was Zeus, appearing suddenly to dispense justice, only he came in a squad car instead of descending from on high. (Modern life requires some adjustment in the details.)

Then the emergency room. Apollo is the god most associated with modern medicine, with its scientific ways and means. Apollo is skillful and efficient but perhaps a bit cold; certainly I felt I was surrounded by capable people, but if you've ever spent any time in an emergency room cubicle, you'll probably agree that it's not the warmest, fuzziest place you can imagine. It was sterile and a bit chilly. I wasn't in dire straits, so I was left on my own for most of the time, behind a curtain, with someone coming in occasionally to ask questions, take my vital signs, or perform some other function. That's probably by design, as I'm sure the emergency room staff makes it a policy to keep accident victims under observation, even if they're seemingly intact.

Asklepios, the other Greek god most associated with medicine, had a different approach; patients sought healing at overnight visits to his temple, where it was believed that he visited them in dreams. My understanding is that the rest and attention given to the patient were part of the cure. I don't know the details, but I imagine reclining on a couch, eating grapes, and listening to the dulcet tones of a flute playing softly nearby. Perhaps a massage before dinner, then a bath in the healing waters, and a pleasant night's sleep on a cushioned and draperied bed, followed by a late breakfast and consultation with the resident healer, who looked like Dr. Joe Gannon.

Actually, I did have a curtain, and I did have a chair, although I couldn't get it to recline. It takes more imagination than I can summon to transform those clinical surroundings into an Asklepion temple, and I'm very glad I didn't have to spend the night. I have a feeling there wouldn't have been any flute playing. But as glad as I am to have been able to walk out on my own steam (which is really the main thing), it would have been nice to have a little nurturing. A cup of hot tea, perhaps, or a pat on the arm. Modern medicine recognizes the emotional impact of an event such as mine, as evidenced by the instruction sheet I was given that explained the possibility of feeling depressed or anxious afterwards. But there was little in the way of any therapy for the soul, any milk of human kindness (a bit of chocolate wouldn't have been amiss, either).

Of course, there's one last player in this event, and that's the ambulance whose approach started the chain of events. You may be struck, as I was, at the irony of being put in the emergency room by stopping for an emergency vehicle. I'm sure this isn't the first time it's happened, but since it happened to me, I'm trying to make sense of the scene. Was the ambulance simply a blind agent of Fate? Was it Apollo, carrying some other unfortunate in far worse shape and in dire need of healing? Since it was the sound of the siren that made me stop, it's tempting to compare it to the Sirens who made the sailors crash on the rocks (after all, the result was similar). Possibly, it was some combination of all of these. There are usually multiple stories involved in any situation, not just the one that seems obvious.

If this had been a movie, I would have been able to dissect it with some of the intellectual precision of Apollo, but since it's real life, it's a good deal messier and not as easy to interpret. Is there a theme? Were there heroes? Were there villains? Is there something to be learned? And just where was Asklepios when I needed him? The sum of what I know: An accident happened; it was a hassle. However, I did not lose my temper, despite a trying circumstance. And that's something (thank you, Athena).

The aftermath is that I'm doing a lot of walking for the time being. Good for the soreness, good for the soul, and a bit less stressful than entering the fray of traffic just now. I wrote a book called Solved by Walking, so I guess I'm following my own advice, though I didn't have this circumstance in mind when I called it that. No matter: whatever works.