I am driving to pick up my daughter from pantomime rehearsal. Pantomime as in theater, not as in white gloves, stuck-in-a-box. The younger one sits in the passenger seat adjusting the radio dial. Stop, I say, go back. I haven’t heard that song in years, I say, as we drive by the four auto repair shops right in a row. She sits with one foot on the seat, another hidden, her long-limbed body twisted into a position that looks uncomfortable to anyone but her. What’s it called, she asks, turning it up. Losing My Religion. It’s by R.E.M.
This song was playing when I had that car accident, I tell her. The one where the red car got smashed and the air bag punched you in the face? Yes, that one. This song was on the radio. Was that the time that everything seemed to go in slow motion? Yes, everything except this song.
I stop at a crosswalk and watch a man and a young boy walk hand-in-hand to the train station. What if we got into an accident right now? What if this song causes accidents? It’s like the kids at school who made up that story about a little boy named Whirl Pool and every time someone says his full name, another whirlpool appears somewhere in the world. The boy is
responsible for the condition of our planet, and he doesn’t even know it.
We arrive and wait in a parking lot. We watch two ravens take turns picking crumbs out of a discarded plastic container. The sun is setting
early because it is winter in Perth. It is almost summer in San Francisco. We
have lived here more than two years and it only recently occurred to me that temporarily moving across the world means two moves, not one. We don’t want to leave but we will. We prefer talking about pop music and car accidents.
Consider this, the hint of the century.
Many years from now I will hear this song again, perhaps on another car radio, in another country that at first felt foreign but soon became something that resembles home but isn’t quite.
The song ends and a woman with a voice like a creaky staircase starts singing that she’s got issues, and you got ’em too. My daughter loves this
song. We talk about how sometimes our bodies can feel too small to hold all of our emotions and that is why there is art and friendship. There she is, my daughter says, twisting her body even more to catch a glimpse of her big sister. I drive them home, on the left side of the road.