S.A. Parvaze
November 26th 2006, 07:28 PM
In late August 2006, comic book creator/illustrator ChrisCross severely injured himself in an almost tragic bicycle accident. Since the accident, he's seen and experienced life through different eyes, creating a universe of epiphanies that just won't let him be. He shares them with us here.
This series of columns will be about life. Our lives. Our world. The epiphanies revealed in each column are viewed through the sole eyes of ChrisCross, and may be taken as an opinion on the things that he thinks and feels we as artists, writers, colorist-…human beings are taking for granted.
You may agree or disagree with his point of view. This column, like others, remains open for discussion. We as a site only ask you to discuss it and its content civily and within the board rules (http://www.comixtreme.com/forums/faq.php?faq=new_faq_item#faq_welcomecx).
http://comixtreme.com/gallery/data/media/1182/things_my_father_taught_me_bkgd.jpg
by ChrisCross
http://comixtreme.com/gallery/data/media/1182/Shh..._Icon_CX.jpg
Shh….
Listen.
Can you hear that?
Tons of things are happening.
But if you listen through all of the chaotic noise, you can hear the silent alarm.
Oh, it’s screaming, but you have to push past the noise, focus in order to hear it.
It’s telling you to pay attention.
Something’s out there.
Someone’s designed something to take you out.
And unless you listen to what it’s saying,
About your life,
It may cost you.
And the cost is always a death of some sort.
A death to a certain way of thought.
A death to certain routines.
A certain way of life.
And if you live past the death,
You get the wisdom.
And wisdom is pain.
As I was riding my 26 inch framed GIANT 22 speeder,
You couldn’t tell me anything.
Doing 4 to 30 miles in a day on average,
Obsessed to the Gregorian chant of the whirring chain transmission,
I could go anywhere, everywhere my stamina could muster.
Going up steep inclines miles long to zooming down declines with speeds of up to
40 miles an hour and barely missing and jumping deep potholes off of the shoulders of highways and fast paced traffic filled streets, I was obsessed.
OBSESSED.
With the ride.
With moving along.
Leaving stuff behind.
Forgetting debts.
Forgetting deadlines.
Forgetting troubles.
Forgetting problems.
It was me and the road.
I finally understood the plight of the vagabond.
But I soon would realize that vagabonds are vagabonds as a punishment. And it’s most times self-imposed. I believed my own hype.
I was too independent.
I was invincible.
And in believing that, I was foolish.
And in some ways, I became unteachable.
I was going to learn the hard way
that there was no “I” in “team”.
And that everyone needs someone,
And that no man is an island.
I got caught up in my day–to-day endeavors.
Always work related.
Always trying to catch up to more debt with more work.
And always fed up with the pace the debt trailed me by.
And with the debt and the work came loss of time,
And the space of time I never had time for.
Like visiting family.
Like seeing friends.
I hadn’t seen my grandparents for years.
I hadn’t seen my own parents since Christmas.
Always having plans to make plans and when it was time to execute,
something suddenly financial would force me to cancel the trip(s).
My little brother always asking when I would stop by ‘cuz I never come.
But work got in the way.
My fiancée would always be wanting to take mini-trips for the weekend.
I couldn’t go because there was always something…
Something I had to finish…
Something I had to start…
Something I was in the middle of…
You know….that work thing that got in the way.
I lost touch with my soul,
My spirit.
The battery that charges my brain.
No longer connected to that ETERNAL battery.
I worked and I toiled and l stressed and I managed and I wracked of insomnia.
I ran on fumes.
I wasn’t centered. I had no point of light.
I was chaotic without a cause.
I existed to work and stress.
And when you live in your work and your troubles,
There isn’t time for anything else.
And things get neglected.
And tired of the guilt that brought,
And the dread,
I ride.
OBSESSED with the ride,
Just moving along.
Leaving my stuff behind.
Forgetting my debts.
Forgetting my deadlines.
Forgetting my troubles.
Forgetting my problems.
Just drowning out the noise with the music only the cyclist monks can sing.
The Gregorian chant of the chains.
Downhill. 40 miles an hour.
Invincible.
Funny thing though....
This particular day came with other endeavors.
I was hired to make particular confections for a client,
And I was out to get supplies to deliver and
Once again I could only think of
Taking the bike and getting the supplies so that I could deliver and
Get back to work.
Never once praying to be safe, (like I used to)
Never once acknowledging that if I had put my guardians to work, (like I should have)
Maybe they would let me hear that silent alarm.
That little voice telling me that when I stepped out with that bike,
That THAT would be the last time that I would see my apartment for a month.
But we do that don’t we?
My father tells me about how we never appreciate the inner workings of a thing,
We never appreciate a situation,
We never appreciate our lives
Until it’s threatened away from us…
Until it’s taken away from us.
We never fully accept our place in this world until we’re faced with the possibility of
The ending of things.
Extinction.
What would you do if you were told that when you stepped out of your house
Or apartment today, that you wouldn’t see home again for a month?
Or ever?
What would you do if you were told today that it would be because of something you could have stopped, prevented, or controlled?
As I was peddling my heart out coming from shopping for those supplies
Along the Route 440 in Jersey City,
I rode past this brother with one arm
Who subtly mentioned that he was impressed by cyclic exercise, (?)
And I went the wave of the traffic to hit the shoulder of the artery that
Now carried the weight and the speed of rush-hour swell…
I’m heading on this straightaway
And I literally feel the handlebars TWIST out of my hand.
As if something invisible and hateful despised the straightforwardness of my journey
And decided to just get in the way.
Just ‘cuz.
And as my right foot instinctively tried to compensate for the shift of weight,
My foot smacked onto the rolling asphalt beneath me
And I SCREAMED as the force and the shock of the weight jammed my femur and tibia
Together
Causing the momentum to SHATTER the crown of my tibia.
Or so I would later learn.
And that’s when I realized, as I stared at the blue sky through my tensed eyes and gritted teeth that I had heard the alarm.
That it wasn’t so much silent as it was traveling ahead of me and
I caught up to it.
Telling me that I should have walked.
And left the bike behind.
And that I should have prayed before I left.
That my staying away from my Father because of dread and guilt and obsession
Blinded me to the fact that I strayed away from His umbrella.
That the rain of this dangerous world had done me in.
And that the sound of the rain was so loud that I didn’t notice His little voice.
And now by happenstance,
The miracle of two nurses rolling by with an SUV and parking in front of me
Telling me they saw the whole thing and was freaked by the way it happened,
A plain-clothed off-duty cop who said he saw what happened and wanted to help,
The Jersey City police officers that arrived to move my bike from the street to my apartment,
The ambulance that was driven by two women,
Who with the officers and nurses, took me on a stretcher
And into the ER,
happened as fast as 31 minutes.
A half an hour.
By happenstance.
Things brought to fruition just standing around in the middle of it.
A witness to it all.
It had occurred to me that if I was anywhere else…
That I could have been run over, or hit and run over.
Killed.
Or worse.
And that as I was laying there, a plan was taking place.
That it was no accident that two nurses just happened to be
Riding next to me, pacing with me as my stumble occurred.
That an off–duty cop just happened to be there in 5 minutes.
That more cops would follow to get my bike and supplies home 6 minutes later,
And that an ambulance would be there to get me.
In bumper to bumper rush hour traffic.
There was a plan going on here.
My Father took over as my guardians were sent out to get help for one of His
Prodigal sons.
And He was telling me it was going to be alright.
“I gotchyew.”
I experienced words no one should learn.
Fasciotomy.
Compartment Syndrome.
X-fix.
Multi-fractured tibia.
Interior fixation.
Edema.
2 blood transfusions.
PAIN.
And I discovered words that bound my battle-tested relationship with my fiancée,
As I saw the worry-lines creasing her beautiful face….
Loyalty.
Concern.
Support.
Exaltation.
Trust.
Respect.
Courage.
Caring.
Honor.
LOVE.
And I took that with me as they transported me to surgery,
As my hand slid from the palm of my love,
Into a antiseptic room full of surgery staff
Asking me to count down from twenty to one.
I remember trying to pray before they hit me with
The global anesthetic.
I think I got out a “God, in the name of Je….”
And whiteness was the color of oblivion.
I awakened in a recovery room hours later with an arcane looking
Series of steel rods going down the length of my leg
And two more rods connecting from either end
Piercing my leg and screwed into my bones.
And my little voice telling me, “Welcome back.”
Everyone walked around with this white glow around them,
And I was so out of it from the anesthesia that I thought
That angels were floating passed me.
I muttered , “Jesus?” and they laughed a bit,
And reminded me that I was in a hospital,
Not at the Pearly Gates.
They finally took me to the room that I would spend
The next three weeks,
And my fiancée was waiting for me,
With a smile on her face and
Holding her jacket in her arms.
And the same worried face.
Only this time, as they transferred me from my gurney to my bed.
I noticed that my fiancee’s forehead carried one extra crease…
And as she stroked my forehead and grabbed my hand,
It really hit home that my life had flashed before my eyes,
That my life was holding my hands,
And that life is that thing that happens other than what you’ve planned.
Oh yeah...
and that extra crease on my future wife’s forehead bore a particular wisdom.
I almost lost my leg.
Shhh.
You hear that?
That little voice muttering?
“Tomorrow is never promised to you.”
Wisdom is pain.
Tell everyone.
This series of columns will be about life. Our lives. Our world. The epiphanies revealed in each column are viewed through the sole eyes of ChrisCross, and may be taken as an opinion on the things that he thinks and feels we as artists, writers, colorist-…human beings are taking for granted.
You may agree or disagree with his point of view. This column, like others, remains open for discussion. We as a site only ask you to discuss it and its content civily and within the board rules (http://www.comixtreme.com/forums/faq.php?faq=new_faq_item#faq_welcomecx).
http://comixtreme.com/gallery/data/media/1182/things_my_father_taught_me_bkgd.jpg
by ChrisCross
http://comixtreme.com/gallery/data/media/1182/Shh..._Icon_CX.jpg
Shh….
Listen.
Can you hear that?
Tons of things are happening.
But if you listen through all of the chaotic noise, you can hear the silent alarm.
Oh, it’s screaming, but you have to push past the noise, focus in order to hear it.
It’s telling you to pay attention.
Something’s out there.
Someone’s designed something to take you out.
And unless you listen to what it’s saying,
About your life,
It may cost you.
And the cost is always a death of some sort.
A death to a certain way of thought.
A death to certain routines.
A certain way of life.
And if you live past the death,
You get the wisdom.
And wisdom is pain.
As I was riding my 26 inch framed GIANT 22 speeder,
You couldn’t tell me anything.
Doing 4 to 30 miles in a day on average,
Obsessed to the Gregorian chant of the whirring chain transmission,
I could go anywhere, everywhere my stamina could muster.
Going up steep inclines miles long to zooming down declines with speeds of up to
40 miles an hour and barely missing and jumping deep potholes off of the shoulders of highways and fast paced traffic filled streets, I was obsessed.
OBSESSED.
With the ride.
With moving along.
Leaving stuff behind.
Forgetting debts.
Forgetting deadlines.
Forgetting troubles.
Forgetting problems.
It was me and the road.
I finally understood the plight of the vagabond.
But I soon would realize that vagabonds are vagabonds as a punishment. And it’s most times self-imposed. I believed my own hype.
I was too independent.
I was invincible.
And in believing that, I was foolish.
And in some ways, I became unteachable.
I was going to learn the hard way
that there was no “I” in “team”.
And that everyone needs someone,
And that no man is an island.
I got caught up in my day–to-day endeavors.
Always work related.
Always trying to catch up to more debt with more work.
And always fed up with the pace the debt trailed me by.
And with the debt and the work came loss of time,
And the space of time I never had time for.
Like visiting family.
Like seeing friends.
I hadn’t seen my grandparents for years.
I hadn’t seen my own parents since Christmas.
Always having plans to make plans and when it was time to execute,
something suddenly financial would force me to cancel the trip(s).
My little brother always asking when I would stop by ‘cuz I never come.
But work got in the way.
My fiancée would always be wanting to take mini-trips for the weekend.
I couldn’t go because there was always something…
Something I had to finish…
Something I had to start…
Something I was in the middle of…
You know….that work thing that got in the way.
I lost touch with my soul,
My spirit.
The battery that charges my brain.
No longer connected to that ETERNAL battery.
I worked and I toiled and l stressed and I managed and I wracked of insomnia.
I ran on fumes.
I wasn’t centered. I had no point of light.
I was chaotic without a cause.
I existed to work and stress.
And when you live in your work and your troubles,
There isn’t time for anything else.
And things get neglected.
And tired of the guilt that brought,
And the dread,
I ride.
OBSESSED with the ride,
Just moving along.
Leaving my stuff behind.
Forgetting my debts.
Forgetting my deadlines.
Forgetting my troubles.
Forgetting my problems.
Just drowning out the noise with the music only the cyclist monks can sing.
The Gregorian chant of the chains.
Downhill. 40 miles an hour.
Invincible.
Funny thing though....
This particular day came with other endeavors.
I was hired to make particular confections for a client,
And I was out to get supplies to deliver and
Once again I could only think of
Taking the bike and getting the supplies so that I could deliver and
Get back to work.
Never once praying to be safe, (like I used to)
Never once acknowledging that if I had put my guardians to work, (like I should have)
Maybe they would let me hear that silent alarm.
That little voice telling me that when I stepped out with that bike,
That THAT would be the last time that I would see my apartment for a month.
But we do that don’t we?
My father tells me about how we never appreciate the inner workings of a thing,
We never appreciate a situation,
We never appreciate our lives
Until it’s threatened away from us…
Until it’s taken away from us.
We never fully accept our place in this world until we’re faced with the possibility of
The ending of things.
Extinction.
What would you do if you were told that when you stepped out of your house
Or apartment today, that you wouldn’t see home again for a month?
Or ever?
What would you do if you were told today that it would be because of something you could have stopped, prevented, or controlled?
As I was peddling my heart out coming from shopping for those supplies
Along the Route 440 in Jersey City,
I rode past this brother with one arm
Who subtly mentioned that he was impressed by cyclic exercise, (?)
And I went the wave of the traffic to hit the shoulder of the artery that
Now carried the weight and the speed of rush-hour swell…
I’m heading on this straightaway
And I literally feel the handlebars TWIST out of my hand.
As if something invisible and hateful despised the straightforwardness of my journey
And decided to just get in the way.
Just ‘cuz.
And as my right foot instinctively tried to compensate for the shift of weight,
My foot smacked onto the rolling asphalt beneath me
And I SCREAMED as the force and the shock of the weight jammed my femur and tibia
Together
Causing the momentum to SHATTER the crown of my tibia.
Or so I would later learn.
And that’s when I realized, as I stared at the blue sky through my tensed eyes and gritted teeth that I had heard the alarm.
That it wasn’t so much silent as it was traveling ahead of me and
I caught up to it.
Telling me that I should have walked.
And left the bike behind.
And that I should have prayed before I left.
That my staying away from my Father because of dread and guilt and obsession
Blinded me to the fact that I strayed away from His umbrella.
That the rain of this dangerous world had done me in.
And that the sound of the rain was so loud that I didn’t notice His little voice.
And now by happenstance,
The miracle of two nurses rolling by with an SUV and parking in front of me
Telling me they saw the whole thing and was freaked by the way it happened,
A plain-clothed off-duty cop who said he saw what happened and wanted to help,
The Jersey City police officers that arrived to move my bike from the street to my apartment,
The ambulance that was driven by two women,
Who with the officers and nurses, took me on a stretcher
And into the ER,
happened as fast as 31 minutes.
A half an hour.
By happenstance.
Things brought to fruition just standing around in the middle of it.
A witness to it all.
It had occurred to me that if I was anywhere else…
That I could have been run over, or hit and run over.
Killed.
Or worse.
And that as I was laying there, a plan was taking place.
That it was no accident that two nurses just happened to be
Riding next to me, pacing with me as my stumble occurred.
That an off–duty cop just happened to be there in 5 minutes.
That more cops would follow to get my bike and supplies home 6 minutes later,
And that an ambulance would be there to get me.
In bumper to bumper rush hour traffic.
There was a plan going on here.
My Father took over as my guardians were sent out to get help for one of His
Prodigal sons.
And He was telling me it was going to be alright.
“I gotchyew.”
I experienced words no one should learn.
Fasciotomy.
Compartment Syndrome.
X-fix.
Multi-fractured tibia.
Interior fixation.
Edema.
2 blood transfusions.
PAIN.
And I discovered words that bound my battle-tested relationship with my fiancée,
As I saw the worry-lines creasing her beautiful face….
Loyalty.
Concern.
Support.
Exaltation.
Trust.
Respect.
Courage.
Caring.
Honor.
LOVE.
And I took that with me as they transported me to surgery,
As my hand slid from the palm of my love,
Into a antiseptic room full of surgery staff
Asking me to count down from twenty to one.
I remember trying to pray before they hit me with
The global anesthetic.
I think I got out a “God, in the name of Je….”
And whiteness was the color of oblivion.
I awakened in a recovery room hours later with an arcane looking
Series of steel rods going down the length of my leg
And two more rods connecting from either end
Piercing my leg and screwed into my bones.
And my little voice telling me, “Welcome back.”
Everyone walked around with this white glow around them,
And I was so out of it from the anesthesia that I thought
That angels were floating passed me.
I muttered , “Jesus?” and they laughed a bit,
And reminded me that I was in a hospital,
Not at the Pearly Gates.
They finally took me to the room that I would spend
The next three weeks,
And my fiancée was waiting for me,
With a smile on her face and
Holding her jacket in her arms.
And the same worried face.
Only this time, as they transferred me from my gurney to my bed.
I noticed that my fiancee’s forehead carried one extra crease…
And as she stroked my forehead and grabbed my hand,
It really hit home that my life had flashed before my eyes,
That my life was holding my hands,
And that life is that thing that happens other than what you’ve planned.
Oh yeah...
and that extra crease on my future wife’s forehead bore a particular wisdom.
I almost lost my leg.
Shhh.
You hear that?
That little voice muttering?
“Tomorrow is never promised to you.”
Wisdom is pain.
Tell everyone.