On occasion, I get an impression of someone and decide to get a little weird by asking them if they have had any interesting dreams, visions, or brushes with God or divine, however they describe it. I’ve been surprised how often the answer is yes.
River Lee, a coworker and good friend of mine, is one of those individuals. He has been a bit of a mentor to me. I’ve learned a great deal about carpentry and about life from him. He is a pretty remarkable and talented guy. He lives in Woolwich Maine with his family on their farm.
In any event, I was working with him and we were building this beautiful deck right on the water. The setting was quintessential Maine. I don’t remember what exactly we were talking about but at one point, I saw my opportunity to bring up the subject and see how he responded.
River proceeded to tell me about the motorcycle trip he took from North America down to the tip of Argentina and how on that trip, while riding through Columbia, he had a vision of an accident. He blacked out and when he came to, he realized he had laid his bike down, but was uninjured. Later on, I asked him to tell his story while I recorded so I could share with you his own words:
“So, I was in Columbia and I was trying to go through Columbia as fast as I could, because I didn’t feel really comfortable. I had heard stories of kidnappings and that sort of stuff. But, I was driving and I was in the mountains and there were S curves. I had just come through an S curve to the other side where it straightened out a little bit and I blacked out a little, kind of like a dream state. I wasn’t aware of where I was anymore. Everything seemed kind of far away. In that state, I saw an accident, a collision of some sort. It must have only been a few seconds, because I came too and I was sideways sliding down the road. My motorcycle was just ahead of me, and I was following it, completely unhurt. I had on all the protective gear. It was a slow speed affair. I picked the bike up and put it on the side of the road. I had to fix one of the panniers that had broken but other than that, it was kind of just one of those things that happened at the right time. It wasn’t on a highway going 60 – 70 miles per hour. There were no other cars around. So, you know, if the circumstances had been different it could have been bad for me. So, I get going and a mile or two down the road on another S curve, there was some sort of big vehicle. A truck or bus. I don’t know if it was by itself, I can’t remember, but it had flipped over. It was on its side right in the middle of the curve, and you know, I couldn’t help but wonder if…I don’ know how long or if the timing was in line with my accident, but I kind of got the feeling that maybe I was being protected so I wouldn’t get into that accident.”
Pretty Good at Life 