Tag: empathy

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

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Six ribs broken in 14 places. Three breaks in the lower pelvis. Right and left ankle broken. Left tibia broken. Left wrist fractured. Left toes, three breaks. Right clavicle broken. Right shoulder blade cracked. Eye socket, jaw, mandible, all broken. Major laceration back of head. Lung collapsed. Liver pierced from rib bone. The inventory of Jeremy Renner’s injuries, documented by the twice Oscar-nominated movie star himself, was exhaustive. It was a miracle that the actor had survived; he had no right to. Renner had been crushed by his own 14,000lb (6,350kg) snowplough on New Year’s Day 2023. A neighbour who helped him at the scene believes he died momentarily. So does Renner. He tells me it was a very special moment.

“What I experienced when I passed was this collective divinity and beautiful, powerful peace. It is the most exhilarating peace you could ever feel. It’s the highest adrenaline rush. Everything stopped … maybe for 30 seconds, maybe a minute. It was definitive for me. It all made perfect sense.” Does he believe in God? “No. My dad’s a theologist and I studied all religions growing up, so I steer away from religions.” […]

But, of course, there was more to it than willpower. Last year, he released his second album of largely self-penned songs. Love and Titanium is about the accident, and so called because these are another two things that have helped him pull through – the love of family and friends, and the titanium that has helped fix all those broken bones. He was also extremely lucky. Nobody gave him much hope at the time. […]

The first song on Love and Titanium is called Lucky Man. “One day you just wake up / And finally realise / Life is so god damn beautiful / And I ain’t got nothin’ left to lose.” Renner tells me that it took him the accident to realise just how beautiful life was. Now, he says, he wakes up and knows he’s not going to have a bad day. No day alive is a bad day. But it didn’t used to be like that.

— Simon Hattenstone, from “How being crushed by a 14,000 lb snow plough made Jeremy Renner a nicer person: I’ve never been more vulnerable, open and loving‘” (The Guardian, Jul 12th, 2025).

My Next Breath: A Memoir by Jeremy Renner is published by Flatiron Books in April 29, 2025.

T.G.I.F.

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Thank you Beth.

Walking. God is not Dead!

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57° F. yesterday, Spring is in the air. I contemplate dragging out the outdoor furniture from the basement.

Then, this morning arrived. 20° F, feels like 3° F, winds up to 20 mph from the North. Brutal.

I walk, thinking about sitting on the outdoor furniture in the basement, reading a chapter or two — with a floor heater at my feet. Maybe the furniture goes out next month.

I walk. It’s been 1,762 consecutive (almost) days on this daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a Row.

The park, with its handful of regulars, has had a new entrant. Let’s call her Janet. Janet rolls into the park taking the same route each morning, skipping along the breakwall to the cliff, pausing for 5-10 minutes to belt out a tune at the top of her lungs, arms and hands clutching for the heavens. Unclear what she’s singing and why she needs to belt it out at earsplitting levels that can be heard at the far reaches of the Park.

So this morning, just another morning, here comes Janet. And there goes the Wildlife, DK and other park patrons quickly moving in the other direction.

Charlotte Wood: “The beauty of being here is largely the silence, after all.“

Continue reading “Walking. God is not Dead!” →

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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Still, ritual is journey, atonement is real.
As you lay dying, I asked,
What is your biggest regret?
Every kindness withheld, you said.
Every flicker of pleasure denied, you said.
Look, you said, sunlight.

— Chris Abani, from “Ritual Is Journey” in “Sanctificum” (Copper Canyon Press; April 1, 2010)

Notes:

  1. Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
  2. Poem Source from orpheuslament
  3. Chris Abani bio and portrait via Poetry Foundation

Walking. With a very little blow.

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1,488 consecutive (almost) days that I’ve been on this daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. 12 days from 1,500 — more than four years of this Thing.

“And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass.” – Ezra Pound

But before I leave the house, I flip through the morning papers. I know better, I do. But can’t seem to resist the rubbernecking. Ukraine. Israel. Gaza. Washington cesspool. China. Russia. North Korea. All feels dark and getting darker – the world’s shadows deepen.

“I could feel hope traveling backward to find us,
to whisper into our chests,
There will be music for you one day.” — Andrea Gibson

Weather app reads 59° F (?), but there’s a brisk wind from the North. Am I in Greenland? Glad I wore a jacket, I zip up.

I walk.

4:30 am. Wildlife is up. Smallest birds with the loudest voices break the silence of early morning. 4 other insomniacs are out sharing this twilight hour, each lost in their own quiet rhythm.

“Birdsong, wind, and waves. 
It requires nothing more than to meet noise with stillness 
and not commentary.” – Martin Laird

I walk.

Continue reading “Walking. With a very little blow.” →