I honestly don’t know how to tell you this story. If we were having coffee together I would say: So, I almost died the other day. Or: Did I tell you about how a ladder almost took me out on the way to Windsor Junction last week? And it is a story about almost dying. And it is definitely a story about a close encounter with a flying ladder. But if we were in person together I would tell you this story almost wryly, I would tell it to you with a sense of wonder, a sense of: This is the craziest thing that’s ever happened to me. I would tell it a bit funny and a bit surface. Because the page is where I meet myself best, I’m writing about it—to share the story, and to unpack it a little for myself, too.
And that’s mainly because something happened the day that ladder almost took me out on the beautiful, winding, two-lane Cobequid Road—something happened that I don’t totally understand yet.
My therapist reframed it from a “near-death experience” to a “life-affirming experience.” My meditation teacher offers it was “an extremely wise moment.” My friend Waub, who was in the back seat of my car when it happened, characterized it as “some serious ninja shit.” Each of these is accurate in some way, but none really tells the whole story.
So, let me start at the beginning, as best I can.
On a sunny and cold Sunday morning, Waub, my husband Kev, and I are heading out to Windsor Junction, a rural community of comfortable houses
