Tonight is Sunday and today has been quiet. The rain is gone for the moment and the TV is playing a movie that Nathan ordered from NetFlix--The Wolverine. Everyone is always fighting and the heroes are always getting hurt but eventually winning and protecting the weak . . . with a threat of evil yet to come.
In this one, though, the girls are able to help protect themselves because they are kung fu masters--just not masters enough to fight all of the bad guys at once.
Earlier today I was writing about all things that come to my mind and my body automatically when I get behind the wheel to drive a car.
* In 10th grade we had a ex-military man for a driving instructor. He took everything in his life very seriously--especially driving. I remember him saying several times that he was constantly on the lookout for other people driving on the road who weren't paying attention, or didn't know what they were doing. He never wanted to be in a situation where somebody else's mistakes involved him in a car accident.
So, every time I get a car, I look for where to go ("The only things you can do while you are in traffic are turn left, turn right, speed up, or slow down.") if something dangerous happens--to keep me and the people with me safe. I am aware of this especially if I'm on the freeway--especially especially if I am driving my children somewhere. I pay attention to where I would go and what I would do if someone around me did something stupid.
I also do the same kind of thing when I'm flying in an airplane. I read somewhere that the people who survived crash landings did so because they looked to see where the closest exit was located to their seat. I know that most everyone who flies a lot doesn't listen to the flight attendants' instructions before the plane takes off, but I smiled to myself when they counsel passengers to "look around you and find the closest exit because often the closest exit is behind where you're sitting."
* When I am on the highway, I stay out of groups of drivers. Either I speed up or slow down--my dad told me that accidents happened when groups of cars are in a cluster and someone makes a mistake. Drive alone and you do not depend upon others to keep you safe.
* At stop lights I squeeze the steering wheel with both my hands--and then relax them--over and over again. After having the trapezium bone taken from my left and then my right hand, the only post-operative exercise possible was isotonic: strengthen the muscles without putting stress on the joints.
Over years, this repetition (along with other physical therapy) has returned enough strength and flexibility to my hands that I am able to play the piano and flute again, do needlework again, dig in the soil of my gardens again. This has become as ingrained a habit as flipping the turn signal when I want to turn left.
* And when I am waiting in the left turn lane--there is the memory of an essay that I have tried again and again to write. Usually when I come to a light and want to turn left, I have to wait for the cars going straight through to get a yellow and then a red light. Next the cross traffic has a left turn green; then the cross traffic has a long green light.
After all that, I finally get a green so that I can turn left.
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| graphic by cewhendry |
Someone had been there before me. Come. Gone. Left the time and place prepared so that I would not have to wait for others before I could continue on to my destination.
I have never been able to write about that experience or describe that situation in a way that flowed or made any kind of sense. But I remember it every time I stop and wait to make a left turn at a light.
