Sigh. I look in the rear view mirror. G. is staring out into space. The long line of cars at the intersection has come to a complete halt as the crossing guard emphatically waves the stop sign in four directions. “STOP!”
G.’s school merged with a magnet school a few years back and went from a sleepy neighborhood elementary to a bustling metropolis sized school overnight. The infrastructure never caught up. I come to the intersection, check in four directions, make a left, and then a quick right into the circular drive in front of the building. I come to another complete halt. The cars ahead of me have opted to drop their children off directly in front of the main entrance instead of pulling forward to allow the cars behind access to the curb.
I look in the rear view mirror and the lady behind me has pulled out of line and is attempting to circumnavigate the traffic and pull to the front of the queue. I have done this many times myself, but for some reason this morning it irritates the hell out of me. I drop off G. and move forward, eventually passing her car. I glance over, fully intending to give her a dirty look, but she is busily assisting her own child out of the vehicle. I imagine what I would want to say to her if I had the chance. Nothing mean. Just “Wait.”
A memory floats to the surface of my mind. Five years ago G. was born. That same morning I loaded D. into the car and drove her to preschool. On the way home I followed a little black sports car through the school district by my house. Kids were walking along the side of the road and yellow flashing lights were reminding everyone of the 20 mph speed limit. Suddenly it pulled over. As a passed the woman rolled down her window and began to scream at me. “SLOW DOWN!”
I pulled my car over in front of hers and got out. As I approached her window I realized I had no idea what I was doing. I looked at the woman. I felt my blood boiling. She was still screaming at me when I leaned forward and spat on her.
It turns out spitting on someone costs about two hundred and fifty dollars.
The lady on the radio sings: Canto contra dictaduras emocional
Why this memory? Why now? I feel sick, embarrassed. I have no desire to relive this shameful event in my life again. I begin thinking about my blog. About how memories of people might not be about the people at all. They are about me.
“It seems kind of ego centric.” Said J.
“I know!” I said “Wait. Do you mean that in a bad way?”
Is it possible that my mind is my friend? I have lived so long feeling the emotional weight of these kinds of memories that I just assumed that my brain was trying to slowly suffocate me. “Maybe it is just trying to remind me of the consequences of an out of control emotional train of thought.” I think. Can this be right?
The radio sings gently on:
Pack up all my care and woe,
Here I go,
Singing low,
Bye bye blackbird,
Where somebody waits for me,
Sugar's sweet, so is she,
Bye bye
Blackbird!
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5 comments:
I know you're not a Libra, but sometimes Rob Brezny writes horoscopes that I think are good for everyone to hear.
Maybe sometimes we have a hard time seeing who we are, too; to dwell on those memories of ourselves that we least like to remember and identify ourselves that way.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Ruminate a minute about the people who don't
see you for who you really are. Some of them are enemies, but others may be loved ones or allies. Consider the possibility that you have unconsciously bought in to their beliefs about you; that you are at least partially trapped in the habit of acting like the person they think you are. Now visualize what it would be like to free yourself from the images and
expectations they have of you. Imagine the exhilaration you'd feel if you answered only to the still, small voice of your own lucid intuition.
It turns out spitting on someone costs about two hundred and fifty dollars.
This may be my new favorite sentence ever.
So I have to ask.... was it an actual loogie that you spit on this woman? Or just a run-of-the-mill pool of saliva? I ask because it does say "emotional loogies" in your title, so I'm just wondering how far the metaphor goes..... And no, I didn't miss the point of your post. ;)
saliva only
Just saliva?! Shouldn't have cost you more than a C note! ;o)
[also not missing the point of the post]
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