Sometimes I'm ten minutes late getting to where I'd thought to be on time, because I need to stop the car and write down a thought, which may never shape up as poignantly, again.
So on this particular day, I stop and am writing, contentedly, when a set of knuckles raps at my window, and much to my surprise I'm nose to nose with a policeman. While lowering my window, knowing that I didn't do anything wrong, I smile but feel confused. And my self confidence shrinks up a bit more when a voice, that's all business, asks to see my registration and license.
Then, while checking out my credentials, the voice of authority asks: Are you in need of any help?
No thank you, officer. I'm just fine.
Then why did you stop, here, Ma'am?
Though this question seems strange, my smiling response suggests the friendly nature of my attitude: Well, I'm a teacher and writer with a family and a very busy life, so whenever an insight grabs me, I stop to write it down.
Look lady, says THE LAW, I don't care what you do, as long as you drive safely.
Now I'm really confused.
I mean, after spending time in intensive care, following a serious, automobile accident, I always drive safely. That's why I always stop the car before reaching for my handy-dandy pen and paper, which are never more than inches away from my hot little hand.
Unfortunately on this particular day, I'd stopped my car but forgotten to pull over to the curb.
At times, we can focus to the point of shortsightedness, so that one side of the brain has no clue what the other side has forgotten to remember. In lieu of self awareness, we may remain unaware of those times when one side of our brains is driving across double yellow lines after buckling logic into the back seat. What if we can't tell when our 'brain' is stalled and holding up traffic on all sides? What if, while skating on thin ice, dark clouds of confusion get so thick that we can't see when we keep skidding smack into another person's lane?
What if we can't tell when unhealed wounds, left over from childhood, are bleeding into today?
In lieu of self awareness, short sighted, single mindedness leads to narrow-minded thinking patterns, which filter logic out.
No ticket. Just a shake of his head and a warning to drive on the street and wait to do my writing at home.
Had my child—who'd digested his mother's insight, rather creatively—been sitting next to me, the lawman would most certainly have heard a teen aged voice snort:
Ha! Fat chance of that!
J
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