I’ve kind of reveled in the silence I’ve kept lately. It’s been like a refreshing drink on a hot, hot day, this absence of writing, of thinking, of attempting to connect thought. And so, I’ve just been going about my life working, waiting with breath that is bated for summer vacation to begin. And it will, as of Friday. I can’t wait. And then it’s off to the beach with the fam. This could go either way, but the people in my family who have a brain are banding together to put up a force field around ourselves against the evil that lies within every family, but is not only palpable, it takes human form in ours.
And so, in my non-silence I will relay a story. Yesterday while driving around I drove down a small side street that was a bit crowded with cars on either side. I had been looking at a house on one of the streets and when I glanced ahead I saw a motorcycle coming toward me in the other direction. I gauged the space and in the short time I had realized that we could, just barely, both make it through the tight space between the parked cars. We did. He slowed a great deal though and looked miffed. I kept driving and in my rearview mirror I saw him move his motorcycle backwards, which he had to do with his feet, between two parked cars on his side of the road. My first thought was that he was possibly parking, but I knew, I knew he was turning around, to FOLLOW me. I watched him, while driving straight ahead speed up and stop behind me at a stoplight. He then turned right on the red light just after I did. I started getting a little scared and reached for my phone then he switched lanes and I knew he was sidling up beside me. I rolled down my window, mustered up my toughest voice, held up my cell phone, talked over whatever he was shouting at me and said, “DID YOU NEED ME TO CALL THE POLICE ON YOU, CAUSE I WILL?” And then he went straight while I turned. Though shaken up for a good 10 minutes afterward, I felt a little girl power surge under the surface of that intersection interaction.
