Tuesday Afternoon

So, I went looking for “Speeding with Dom,” a poem I love, which was written by Bob Zordani, mainly because I had a need to read this stanza:

If I could go back,
dip into the years, I would not
change but make the same mistakes
again, wear the same path
I have worn to now. You, too,
I suspect, could not wiggle
any other way. Direction is simple,
my friend. There is only one:
the one we take.

Mainly for the part about direction.

I knew “Crazy Bob” back when we were in college. We used to hang out at the same bar, and once in a while, we would chat ... back in the days when chat was another word for talk, and you did it in person, even though it was usually nothing heavy, hence the term “chat.” I had a class with him once — Technical Writing, maybe, or Advanced Composition, I do not remember which — but neither of us attended regularly. He dated my buddy Case, and she was crazy in love with him for a bit. Occasionally, he would walk past our dorm, playing his harmonica. I made out with his little brother, Jimmy, a couple of times.

: )

And there I was, today, speeding up 57 on a gray, cold day, the kind of day without even a hint of sunshine; in fact, if you did not believe and simply know that somewhere beyond the clouds, yes, the sun IS there, somewhere ... well, this is the kind of day that you might seriously doubt its existence.

As I drove over the part of the county known as “the bottoms” — swampy, low ground — I looked to my left and saw craggy, leafless trees sticking up out of the sludge. And I thought they might make a cool picture, but I knew there was no way I was going to stop my car along the interstate and get out on this slightly miserable day.

Then I looked ahead at the road in front of me. Earlier, I had mused over how, if I really wanted to, I could just keep driving, driving, driving on a day like this, with no real destination in mind. Oh, they would be irritated with me at work, and some people might worry (not anyone who really knows me well, but some people), but if I really wanted to, I could just go.

Now, though, just up ahead, about a quarter of a mile, I saw a patch of lightness on the road. Rectangularish and unmistakably: sunshine! So I glanced back, and to the left (“back, and to the left”), and sure enough, for about a second and a half: I saw the sun.

(Secretly, I know I am the only one who noticed it.)

: )