Road Rage

9.10.06

Yep, finally get it, this growing, firey whirlwind inside that makes you want to plow your car through barricades that keep you from your destination, that makes you scream into the empty cavity of your vehicle, that radiates from your pores and seeks a way out as you seethe inside against unkown enemies. It's not the Sunday morning triatheletes, zipping painlessly by on their bicycles, or the patient, nodding traffic controllers, or the cars honking behind you as you try to figure your way out of this new box some well meaning charity has created by closing down streets to raise money for this or that cause. It's not even at yourself for not allowing more time to get where you need to go. It's the absolute awareness of one's powerlessness to change a situation over which one has no control. And the traffic jam, the un-announced street closing, the airhead who cuts you off, the pothole that surprises your chassie are all foils for this most basic human frailty and one that we never want to admit. It's that basic infantile cry for a breast or solace or warmth or fresh air that cannot be met. It's that reaching out in the dark to find no one is there. It's looking for a mirror and finding none, or only broken shards held together by a crooked frame.

So we drive around in these potential weapons and every now and then one of us, rather than turning on the radio to calm down or find a laugh with the Car Guys, goes ballistic and turns their inner pain outward. We do it in domestic violence, in spanking our children, in cheating our jobs, in waging war. We take these overwhelming feelings and either shut down in the face of their unkown origins or we lash out and inflict them on our poor bodies with various substance or mental abuse and mis-use, or on our friends and family, or poor mother nature or some handily constructed enemy in "the other."

Our children are models of behaviour. They cry for attention, they smile in delight, they coo and charm and hit and play and explore and laugh and build and destroy and kiss and hug and run and shout. And then we slowly, over the years, take these impulses and instincts and either smother them or try to channel them into socially "acceptable" ways of conducting ourselves. We hunker down to the serious business of being grown ups and to fit into the norms and more's of our communities. The irony is that we live in this supposedly democratic, choice-laden, "permissive" culture, this land of opportunity and freedoms, yet we have managed to dis-associate ourselves from our true selves in so many ways, I often don't see the fruits of these privileges, but rather "dys-function" that leaks out through our aching pores, in the forms of obesity, alcoholism, alienation, road rage etc. And when I experience it personally, after years of years of therapy and whatever self-help kick I'm on, I truly wonder if we humans ever really do change.

But then, I sit on my front porch, studying in preparation for a possible new career, and watch people go by on our tourist trafficked street. The sun is lower in the sky as fall approaches and our crepe myrtle is having a second coming. My inner turmoil has long been dispelled through exercize, a long walk with my son, a few deep breathes in the sun and a nap. My readings give me of perspective. My constitution gives me pause. My heart gives me hope. My frosty cold iced coffee gives me a couple of slaps upside the cheek. My literary heritage gives me an outlet. And, there, parked at the curb in all her freshly washed glory, sits my vehicle, deceptive symbol of power, of freedom, of potential. I forgive you, dear chariot for all your dings, your gas guzzling appetite, your limited range, your lack of sex appeal, your girth, your drab grey veneer. You get me where I need to go, with room for 8 and a cello. Next time, if I need more, I'll just get out and walk.