I live on a country lane, one hairpin turn and one s-curve from the closest highway. When we moved to the outer suburbs of a mediumish Georgia city, our neighborhood was decidedly quiet. There were three subdivisions on our stretch of road, but not a lot of traffic. Then they built another subdivision and they keep building in the first three and then a middle school, so now our little lane is busy and decidedly unquiet. Our road is also part of a series of roads that connects two four-lane highways that eventually lead to other cities, so that adds another layer of traffic, plus the elementary school two miles away and the factory at the end of the road. I will sit in my backyard sometimes--early, with coffee--hoping to get some piece and quiet and, inevitably, it's broken up by the whoosh of cars rushing past.
Often, in the mornings, especially in the summer when I'm leaving for work or going out to do errands, I see a small, older woman walking down the side of the lane(against traffic like they taught us as children). She's usually wearing culottes, and a bright green polo shirt with the collar popped, so clearly she's a woman with a sense of purpose--you don't pop your collar without one, after all. She walks on the car side of the white line on our busy two-lane road, and she does not waver a centimeter as I pass her. Her expression is stern and authoritative and she stares me down, silently daring me to hit her. I'm pretty sure that if I did hit her, she would leave a tiny woman-shaped dent in the car and then keep on going--she's that tough-looking. If there is a car in the other lane and I can't glide over the yellow lines to avoid her and I have to inch past her, she takes the time to give me the death-glare, but it's not like there is anything I can do about it. She walks in the road when she's going around the blind curve, so that if someone is coming around the curve in the wrong lane, I have nowhere to go. Her choice of grass green polo also helps to camouflage her against the lush jungle of oaks, clover, ragweed and pines on the side of the road, oh and the really lovely bermuda grass of the house on the corner of the hairpin turn. Clearly, this woman is a menace. And she doesn't care.
Maybe you share a fear with me? The fear of running over a pedestrian or bicyclist as they amble down the road beside you? I just know in the core of my being that any cyclist I pass is going to fall under my wheels and I'll squash their head like an errant watermelon from a produce truck. I would rather trail along behind them, going 15, than pass. This senior sociopath makes me feel the same way. I am terrorized by her. And that really pisses me off. As I approach her, I feel the bile rising. I want to roll down the window and say "get out of the f*&^%#@ road, you monster!" but so far I have suppressed that urge, because it would simply encourage the little Napolean's anti-social behavior and I would look like a jerk. Although I think I do already. I believe my facial expression when I see her is half-scowl/half-sneer. Why does she bother me so?
I think it's because I value community and cooperation. I grew up in a place that's hard to explain--religious community, commune, communal farm are the closest to it, but none of them is quite right--and without anyone ever saying it, I grew up with a sense that it's up to each of us to make room for each other and sometimes that means yielding when you don't want to. It must have been the one-lane road on the farm. If you were walking and a car come up the gravel path, you had to hop into the trees to make way, or if you were driving, you had to back up until the nearest intersection, which could take a minute. I was a teenager then so I'm sure I sometimes felt annoyed at having to back up to let others through, but no more than any other teenage angst. I was way more annoyed that my parents and I shared one car, so my dad would drop me off and pick me up from work. Ugh. Anyway, the diminutive tyrant on my street is flouting the idea of cooperation. I don't want her to get off the road when there's no one around but me. I'm glad to move over. I just want some consideration when there are other cars around, because if I run her over, I will be the one left to suffer the consequences.
Really, isn't that a modern problem? We've all started to live like strangers. I know I run around with my head in the clouds, lost in my own thoughts most of the time. I've almost run over people I know in parking lots because I was thinking about my hair. MY. HAIR. I am trying to be more others-aware, but it's hard. I'm at a time in my life that is dominated by sensory assault--at home, at work, everywhere I go. I have three children at home and two out in the world and a husband who need me, and a job that requires near-constant human interaction (and is punctuated by bright colors!), plus the new normal of relentless media. Are we all overwhelmed? Is that why we don't take the time to work together anymore? Are we just tired of interacting because we have forced interaction every day? I'm not sure, but I do know that I live inside my head a lot these days. So, what do I do? Charge myself, I guess, to really engage, to find connections with those people I feel inclined to push off to the side of the road. Watch out, Ms. Cranky Culottes, you might even see me smile.
Love,
Corks
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