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This past Sunday, I was crocheting a baby blanket while sitting near my bedroom window. I heard the familiar sounds of the route 30 bus pulling up to a stop just past the bare branches of a small forest of hickory trees. The next sound I heard was a soprano’s wail of tires skidding along the street. I looked up to see a white sedan’s front bumper getting intimate with the front end of a navy blue mini-van. The vehicles turned in and away from each other as if square dancing. As the mini-van swept right and out of my view, the sedan continued to skid along the road in the opposite direction before coming to a stop in the middle of both directions of traffic.Why did this happen? It happened because the white sedan was not going to tolerate waiting behind the stopped bus and the four other cars behind that bus. Instead the white sedan was hell-bent on crossing into the lane of oncoming traffic, without looking, in order to pass all of those offending vehicles. That white sedan had somewhere so important to be that its driver was willing to risk his or her own life and the life of any other motorists on the road. The white sedan was either all out of patience or didn’t have any to begin with.
I understand the feeling. I want to get to where I’m going 15 minutes ago. I want to see that new movie three days ago. I want my paycheck a week ago. I want to go on vacation three months ago. No matter the desire, I want it as soon as I can get it which means that I’ve been wanting it for what I consider to be a long time and should have had it for even longer than that. I don’t quite know or remember how the need for having everything now crept upon me.
I do remember a time before smart phones, broadband and instant gratification. I remember when my mother reheated leftovers in the oven. I recall when 24 mm photographs took two to three days to develop at those little drive-up photo mats. In fact, I can even hearken back to actually pausing and taking the time to snap the best picture possible so as not to waste film on an unclear shot. Those days seemed to hold a respect for deliberation. Everything was done in and according to its own time. And because of this natural passage of time, those things seemed to be valued more. I’m talking about simple things like a love letter in the mail, a home-cooked pot roast and a fresh white tee hung to dry in May sunshine.
I watched the fallout from the auto collision for a few minutes more. Not before long, the police showed up and thankfully both drivers walked away from their cars. I went back to crocheting the baby blanket. I’d been working on it intermittently for a couple of weeks and it was coming along pretty well. The stitches were even, the rows straight. I thought of the baby forming in my friend’s womb. Nine months of design and growth that can not and should not be rushed. I relaxed the speed of my stitching a bit. I wanted the blanket to be strong and sturdy. It was going to be an original piece that would hopefully last until the baby was on her way to college. I couldn’t help but smile. That simple act of slowing down felt good.
