Maybe we should put Santa in our car window...

Driving in December=insanity.

I conveniently forget this year after year. I'm not sure if it is because my near-death experiences aren't memorable enough, if it is because the intoxication of Christmas delicacies clouds my mind, or if it is because all of the lights and ornaments have sent my ADD into overload. Nevertheless, I forget--year after year--how positively scary it is to drive during the very time of year when we are regularly reminded to be kind and generous and selfless.

Yesterday, I actually contemplated the creation of a sign for my window. Annoyed--and slightly jarred--by the regular occurrence of seemingly possessed toy-seekers, I considered pulling out my marker, poster board and tape, so I could pen the following phrase in big, bold letters: "I do not want the toys or electronics or games you are determined to get at all costs. I just want art supplies and frames. Please don't hurt me."

In the span of fifteen minutes, I almost died twice. Nearly pressed flat into the concrete barrier along the left lane entrance ramp, a stream of six cars refused to let me merge. The lane beside them? Open, of course. Then once I got to my exit, the car beside me decided to come over--right at me. I had to actually swerve into the berm to miss him. No one was behind me of course, but he had to have my spot. He couldn't speed up or slow down. Nope. He needed come over right then. He was on the phone of course, approaching the red light, full speed ahead. As soon as I caught my breath, I causally pulled into the lane right beside him; his antics didn't get him an inch closer to his destination.

Once I finally made it to the Michael's parking lot, my bubbling anxiety fizzed out a bit--until someone tried to cut me off in the middle of my turn into a spot at the back end of the parking lot. I decided I would park as far away as humanly possible so no one could come near me--apparently this girl had the same idea, and apparently she didn't care who got there first. Unable to change course, I pressed into my turn, and pulled into the spot. She was so close to me, I would have hit her if I pulled back out and gave her the spot. Nevertheless, she screamed at me, waving her arms, forming curse words with her melodramatic lips. Then she peeled out of the parking lot and took off down the road to who knows where. Despite the fact there were at least ten other open spots, I took her's and if she couldn't have that one, well, by golly she wasn't going to take any of them.

Even in Michael's I encountered elbows and isle cutoffs, people approached the store like a heated battle on the gym floor. I can compete with the best of them, but I felt full of the Christmas carols on the radio, and just couldn't find it in my heart to elbow back. I simply grabbed what I needed, took the last remaining shred of holiday spirit up to the register with me, got into my car, and embarked on my brutal ride home.

Once I returned to my condo, I sat and stared at my Christmas tree, wondering why people tend to be utterly insane during the holidays. I'd like to believe some of it is our desire to give, but I'm not fully convinced. Anger and greed seem to emanate a bit too heavy from the lanes of the highway, and from the asphalt in the parking lot, for me to believe every single person is driven by the desire for good. I'm pretty sure toys and games can't save the world, but I'd like to believe people can. And because of that, I think it's pretty important to keep them alive. I don't know how many car accidents occur during the holidays, but based on personal experience, I have to believe we all enter into a crazy gamble each time we take to the road.

Maybe that's why I forget about the insanity year after year. Maybe I don't want to believe it. Maybe it's because the Christmas spirit has dug deep into my skin and forced me to believe--not in Santa Clause of course, but in all of the good things he represents. The silly guy in the red suit has a pretty respectable job, after all. He spends his whole life getting ready to reward the people who are good and kind and generous. Whether people believe in Christmas or not--that seems like a fairly decent motto. Maybe if I stick his face on my car window it will send out a reminder that he's still making his list, and checking it twice, and those naughty cars better hurry up and start being nice.

Tripping Down Tremont Road

Photograph taken by Barbara Schmidt, 2010

www.twainquotes.com

***

Clouds of frost crept up from the base of my windshield; I could barely see above the clustering haze. Luckily, my defrost kicked in just in time--partially so I could drive safely, but mostly so I could see him.

I would have pulled over to snap a photograph, but the street bit narrowly around the bend, and I could sense the rush of cars around me. And so I kept driving. I kept plugging along at the appropriate pace, but instead of deep-sighing at red lights and propelling myself from stop sign to stop sign through sudden bursts of speed and hard stomps on the break, I turned down inconvenient roads, and casually meandered through neighborhoods, relishing the pure joy of seeing a man walk down the street--nose to a book--stumbling over elevated ridges on the sidewalk. The mere sight of his pure indulgence sent a smile fulgurating from the seams of my mouth; I've waited for this moment for nine years.

This is the first Ohio man--or woman--whom I've seen reading in an odd public place. People in Ohio read in libraries, schools, parks and coffee shops; however, I have never once seen someone I don't know reading somewhere unusual--in their car while in traffic, at the mall, in line at the BMV--or while walking down the street at 5pm on a wintery, Wednesday afternoon.

I didn't recognize how rare that was until six months after I moved from New York City back to Columbus. In the heat of summer--on some poorly advertised holiday parade day--I found myself buried in a traffic jam and I pulled out a book. Shortly into my venture, a police office knuckled my window. I could hardly hear his voice above the cacophonic symphony engulfing me--honks, shouts, music, cheers--but I turned my head mid-sentence, while my car rested in park, my knees pressed against the steering wheel, and Ayn's Rand's Fountainhead weighed heavy in my fingers.

"Excuse me, miss," the officer said. His words were muffled by the glass and distorted by the noise around me, nevertheless, I turned the keys in my ignition, and rolled down the window.

"Excuse me, but what are you doing?" he continued now that nothing separated us but air.

"I'm reading, sir," I replied, knowing perfectly well my activities had to be quite obvious.

His jaw sunk a little and his face fell to the right.

"Why would you be reading? You're driving," he said, more befuddled than angry. It seemed quite logical to me though. I couldn't turn around, I couldn't go forward, and I saw no reason to explode with anger--like all of the other drivers around me. Instead of letting it ruin my day, I figured I would read.

"Well, I haven't moved for ten minutes, sir. This parade seems a bit long, and I have a good book. Is it against the law for me to be reading right now?"

"I guess not--since your car is in park. You don't do that while you're driving, do you?"

"Of course not," I said. Then he spun on his heels and slowly wobbled away, as dumbfounded by the situation as I was--but for different reasons.

Refusing to let the interruption squander anymore of my precious time, I continued to read until the parade passed. Then I spent the next nine years waiting to see someone--in some "odd" place--clutch a book and bury their brain in thought. I started looking for it--everywhere. When I took continuing education classes at Ohio State, I gazed around the bus stop; never once did I see anyone reading. They didn't read on the bus itself either. I paid attention to restaurants and bars. No one pulled out a book while they were waiting for their date or their friends or their family. And I most certainly have never caught anyone walking down the street, lost in sentences and thought.

These were all common indulgences in New York though. In fact, I persistently found myself in the company of public readers, people aiming to extract every ounce out of time otherwise wasted in waiting. No one here seems to do the same. It could be largely because we don't commute to the same degree as New Yorkers or it could be because reading lost its sense of cool. Regardless of the reason, I, too, have fallen victim to the absence of books. The longer I live here, the less I find myself toting a treasure.

Today though, on Mark Twain's birthday, some random, middle-aged man tripping down Tremont Road managed to remind me how positively brilliant it is to slip away. How positively brilliant it is to bump into someone because you are so utterly lost in a story or a thought that you don't even notice them in front of you. How positively brilliant it is to embrace Twain's assertion that "life does not consist mainly--or even largely--of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one's head."

I put a book in my purse for tomorrow, and no, it isn't To Kill A Mockingbird or Beowulf, the two books I'm currently teaching in school. It's the book I never got to finish on my honeymoon, and haven't had the time to pick back up. I might not have too many moments to get to it before Christmas break, but I'll have it with me just in case I do.