The Quiet Crash

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

A better question might be if a tree falls in a forest could anyone hear it if they tried?  I’d never seen or heard a tree fall naturally before I moved to Costa Rica.  I’d seen a few taken down, a noisy affair with men, ropes and chainsaws and finally a cracking boom as the tree loses it’s ability to stand and falls groaning to the ground.

About a year ago a tree feel at our hotel.  It was windy and raining and we were busy sweeping water out of the restaurant when it went. We didn't hear it over the rain and the wind, we saw it. Tipping slowly, time standing still as it feel down, down, away from us, too quickly to be scared it fell into the empty courtyard filling the whole thing. It was a big tree, maybe 50 feet tall big enough to have killed at least me and my employee if it had decided to fall in the direction of the wind, but it didn't fall in the direction of the wind, it fell gracefully, sideways in to the courtyard filling the entire courtyard with trunk and branches, bending the frames that hold our laundry lines, breaking off the banana palms, falling the only way it could to cause no serious damage, to cause no real harm at all.

Trees fall in Costa Rica. I'd been told that and seen it often enough on the roads.  The soil's goodness is only in the top layer in the tropics so the towering lush giants have a shallow root system. Even wet soil can make them fall.  I was just lucky I hadn't been under this one when it fell.

I was in the shower a couple months ago when I heard the sound, on a clear night almost windless I heard it.  Like the wind sighing, the tree heaved out it’s last breath and fell softly in the corner of my yard.  We found it the next day on it’s side, a broken bird nest in its branches, green leaves still looking for the sun. It took me while to get someone in to cut it up, it wasn't hurting anyone just lying there, slowly losing the green, slowly dying because of it’s lack of connection to the soil.

The last tree that fell was one of my mango trees. I love my mango trees, all 15 of them, 60 or 70 years old they tower over my yard filled with fruit and animals.  And then one just let go.  Just exhaled it’s way to the ground, a 70 foot tree fell without anyone noticing, without anyone hearing it’s death grasp, it’s final sigh.  And there it lies on it’s side in my yard.

Squirrels still run through it’s branches, some of it’s roots are still in the ground and most of it’s leaves are still green. I wonder if it will still flower, still try to fruit with only a tentative grasp to the earth and water it needs. In some ways the garden looks better for the lack of the tree.  The sun shines through now and the grass is growing green and thick.  The tree sideways leaning on other plants still looks alive despite it’s roots in the air and I wonder how long it will live like this.

I think perhaps the US economy, the US we know, the powerhouse of production, the Empire of Idealists is like that tree.  Perhaps it has already fallen.  We may not have heard it fall but it doesn't mean it is still standing.  Maybe we are just like the squirrels scurrying around anxious with a sense that everything is not quite right.  Maybe the next generation will not know the tree was ever standing, they will be born believing the ground should be that close, not knowing of the former glory of their tree.  Perhaps I am already that squirrel of the second generation.  I am filled with a sense of foreboding about the welfare of my world, it seems like we used to be closer to heaven than we are right now, but I’m not sure.  After all the leaves on my tree are still green, maybe there are less leaves than there were, maybe the whole tree has been uprooted and maybe there will be no fruit this season and we will all have to scurry even more to make ends meet.  Or maybe everything is fine, maybe everything is as it has always been and I am neglecting to look up to see that leafless sky above me is blue.

Another night in Paradise

I was visiting my grandmother when the phone rang, one of the last times I did before she moved in with my aunt and then into the home.  She picked it up the way she always did, not hello, or hi but “YES” in a voice more abrupt than any I heard from her in a conversation.  When she was done she hung up as she always did, no goodbye, or bye or sign off of any type the receiver was merely placed down carefully on the large dial phone.

“I’m going to need help” she said and we headed off together over her lawn.  We walked across the lawn that had shrunk over the years to the block of flats behind her house.  She pushed the door open and we found the occupant laying still, the phone still in her hand. 

She looked up and smiled at us.  “Thank you Edna” she said the smile never reaching her eyes.

“Are you ok” asked my Nana “Anything broken?”

”I don’t think so, I just fell again.”

My nana reached down to help her up and I did what I could to help.   She was thin and frail in the way that only small sick children and the very old are. I stood by unable to comment, feeling out of place.

”Are you sure you’re alright?” my Nana repeated. 

”Yes, I was over in the kitchen” she pointed to the other end of the flat “and then I just got spinney and toppled over.”

“This is dangerous Gladys, you can’t be alone.”

”I called my son, he’s coming over.”

”How did you get to the phone?” My Nana had that voice, the one you reserve for the incompetent, the immature or the old.

“I dragged myself over.  It’s ok Edna. I’ll be fine.  I’ll just sit here the phone and wait for Harold, he’ll be her soon.”

”Are you sure Gladys?”


”Yes, thank you.  I’m not going to get up.”

”All right. I’m going head off now; if you need me pick up the phone.”

”Yes Edna”

I followed my Nana back towards her house with a new respect.  My grandma wasn’t as old as I had always believed; she was the one who had to rescue her neighbours.  “Does this happen often?”  I asked looking for something to say, a way to break the silence that always seemed to surround this stranger I had known my whole life.

“Yes” she offered the monosyllable.

“That’s not good”

“She shouldn’t be alone.” And we walked back to my grandmother’s house where she had lived alone for 10 years since the death of my grandfather.

I was getting the kids to bed, late but that’s how it is right after the school holidays.  We were all in the bath and I realized it was 9 already so we all jumped out.  I wrapped a towel around the youngest, threw another at the oldest and grabbed another off the shelf for myself.  It was one of those routine moments where you don’t pay attention to what you are doing, you just go through the movements like you have a million times before, at least until the burning pain hit me.

I yelled for my oldest.  She saw it first, walking out of the folds of my fallen towel, a two inch black female scorpion.  I took a bottle of conditioner and began to beat it, it moved slower, still alive, still wriggling its tail around.  Undulating shafts of pain radiated out into my back.  Julie ran to the kitchen and grabbed the tongs.  I lifted the scorpion into the toilet and flushed her flaying body down into the septic system. 

”Where did she go” asked my baby.

"Out to the garden.”

”Will she bite me when I go out there?”

”No baby.”

I still wanted to scream.  All I could think was it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, oh god, it hurts…

“Go get dressed baby and get in bed.”

I hauled myself out to the sofa and lay down waiting for the pain to fade but it just continued spreading, its fingers seeking out into my body.  After a half hour I put some ice on it, just in case the pain would ease.  The kids weren’t asleep and I didn’t care.  Julie looked at my back.

”It didn’t look like that when I got stung.”

”How does it look?”

“All red and swollen.”

It was at this point I realized I couldn’t feel my lips, or tongue.  It was like Novocain wearing off.  And with the numbness came the fear. My kid had never complained of a numb mouth.    I went to the phone and rang the doctor.

“It sounds like you are having an allergic reaction to the scorpion” he said.

“OK.”  The panic was growing while the pain continued to spread.

”You can drive?”

”Yes”

”Come to the clinic in 20 minutes, the ambulance driver is there, he can give you the shot.”

I dressed the kids and myself and started to drive.  My hands were numb now, a tingling kind of numb which we call numb but I could still feel them, pin prickles of sensation shot through them, while the pain in my back had eased to a constant burning ache.  When I reached the doctor I was beginning to lose sensation in my feet and my nose.

I lay down, pulled down trousers and while my kids looked a new pain shot through my buttocks as the needle was injected.  “You’ll be fine in half an hour, but the shot will make you sleepy” the EMT assured me in Spanish.

I paid the bill and drove my kids home.  I put them to bed and lay down with them and lost consciousness.  An hour later I awoke gasping, my throat was swollen and I felt awful.  I staggered to the phone and called the doctor again.  “I can’t feel my legs at all, I can barely walk.  My throat feels all swollen”

“It’s from the scorpion, it could last all night.  Are you having trouble breathing?”

”What do you do?”

”Well if you can’t breath we would send the ambulance and take you to the hospital.”

I could just see it, my kids woken from their sleep. I had no one to look after them; they would watch while the EMT cut my throat open, placed a tube and took me away.  I couldn’t do that to them.  I was still breathing; I could still talk to the doctor, right?  I could call if it got worse.

“Ok”

”Call if you have trouble breathing.”

I lay in front of the television waiting for the pain to end, waiting for the numbness to wear off. The swelling of my throat seemed to spread into my neck and I found myself mouth open gasping.    Don’t panic I told myself.  Don’t panic.  This will pass, I will be ok, I am not going to need to go to the hospital.  Don’t panic.  I started to practice my yoga breathing, through my nose, slow and deep.  It’s like an asthma attack I realized, just breath, breath. The air seemed to be going in fine so long as I didn’t use my mouth.

I thought about calling the doctor again, but I couldn’t walk to the phone and what could he do but sent the ambulance and take me away.  My kids needed me and there was no-one else to be there with them.  I felt so alone.

The attack passed, my throat opened and I breathed.  Don’t panic, you will be ok, it will be ok.  This will pass, by morning I’ll be fine.

I forced myself to stay awake, to concentrate on my breathing, to get through the night to make sure I was still breathing.  Yoga may have saved my life, focus on the breath, don’t panic, it will be ok, and as the night went on the attacks came. My throat would close, you won’t die, I told myself; force the air in, through the nose down into the belly.  Think about it, every breath a conscious effort.

I might die.  Don’t think about it.  You can always call the ambulance.  But what about the kids?  Don’t think about it.  Breathe.  Breathe.  In, out.  DON'T PANIC. You will survive.  It will pass the night will end, you will be able to breath again without effort, you will feel your feet again, your tongue, mouth, hands.  All swollen with insensitivity.   If forced myself to stay awake about 3 am I could feel my hands and feet again and I thought I would be ok, so I went to bed.

And as I lay in my bed trying to calm my shivering nerves, my suppressed sense of panic.  I knew I could have died.  I knew I had never come closer.  I realized I had probably been stupid and should probably have been in the hospital for the last four hours.  But I was alone, and without me my kids would be alone.  And I wondered if we die alone or if we die because we are alone.

Wishing for Old Faithful

I was in the restroom at the Old Faithful Inn, the only hotel I have ever wanted to stay in,in my life.  It is a beautiful building, the inside looks like it is made with driftwood, four stories of mezzanines looking down onto a huge stone fireplace in the lobby.  I wanted to move in there, spend winter nights curled up near the fire with a book, summer days out on the patio overlooking Old Faithful.

 I washed my hands quickly and waited for my girls to be done.  The youngest would have to be held up of course to get her hands washed, the oldest wouldn't need me at all but waiting for them was something I always do. An elderly woman was behind me.  She was unsteady on her feet and I knew that outside the middle aged woman standing with the wheelchair was probably waiting for her. “I’m from Texas” the conversation began, tourists on vacation always ready to chat to a stranger.  “Have you been here before” “Oh yes indeed” The elderly woman replied “This is my third time.  I was here for my honeymoon you know and now we’re celebrating our 60th wedding anniversary.”

I looked over to my sister-in-law (at least until the divorce is through) and travelling companion.  She was waiting for her own daughters.  And in her eyes I saw what was happening in my own.  Tears were welling up and she grabbed a paper towel and ran for the door. Taking one look back at the happy old woman I did the same.  My baby would have to wash her hands on her own. Because the truth is I wanted to come back to this hotel one day, but not alone and in my sister in law's face I saw the truth. Single motherhood has become the only thing we know.  Being alone seems to be the only way we know how to live.  Fitting a man into our lives would only cut down on the time our children – products of abandonment – need so badly.  Going out on a date seems are far removed from my sphere of possibilities as winning the lotto or moving to Mars.  I can’t see any way I can have a relationship until my children are grown. 

I dried my eyes and went back into the bathroom as the old lady was helped into her wheelchair by her family.  Katherine was bouncing up and down trying to keep the motion detector to run the water so she could get the soap off her hands.  I turned it on for her and she washed her hands then shot her arms around me for a quick wet, hand drying hug. I was on my way over the Rockies when I thought my car was breaking.  My father had told me about this hill but I’d filed it and forgotten it.  It looked like I was heading downhill but the engine was slowing down and I was going to stall.  Then I remembered what he had said.  In the Rockies there is a hill, it’s an optical illusion, you think you are going downhill but you are really going uphill.  So I dropped into a lower gear and the car started to climb up the hill.  And sometimes life is like that.  You think you’re doing fine, that you’re coasting downhill when suddenly you realize you’re not.  You need to switch gear and keep going no matter how hard it is.  And sometimes you need to remind yourself that although this was not how you imagined it would be, that this is not the life you thought you would lead or anything that you planned out so carefully that perhaps this is the path you are meant to be on. 

The Tale of the Toaster

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present for your pleasure a story of good versus evil, an epic tale of adversity and the struggles against oppression. 
I call this story
 
The tale of the Toaster.
 
It began innocently enough in late December in that time shortly after Christmas when all the stores in Costa Rica are empty of sale able goods.  After looking in four or five stores for the object of my desires I finally found what I needed in Liberia, the city a mere hour and a half away.  Miraculously they had the object I sought, a double toaster.
 
Not a single toaster for that would not do for the job at hand.  We needed to make toast for the restaurant for breakfast and only a double toaster, white shiny and clean could possibly help us now.  Our last one had broken and we were having to toast bread on the grill.

I placed my order and waited patiently for the only one in the store (the demonstration model) to be boxed and delivered for me.  This was done in record Costa Rica time, about 25 minutes while my family sat in the car outside and ran the motor and the AC.  And for a mere $50 I walked out half an hour later toaster in hand ready to make toast.  Toast, not a difficult thing, not a complicated process.  Slightly burning bread on both sides in order to enhance the experience has been done since people had bread and a fire, it should not be that hard.  It should not.  This I have told myself many many times.
 
I believe the level of a society could be accurately measured by how toast is made.  Slipping back to doing it on the grill was definitely a regression but now we were equipped with one white, household, black and decker, double toaster.  FOR FIFTY DOLLARS.  Knowing I could get the equivalent at Walmart for $7 if I was in the United States assured me I was in a third world country.  I delivered it to the kitchen and went back to my life without a second thought as to how one toaster can alter the universe.
 
Two weeks later I went into the kitchen, put in the bread, pushed down the button and nothing.  The toast sprang back up, the toaster wouldn't toast on one side of the toaster.  Two weeks!  Two weeks it had taken.  I boxed up my still pretty white toaster and drove to the nearest store, 1 hour on a bad dirt road away in Santa Cruz.
 
And there I presented the toaster, the receipt the evidence of my purchase. I was told by the thin and relatively tall Tico boy in the uniform of the store that they would have to send it in for repairs.  For my toaster he gave me a copy of the receipt and on it he wrote "In for repairs" and signed it.
 
I walked through the aisles and found the my $50 toaster was now selling for $40.  I walked out resigned and prepared to return 2 weeks later when they said my toaster would be ready.
 
Two weeks later I returned and was told my toaster wasn't ready yet.
 
Two weeks after that I returned and was told my toaster wasn't ready yet.
 
Two weeks after that I returned and was told my toaster wasn't ready yet.
 
Are you starting to see a pattern here.
 
Two weeks later I returned and was told that they couldn't repair my toaster.
 
Well of course not. Now I understand something of toaster repair.  Back in the days when I was young and lived in New Zealand my grandfather was a specialist toaster repairer.  Toasters were expensive and New Zealand as a society had not yet reached the level of development that there were two toasters in every house and you could throw one out if it broke.  No toasters were expensive and in my house there were four, one that worked and the other three which were nothing but skeletons kept to take parts from for the one working toaster.

When we went to the beach house there were no such modern conveniences, the toaster there was a four sided metal frame where four pieces of bread were leaned together over a stove element and when smoke issued from one side (or preferably just before) the bread was turned over manually much to the chagrin of your scorched fingers.

Toasters are simple devices, two elements per piece of bread, made up of small wires that get hot when electricity is sent through them.  They heat unless the wire is broken in some place.  Then two spring loaded bread holders connected to a basic timer.  Nothing to it really.  I just had a broken spring, of course they couldn't fix it.  Modern toasters are not made to be fixed, like everything else in our disposable culture they are made to cost $7 and be thrown in one of the man-made wastelands we call trash dumps.
 
However this was good news.  They couldn't repair it.  They would give me a new toaster.  This was great news.  The last four items I'd bought, then brought back to be repaired had been returned to me after the repair still not functioning.  They didn't know how to repair anything, and nothing was made to be repaired anyway.  I would have a new toaster!!!
 
As soon as I gave them the receipt.
 
I didn't have it on me.  I drove home.
 
Two weeks later I was in Santa Cruz papers in hand.  I went and sat for an hour while the man who was supposed to be back from lunch at one showed up at 2:30.  I sat while he looked at my papers. 
 
His muchacho started to box up my new toaster.  I could smell the blackened bread already. But no.
 
Like any good story just when the hero looks like he's going to get the prize something must happen.  For Odysseus it was the storm, then he was attacked, then there were the lotus flowers, the cyclops, then he lost his wind, then the giants attacked them, then Circe kept him for a year, then they had to travel to Hades, then the Sirens tried to sing them to death, then the monster and the whirlpool, then they killed the sun god's cattle and Zeus zapped the ship, then Calypso kept him as her lover for seven years (first Circe then Calypso, he must have been a hottie).  Of course Odysseus was only trying to get home, I was trying to do something much more difficult I was attempting to make cold bread warm, slightly crunchy and do it four slices at a time.
 
I was told by the man now cast as the villain of this melodrama, Edwin, that I needed the Original receipt. 
 
To which I responded but you took it when I turned in the toaster.
 
He responded that he needed the original.
 
I pointed to the signature on the photocopy.  "This is one of your employees" I said.
 
He walked off to ask the other guy whose signature it was.
 
Guy 2, the comic relief for want of someone else said "I don't know."
 
Edwin proceeded to tell me that None of his employees had signed the paper, that I was trying to defraud them.
 
FOR A TOASTER?
 
Mr Comic Relief now walked over, opened the repair book, found my toaster, found the same signature on the sheet saying they had received the toaster.  Now if that isn't funny I don't know what is.

I asked Edwin as politely as I could to give me a new toaster, that the paper said he had it, that I did not have the original receipt that I had swapped it for this signed photocopy.
 
Edwin told me he wouldn't.
 
I told him to give me back my broken toaster.
 
He said he couldn't.
 
I started to yell in Spanish.  This was a first for me.
 
I screamed for him to write down his name, the name of his boss and the number of the head office. 
 
He did and I drove back home another hour.
 
Back at my office my manager rang the head office and was told that since the name of my company rather than me was on the receipt I would have to to back to Santa Cruz with the legal documents of my corporation proving I was in charge of the corporation.
 
Well yeah obviously, I had only been five times to collect my toaster.  Of course they didn't know me, I mean who was I really?
 
I arrived at 11:30 to be told the man I had to speak to, Edwin the dark and evil villain was in fact at lunch and would be back by about 2:30.  At least they were honest about that this time. After all the first time they had told me he would be back from lunch any minute, that's why I'd sat for an hour in front of his desk waiting for him.
 
To note by looking at his desk you would never think that he was in league with the devil, there is nothing to indicate it, just the usual Catholic prayer poster, a computer, a pile of papers, files, no pens evident.  One would think the anti-christ would have a more interesting desk, but no. At least Circe and the Sirens were beautiful... but the bland looking man I was supposed to wait for again was nothing much to look at.
 
I told his staff that this was craziness, that I wanted my toaster back, that they had stolen it from me.  I couldn't wait, literally couldn't, I had to collect my kids from school at 3 and it was an hour drive home.
 
So I left.  Without toaster, without hope.
 
I may return.  It took Odysseus 10 years but I'm not sure I will. Did I triumph?  No, evil won but why not after all it's only a fucking toaster.

The Dating Game

A strange thing happened on my trip past forty. I fell in love, and someone fell in love with me. Now neither of these things had ever occurred before. (Alright that's not exactly true, when I was 16 I had a job working in a file room, the 20 year old mentally handicapped boy who worked there too decided he loved me and bought me an engagement ring, but that's another story.) So I get to 40 without ever being in love, or having someone love me.

Of course all things being as they are, the person I love is not the same person who loves me.

There's a terrible 70's song that keeps playing on the radio down here, the chorus goes “Are you going to stay with the one who loves you or are you going back to the one you love?” Seemed like a simple enough question. Obviously my logical mind always said that I'd be better off with someone who loved me and treated me well than with someone who didn't love me.

Of course my logical mind had never actually been in love.

And when I fell in love for the first time naturally I fell in love with someone completely wrong. I couldn't fall in love with a nice guy, oh no, apparently that's just not going to float my boat. I feel in love with someone incapable of love because he's an alcoholic. I mean he says he loves me but when it comes right down to it I am somewhere down the list below his motorcycle and a bottle of rum. He's never going to change his life to suit me, or be the man I want and need him to be. I know this. My logical mind knows this.

Bachelor number two ladies and gentlemen is a nice guy. The kind of guy I would tell my girlfriends to date, sweet, ready to commit, ready to make sacrifices to be with you, ready to change himself to whatever you want. And I can't bring myself to want him, not at all, not even a little. I mean, I'd like to, it would make things easier, it would make my parents happy. This is the kind of guy you bring home to your family as opposed to bachelor number one who's the kind of guy you don't even want your friends to know you're seeing.

When I came back this time I was done. The man I love called me drunk, instead of welcoming me home and asking me out he asked me for a job. And instead of telling me he loved me he told me that I wasn't a professional because I wouldn't give him one.

I was done. So done.

I'd been treated well and now this. I didn't want it. I felt the spark die in my soul. And then it was gone. Nothing. The nothing I'd wished for for so long. And I felt a deep sadness that it was over and a sense of relief that it was. I felt betrayed by love, betrayed by my own fickle heart for loving the wrong person and sadness that one day I would forget what love had felt like. Seven years of being alone, seven years of wanting to be with someone and now I had two options and I didn't want either.

Because my heart had discovered that there is a third option, you don't have to go back to the one who loves you, or go back to the one you love, you can just realize that it's ok to be alone. That you don't really need either. Seven years of being alone and now I realize how damn good I've become at it. I like my life the way it is, I like things the way I like them, I don't need some man to mess things up.

So thinking I emailed Mr Loves Me Desparately that I didn't love him, could never love him and he should just forget it. Then the guy I used to love texted me twice, that he loved me, that he would always love me. And I only hope that my resolution holds. My life is good. It's ok to be alone. It's ok to be done with me for 5-20 – 100 years. It's ok to let love die, and it's ok to stop looking for someone else to complete you. Because in the end I don't need anyone else.

Family Ties

My grandmother told me that her proudest achievement was that her four children all still spoke to each other. At 19 I thought it was sad that a life of 80 plus years had borne so few fruits and that she did not have other interests or occupations and that she thought her children still talking to each other was an achievement. At 40 plus and the mother of two I realize how much my grandmother achieved.

My youngest daughter comes home on Saturday, she's been gone four months. She's 9 and she's been with her grandparents. My oldest daughter at almost 14 said to me yesterday that “She'd forgotten she had a sister.” At almost 14 she's too self obsessed to be worried much about anyone else, she's too wrapped up in her boyfriend to notice the lack of her only sibling. All she remembers about her sister is that her sister makes her crazy.

I still talk to my siblings. Text messages of jokes mostly with my brother, because when I am visiting and we are in the same house we have nothing to say to each other. As the older sister I want to boss him around and shake him and get him to live his life better. He wants me to leave him alone. I email with my sister, long emails full of nothing, actual conversations are years apart but at least now with the internet we correspond. It's better than it's been, sometimes all I remember is that my sister made me crazy, and sometimes it's years of silence before we speak again. As the older sister I still want to tell her what to do, as an adult I know I can't. Silence fills the holes that fighting would have filled when we were younger.

My father still talks to his brothers and sister. They still visit with each other, less and less as years go on and they have their own extended families to visit with. They are very different people and I don't know that anyone particularly enjoys the visits or the conversations, but we are family. Family, the only people who remember who you were, even when you forget. My uncle emails me for updates on my family, my parents don't email so it's up to me to keep up the correspondence. Communication has changed, and with it families too. You may never speak to your brother again, but he'll stay your facebook friend.

Every year my grandmother would do Christmas and all the family would come. Once a year no matter what else was going on in their lives everyone would drop everything and come together for Christmas. One year of my 12 cousins only 4 came for Christmas, the rest were spread all over the world living lives in different places. I remember the look of sadness on my grandmother's face. But she should be proud, she's been gone 12 years and yet her children still talk, her grandchildren still talk, still facebook, still email. She built bonds between us all that time has depleted but not erased. Her achievement still stands, a testimony to her love and dedication to her family.

Nana I miss you.

How I want to Live

That point had been reached.  Where all forms of entertainment were exhausted and I could no long fill every minute with some mind numbing device.  No more email, web surfing, computer solitaire or eating would be able to fill the remaining minutes.  Staring at the computer I realized there was still another hour left in the work day.
 
Another hour.
 

It seemed like such a long time to kill when I was at work with nothing to do.  At home it was nothing, a short time to get things done before I had to run off to somewhere else to do something else.
 
My life was filled with running around here and there.  Perhaps that was the secret, was all the running really necessary or was it just a way to fill the endless hours, minutes of an empty life.  An excuse not to do the things I said I wanted to do, an excuse not to write, an excuse not to find love, an excuse not to live.  So long as every minute is full there is no need to live.
 
I know how I want to live.  I want to live like I drive.   I wanted to live safely, cognizant of, but silently disobedient of the rules.  I want to speed along but never be afraid to stop for the sites on the route.  I want to be able to find my own way without guidance and not be afraid to ask for directions if the road runs out.  I want to be able to do a U-turn with grace returning back to where I started without making any forward progress without regret – to be able to appreciate the things I learned on the unscheduled detour.  I want to be in control, of my life, my destiny and to help those who travel with me find their own destination.
 
I want to push myself to the limit, to sometimes scare myself just a little, to feel my heart race and acknowledge my own mortality and enjoy it.  I want to arrive safely, and to know where my destination is.  I want to be able to just stop sometimes and rest without worrying that the world is racing on without me.
 
I want to live like no-one is watching, to sing at the top of my lungs like I only do when driving.   I want to live without thinking about how I am living because I am too busy doing to be worried about how I am doing it.
 
I want to be confident enough in my own ability that I have the freedom to make mistakes, park in the wrong place, or drive the wrong way down a one way road.  I want to know that no matter what happens I can cope with it.  And I want someone telling me if there’s a speed trap up ahead.
 
I wish to be patient and considerate of the other people in my path, but aggressive enough to get ahead of them when I can, or when I need to .  I don't want to be the cause of other's pain or misfortune and fortunate enough if I am the one broken down on the roadside that someone will stop.  I don't want to run a tow-truck or rescue service but I want to help those I can, and those who want my help.
 
I want to get to the end of my journey glad that I came happy with the time it took to arrive.