Ramblings from the summer

9-10-08

The following is an excerpt of my ramblings from one of the notebooks I wrote in over the summer:

"I was thinking today about how much more connected each person is another than they realize.  How many times I must have crossed paths with someone before formal introductions are made. How many times I might have driven past them on the way to school or been in the same restaurant or bank.  Think about how many times you might have encountered the person you married before you even knew of their existence concretely.  And you may never know know of all those times, may never recall buying a taco from the love of your life at Taco Bell three years before you met formally and started dating.  You'll likely never remember the person in the car next to you at the stoplight who turned the opposite direction, but even this is an interaction as driving was described to me as a social activity in my driver's ed class and I have pondered this statement ever since.  

It seems to me almost like a ballet. or an equestrian drill team.  Lines of cars taking courses in synchronization out of a stoplight, veering out into clover shapes and meeting with a line of cars going to other direction who may also turn, or split from that group and go straight, all forming beautiful patterns like a dance or a drill and also in a perfect imitation of a silent social scene.  Like people who meet and stay together for a while but leave down different paths, all ending at separate locations and destinations, or ending up at the same ones by different paths.  Sometimes these thoughts distract me as I'm driving.  There's just so much beauty to see in everything.  So many different ways to see."