Joyride

I was in a car today. I was driving.

It was an empty stretch of road. We were doing 45. And when I say we, I mean me and three others.

It seemed a comfortable speed to me and I think the others would have agreed.
Our windows were rolled down, the wind was strong and while it didn't serve to deafen, the only thing we could hear was the radio crackling and our own thoughts.

I wondered what was similar amongst us ... we were all women, who hadn't come to terms with the fact that we were, indeed, women. Some of us ofcourse had more catching up to do than others, but that doesn't mean anything special, does it?

I looked in my rear view mirror. I saw her... head thrown back... the wind blowing her hair across her face... tear tracks...
We knew what she was thinking, but none of us wanted to talk to her about it. None of us wanted to comfort her. That would mean having to be part of the misery, sorting through the chaos in her mind. None of us felt like it. We were either too tired or too self absorbed. I had tried, worn myself out and given up. So now I avoided the topic altogether, I was beginning to resort to distraction. It worked. Sometimes.

So I drove on knowing that she was sitting there behind me, being miserable for everything that those who mattered did wrong to her. Plotting revenge that involved self-destruction ..."when they see how I've ruined my life... that will show them... then they'll be plenty sorry..."

I wanted to tell her it wasn't important what people did, the biggest wrongs were being done by her, unto herself.
I didn't say a word though. I just shut up and drove.

I looked at her sitting across me and behind.
Her hair tied high at the back of her head. A pencil holding it all together. She typed and shuffled through paper.
And with every crisp click of her keyboard and every sheet she skimmed through I knew she was driven farther and farther away from us. Away from that car and the company, into a world where it was her and work. She was in absolute control and as long as she did her bit, everything else worked out.

I knew we were losing her. It was increasingly hard to get her to go out these days.
She pushed her glasses higher up on her nose ... I just shut up and drove.

I then looked across, at her sitting next to me.
I looked at her darkening the kohl around her eyes. I thought how simple it must be to be her. How complex can the world be when you believe the globe revolves for you and because of you? I wonder.

... and then I asked myself, whats the point?

Suddenly, the wind got gentler, it smelt sweet ... like driving through a field of herbs, the sun stayed hidden behind clouds.
Life was good.
The moment was perfect.
My favourite song played on the radio and I smiled.

*Explicit warning/ reassurance:
Any similarity to a person living or dead is purely coincidental.
Dorothy and Twit, none of these characters are based on you.

24+

little girls have an understanding with god... it goes like this...

'God either gives you what you ask for ... or he says, "wait." and gives you something better.'

the problem is big girls stop talking to god.

Literati

.... hours spent in absolute conviction of what the author was thinking when the book was written.

the benefits in the event of accurate deduction are good (although for me personally, they add no additional value to the reading experience)

Consider now the hazards of abstracted surmise?

Consider also biases and blinkers ... how many do we have?

Not bad eh?

It's all over. Everything.
And sure enough I came out alive. A little tired, but alive :)