The Red Light

A regular reader of this blog commented that I start many thoughts —— …… “driving home from a restaurant….”  One might think that is a principal activity for me.  They would be correct.  I love to cook and believe that I am accomplished in the kitchen.  However, I love a good restaurant experience. I am not skilled enough to be a cook in a restaurant.  A knowledgeable enough chief to have a restaurant has a skill set way above my pay grade.  I can make a good meal, but real chiefs can create recipes not follow them.  I am on, my best day, a follower, not a creator.

I am off track of this stream-of-consciousness-blog I was setting out to write.

So, I begin again

I was driving home after an early dinner experience at one of my favorite Marin county restaurants.  I was gliding along at the speed limit and noticed how oddly relaxing it is to drive the speed limit.  You are not furtively checking the mirror for the red light.  You are not worried about a DUI. You are just driving along in your lane as if you owned the road and had no particular place to be.  I find driving fast takes a lot out of me, as I am looking for the aforementioned black and white while at the same time competing for position amongst the other cars driving too fast. 

The light turned yellow, and I comfortably came to a stop at the red light.  I was the first car in the intersection, thus, the red sphere was directly in front of me.  It was at that moment a red super moon. I was mesmerized by the light and saw nothing else around it.  I suddenly came to feel incredibly relaxed.  It was as if the red light had signaled to me I could take a time out.  A time out from my life – whatever that meant.  The disappointments, the things I had to do, the lack of achievement on that particular day; the light allowed me to sit there without worry.  I was not concerned about my destination.   A red light lasts about 60 - 90 seconds and for that brief period I was relieved of all that surrounded my life and I was conscious of this amazing relief.  Then just as suddenly as this feeling had come over me the light turned green and  it was time to get in the race again.

Now maybe you think I had more than one cocktail but that would not have been true on this evening.  We only have this one life, or perhaps we have more. Many believe we live more than one and perhaps that is true and we have more to live.  I would like to think that but the problem is even if I have another to live, I will not know because I can’t remember the last one.  Whichever is true it was this red light that overtook my consciousness and gave me a brief moment to reflect.    I am racing ahead hoping they miss me.   If they do, they might make me take stock of where I am and what I am.  Sometimes it feels like we are in a race that has no end. But we know that is not true because it does ---- end… I know there is not a winner but there I was sitting at the signal with the red light telling me that I could stop for a moment.  I did not have to reflect or judge myself or anyone else.  I could just sit in my car quietly reflecting on how relaxed I was because the red light permitted me to stop.

Red light Green light……