A Casual Glance

Driving is one of the most intimate things we can do alongside the people we share Tucson with. It's something we don't even think of very much. Our vehicles take us everywhere, traveling across our city to eat, sleep, work, learn, to just...exist. We journey alongside one another- resting at stoplights beside mothers, grandmothers, rapists, lovers, children, unborn life, fathers, brothers, pessimists, optimists, bulimics, football players...the list carries farther than I even have the attention for. We sit only a few feet away from people traveling down the exact same road as we are, thinking perhaps many of the same things. What we sometimes don't fully appreciate though, is how close to their thoughts we come to, the aura they ignite in the air around them. Their feelings, their mood. It dwells and resides only an arm's length or so away from where we sit, instinctively driving to our desired destination. We don't take notice of it, because we've grown so desensitized to the act of driving itself. Every now and then, I'll take a look to my left and right, taking notice of those who are sitting in their own vehicles, doing the same exact thing that I am: pressing their left foot on the brake, just enough to keep the car at a standstill. They're looking straight ahead, both hands on the steering wheel, a blank expression glazed over their personality, masking any note of emotion or significant thought. Every now and then, however, I will glance into a vehicle, and see someone wiping tears from their wrinkled skin, a tissue or two constantly falling from their trembling fingers. And I'll...feel what they're feeling. Their sadness soon enters my own vehicle, and I openly welcome it into my own car, embracing the closeness with which I can see their own thoughts trickling down their cheek. Perhaps I'll see a young couple giving swift pecks while the opposing traffic continues on their way. The same goes for their own brief period I have to sit beside them. I enjoy allowing their happiness to flow from their smiles, into my mind, triggering my own memories to come to light. Thinking and feeling my own memories erupt from the joy that they express. Perhaps I'll see a parent lecturing or heatedly discussing some life lesson with their teenager, and I'll equally feel the anger of the parent release into that car, as well as the shame or perhaps rebellious up-rise displayed in the eyes of the child. Even so much as seeing one cause their vehicle to bounce up and down as they shake in their seat to an upbeat song. When they see me laughing and we both throw back our necks in cackles, waving as the light gives us permission to move- the moment shared is one of carefree, connective thought. It brings a balance, having each type of thought or emotion brought into the air around us. One might consider me odd for taking these glances around me at stoplights, but I don't do it to intrude upon their lives. I do it to remember that, at any given moment, every single emotion possible is being felt by those around us, those who are close to each of us on a daily basis on the same roads we all travel down. I do it in an attempt to connect to humanity, to feel close to those I am existing, living alongside.