lifes little traffic lights

Life’s Little Traffic Lights

I love it, life is so crazy. I’ve always said if it isn’t going to bother me in three to five years, then I’m not going to worry about it now, then I come across what I like to refer to as a “traffic light” you know, those little situations and encounters that make you stop and reminisce about a time and place that you left behind so long ago, deep in the folds of your memory, and the sudden slap of reality that makes you stop and look around and think what’s different?, what’s changed?, and what path has brought me here?

You see a “traffic light is like a memory, better than a picture, it’s a feeling you get deep inside. A sudden sense of knowing exactly who you are and why, often times all in the depths of a single moment. Still confused? Here’s an example…

It’s a fairly brisk day in January of 2002, brisk enough to turn my flesh slightly purple in spots where I’m scarred or bruised, I walk into the dry cleaners after a short work day, to pick up the pants that have been sitting there for about three weeks (I seem to have the memory of a gold fish and the attention span of a fruit fly). Of course I’m in a big damn hurry even though I have no where in particular to be and nothing in my near future has been marked urgent (it’s just the sense of urgency that makes whatever it is that I’m doing seem so much more important than what it really is) I encounter a motherly looking middle-aged Native American woman, who in just a smile seems kind and warm enough to pull me from myself and set me back into the reality of my objective. She doesn’t know it but she’s about to take me for my last $15, but damn I really want to wear those pants tonight. She looks up as she hands me my receipt and very politely asks me with a wonderful note of concern in her voice “ your nose it looks bruised, did something happen to it?, having heard this question what seems like a thousand times during the winter months, I give her my standard answer, “ oh, yes I broke it a couple of years ago, and the mark always shows when its cold outside” “won’t it ever go away?