Secret Code

Did you ever drive down the street and for a second, or a moment, see with your other non-driving attention how wild it is that all these individually driven vehicles are actually not bumping into each other?

Oh, they do. Bump into each other. But for the most part, they don't. Each person behind the wheel has a different, unique personality. Each one has a head filled with different thoughts. Some want to go fast, some want to go slow, some are barely watching the road, others are gripping the wheel with vigilance. Twirling the radio dial, balancing CD changes, fussing with a telephone, spacing out. And yet all the challenges of staying within the "lines," turning corners, accelerating onto highways, passing giant trucks, maneuvering through packed parking lots, parallel parking, we somehow stay out of each other's way.

How do we do it?

It's almost as if underneath the buzz of traffic on the road, we've all made a secret pact to keep our distance, to behave, to slow down when the guy in front of us slows down, to stop when he does, to move over when someone is trying to speed behind us.

Okay. There is road rage. There are accidents. There are people intent on letting their brights glare in your eyes, or try to hook onto your back bumper, and, of course, we're protecting ourselves. But from a bird's eye view we're all a part of that big traffic pattern. We're like those coordinated dancer/marchers that take over a football field at halftime and make designs in the grass. Or like an Esther Williams-like swim team plunging and surfacing in and out of pool water in lovely synchronization.

We should congratulate ourselves.

We didn't even rehearse.

We kinda make up the dance as we go along.

And if we're lucky, we won't find ourselves on the wrong side of the routine. Hopelessly out of rhythm. Discarded by the side of the road for not obeying the time signature. Or even worse. For being in the wrong place at the wrong time when someone else jumps the code.

Driving: a demonstration of free will...on a leash.