Every now and then, particularly when I’m driving, my mind wanders. It sees something or hears something that triggers memories from the past or launches a daydream about tomorrow. I bet your mind does the same thing.
Yesterday I was driving to the pharmacy and the bank, having navigated the same road hundreds of times before. So while my hands on the steering wheel and my feet on the clutch and gas pedal were doing their automatic thing, my mind was doing its automatic thing too.
From nowhere, I thought about the movie “Witness for the Prosecution” with Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich. Probably most people alive today don’t even remember this film, much less its stars. But it was, as still is, a four-star courtroom drama with a twist. I urge anybody to find and rent it.
Then I thought about a high school friend’s birthday, which occurred on March 1; and I chastised myself for not acknowledging it either with a card or, less informally, with an email. Rosemary and I were joined at the hip in high school, and it wasn’t just because she was the only person shorter than I. We both looked dumpy in the de rigeur Catholic school uniform too
At last I reached my destination on autopilot and went to make my bank deposit. It reminded me of the time my ex-husband and I were liquidating our assets because we were splitting up. I had gone to our bank to cash in the savings bonds that Uncle Sam had sent us every month that he (my ex, not Uncle Sam) was in the military. I never did get the hang of being an Army wife.
I made my deposit and got back in my car. Turned on the radio just in time to hear the announcer harp about today’s teenagers. Ah, today’s teenagers . . . what would I do if I were seventeen now?
Off my mind went in search of the idyllic answer to that question. But just then reality checked in and reminded me that being seventeen is often more like a nightmare. I immediately snapped out of it and began watching traffic with renewed attention.
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