Something to do with traffic, coincidence, and fate
I knew I should’ve left earlier. Why did I even think that there wouldn’t be traffic on the 110 headed towards Downtown on a Wednesday at 2:25pm?
It was hot and muggy. My left arm was toasting in the sun, and I knew that by the end of the week, I’d have the famous driver’s tan: one arm nicely sun-blessed a healthy brown, the other white and veiny. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, wishing that an ocean breeze would come and caress the sweat off my face. I closed my eyes and imagined that I was sitting on the Manhattan Beach pier, watching the waves ripple below me. I could almost hear the perpetual meditative hush of the ocean…
The car behind me honked. I opened my eyes and released the brake, my car inching ever so slowly forward. The freeway was full and at a standstill, each lane of cars snaked onward like giant centipedes, every car riding the brake. I glanced at my cell phone. 2:27pm. Shit.
I had to be at work by 3 pm, and I had barely passed the Slauson entrance. On a good day, no traffic, my commute to work is barely over 20 minutes. But lately, in spite of the fact that I leave my spot an hour before I’m supposed to clock in, I haven’t been able to make it to work on time. What should be a 20 minute commute from South Central to Silver Lake has turned into an epic hour and a half of empty daydreams, fantasies of parting the ocean of cars like Moses and speeding along, people watching, and thinking too much.
I wiped the sweat off my forehead, glancing sideways into the black Prius right next to me. Through the tinted passenger window, I spied a beautiful Latina rockin’ some pimpy shades, gaze straight ahead, hands on the 10 and 2 o’clock position, all her windows sealed. Must be nice to have some A.C. I sighed and opened my sunroof. The sunlight immediately reddened my forehead and I squinted ahead. No breeze… just a stale invisible cloud of exhaust fumes that pricked at my nostrils, making my forehead ache.
The radio in my car stared silently back at me, taunting me to raise my fist and punch it. No A.C., no radio, two of my windows won’t go down, and I was gridlocked, condemned to spend a good portion of my afternoon sitting in traffic once again.
This is my life, ending one second at a time, as I sit in this miserable car, headed towards a miserable job that I hate, winding along this concrete channel of frustration and resentment along with all these other miserable folks, moving more slowly than slow-motion. What the fuck am I doing here? Why am I here? Why are all these people here? Where am I going? Where are all these people going?
It’s moments like these -when you’re confined to a small space of silent solitude- that you begin to slowly pick apart your life, asking yourself difficult introverted questions, prohibiting yourself from giving yourself the run-around with hypothetical responses. Sitting in traffic, despair and fantasy hopscotch several steps ahead of you, and you wish that you can just stomp on the gas and drive away from it all. It’s easy to fantasize about starting over in a different place when you can’t seem to satisfy your own urgent questions with reasonable responses.
What am I doing with my life? Is this as good as it’s going to get? Is this a snapshot of the rest of my life? Stuck to my seat, stuck in traffic, stuck? Is this crowded freeway an accurate depiction of the reality of my surroundings, full of people rushing slowly to get nowhere? Have all of these people given up on dreaming, enslaved by societal responsibilities, hypnotize by the possibility of something better, weathered and submissive to the almighty matrix of mass deception? Am I still too naïve to think that I have it in me to make it on my own, believing that I can flourish and survive in the margins of a society that claims to do everything by the book? Where is my niche? What was I put on this earth to do?
2:32 pm. Downtown Los Angeles loomed large in the horizon, the high-rises peaking gravely through the dense brown cloud of rush-hour smog, so close yet a lifetime away. I began to feel defeated, resigned to a realization that I’d been fighting all of my life; sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do as oppose to doing what you oughtta be doing. I knew that I wasn’t put on this great earth to become another nut in an assembly line of unfulfilled aspirations and hungry souls. I knew that I didn’t have it in me to let the city swallow me. There had to be more...
But where? And what? What the hell am I supposed to be doing?
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a black BMW cut in front of me, making me slam on my brakes. It was like an answer from the heavens. Right there in front of me was this little 1977 BMW with license plates that read, “JSTWRTE.”
J(u)ST( )WR(i)TE.
As quickly as the car had swerved in front of me, I saw it weave into a different lane, jumping ahead, dodging its way forward with finesse and agility that only German engineering could make possible. I sat there, stunned and startled, amazed that God herself heard me badgering myself with endless questions, when all I needed to do was focus on what I really want to do and just follow the rabbit.
Without thinking, I switched on my turn signal and started to chase the little BMW, darting back and forth through traffic, following JUSTWRTE. I trailed the car, darting towards my right shoulder, pursuing it onto the off-ramp, exiting the freeway. I saw the car make a right off the freeway, but a red light caught me. The little BMW made a left onto Figueroa and disappeared from sight.
Before long, I found myself headed north on Figueroa towards the Staples Center, cruising through green intersections, quickly making my way towards Downtown. 2:45pm. I could still make it. As I raced along, I searched for the black BMW that led me out of that crowded mess, wondering if I had imagined it. I never saw the car again.
I got to work at exactly 3 pm. Had I stayed on the freeway, I definitely wouldn’t have made it on time.
Since then, I’ve been wondering if that car had been a mere mirage in the heat of the moment, fueled by the panic that I felt about getting fired from my job for being late once again. When I think about what I was asking myself right before the car swerved in front of me, I almost relent and say that it was just something that I saw because I wanted to see it. But I can remember looking at the license plates clearly, reading every single capital letter aloud, completely humbled and amazed by the absurdity of it all. It’s a story that I couldn’t have made up, even if I wanted to. I think saw it because I needed to see it.
I guess I was just at the right place at the right time once again. And if I could remember to just write, everything’ll be just right.
It was hot and muggy. My left arm was toasting in the sun, and I knew that by the end of the week, I’d have the famous driver’s tan: one arm nicely sun-blessed a healthy brown, the other white and veiny. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, wishing that an ocean breeze would come and caress the sweat off my face. I closed my eyes and imagined that I was sitting on the Manhattan Beach pier, watching the waves ripple below me. I could almost hear the perpetual meditative hush of the ocean…
The car behind me honked. I opened my eyes and released the brake, my car inching ever so slowly forward. The freeway was full and at a standstill, each lane of cars snaked onward like giant centipedes, every car riding the brake. I glanced at my cell phone. 2:27pm. Shit.
I had to be at work by 3 pm, and I had barely passed the Slauson entrance. On a good day, no traffic, my commute to work is barely over 20 minutes. But lately, in spite of the fact that I leave my spot an hour before I’m supposed to clock in, I haven’t been able to make it to work on time. What should be a 20 minute commute from South Central to Silver Lake has turned into an epic hour and a half of empty daydreams, fantasies of parting the ocean of cars like Moses and speeding along, people watching, and thinking too much.
I wiped the sweat off my forehead, glancing sideways into the black Prius right next to me. Through the tinted passenger window, I spied a beautiful Latina rockin’ some pimpy shades, gaze straight ahead, hands on the 10 and 2 o’clock position, all her windows sealed. Must be nice to have some A.C. I sighed and opened my sunroof. The sunlight immediately reddened my forehead and I squinted ahead. No breeze… just a stale invisible cloud of exhaust fumes that pricked at my nostrils, making my forehead ache.
The radio in my car stared silently back at me, taunting me to raise my fist and punch it. No A.C., no radio, two of my windows won’t go down, and I was gridlocked, condemned to spend a good portion of my afternoon sitting in traffic once again.
This is my life, ending one second at a time, as I sit in this miserable car, headed towards a miserable job that I hate, winding along this concrete channel of frustration and resentment along with all these other miserable folks, moving more slowly than slow-motion. What the fuck am I doing here? Why am I here? Why are all these people here? Where am I going? Where are all these people going?
It’s moments like these -when you’re confined to a small space of silent solitude- that you begin to slowly pick apart your life, asking yourself difficult introverted questions, prohibiting yourself from giving yourself the run-around with hypothetical responses. Sitting in traffic, despair and fantasy hopscotch several steps ahead of you, and you wish that you can just stomp on the gas and drive away from it all. It’s easy to fantasize about starting over in a different place when you can’t seem to satisfy your own urgent questions with reasonable responses.
What am I doing with my life? Is this as good as it’s going to get? Is this a snapshot of the rest of my life? Stuck to my seat, stuck in traffic, stuck? Is this crowded freeway an accurate depiction of the reality of my surroundings, full of people rushing slowly to get nowhere? Have all of these people given up on dreaming, enslaved by societal responsibilities, hypnotize by the possibility of something better, weathered and submissive to the almighty matrix of mass deception? Am I still too naïve to think that I have it in me to make it on my own, believing that I can flourish and survive in the margins of a society that claims to do everything by the book? Where is my niche? What was I put on this earth to do?
2:32 pm. Downtown Los Angeles loomed large in the horizon, the high-rises peaking gravely through the dense brown cloud of rush-hour smog, so close yet a lifetime away. I began to feel defeated, resigned to a realization that I’d been fighting all of my life; sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do as oppose to doing what you oughtta be doing. I knew that I wasn’t put on this great earth to become another nut in an assembly line of unfulfilled aspirations and hungry souls. I knew that I didn’t have it in me to let the city swallow me. There had to be more...
But where? And what? What the hell am I supposed to be doing?
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a black BMW cut in front of me, making me slam on my brakes. It was like an answer from the heavens. Right there in front of me was this little 1977 BMW with license plates that read, “JSTWRTE.”
J(u)ST( )WR(i)TE.
As quickly as the car had swerved in front of me, I saw it weave into a different lane, jumping ahead, dodging its way forward with finesse and agility that only German engineering could make possible. I sat there, stunned and startled, amazed that God herself heard me badgering myself with endless questions, when all I needed to do was focus on what I really want to do and just follow the rabbit.
Without thinking, I switched on my turn signal and started to chase the little BMW, darting back and forth through traffic, following JUSTWRTE. I trailed the car, darting towards my right shoulder, pursuing it onto the off-ramp, exiting the freeway. I saw the car make a right off the freeway, but a red light caught me. The little BMW made a left onto Figueroa and disappeared from sight.
Before long, I found myself headed north on Figueroa towards the Staples Center, cruising through green intersections, quickly making my way towards Downtown. 2:45pm. I could still make it. As I raced along, I searched for the black BMW that led me out of that crowded mess, wondering if I had imagined it. I never saw the car again.
I got to work at exactly 3 pm. Had I stayed on the freeway, I definitely wouldn’t have made it on time.
Since then, I’ve been wondering if that car had been a mere mirage in the heat of the moment, fueled by the panic that I felt about getting fired from my job for being late once again. When I think about what I was asking myself right before the car swerved in front of me, I almost relent and say that it was just something that I saw because I wanted to see it. But I can remember looking at the license plates clearly, reading every single capital letter aloud, completely humbled and amazed by the absurdity of it all. It’s a story that I couldn’t have made up, even if I wanted to. I think saw it because I needed to see it.
I guess I was just at the right place at the right time once again. And if I could remember to just write, everything’ll be just right.