6.8.2021 – began trying to

began trying to
nourish outrage as a screen
for apprehension

It might be called road rage.

I talk to other drivers while I drive.

I know they can’t hear but that doesn’t stop.

Think Stupid, I say as I watch other cars at intersections.

I do not suffer fools gladly.

I feel if someone is going to share my road, they share in the responsibility to preserve my life,

I wish other drivers took that responsibility a tiny teeny bit more seriously.

So I remind them.

I talk to them.

I talk then yell.

Thin Stupid, Come on!

I also expect that if someone is going to share my road, the can share in the responsibility to keep traffic moving.

And they can help themselves out a lot if only they studied up just a little before leaving on where they were going.

I talk to them.

I yell at them.

Soon I am screaming at them.

Full of outrage.

Only recently am I understanding that my outrage is a just a screen.

A screen of my own apprehension.

My apprehension over not taking my role in preserving the lives of other drivers seriously.

My apprehension over where I am going.

My apprehension that other drivers are talking to me.

My apprehension that other drivers are yelling at me.

My apprehension that other drivers at outraged.

A hero is someone who backs their car out of the driveaway know all this, and drives a car to work anyway.

*Adapted from the line, “He forced his attention away on to Welch’s habits as a car-driver, and began trying to nourish outrage as a screen for the apprehension, tapping his long brown shoe loudly on the floor and whistling It worked for five seconds or less.” from Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, London, 1956