|
Inside Traffic |
It's a perfect way to begin my errands early
Saturday morning. Bocelli's "La voce del
silenzio"
is playing as I drive up Sawtelle. I don't
speak Italian but know the title translates
roughly as the voice
of silence, a most appealing idea, but maybe
it's telling that I listen to Andrea sing at
the super loud volume
I use when I want to hear a melody again and
again. Not even halfway through the song, as I
cross
Washington, a car streaks out of a driveway
just yards in front of me. I slam on my brakes,
honk, and know
this was a narrow miss. I curse a sentence or
two out loud, wishing the driver could hear me,
then replay
Bocelli's song from the beginning, trying to
return to the mood I was enjoying. But now I've
lurched
into my own noisy refrain, suddenly seven years
back at my son's wedding, remembering how
lovely
it was only to hear the shreik of someone I
love finding fault with anything she can about
that special day.
Not exactly the silent voice I want to hear but
not much choice for that same old conversation
in my head -
about how we let some people in our lives have
a power over us they surely don't deserve, and
we know
we shouldn't let them but we do. Now I've
turned onto Barrington and find it calming to
watch a solitary
woman runner slowly circle a grassy park. I
distract myself by looking at billboards and
store signs,
the one looming before me says POOCH in letters
which outsize all the other nearby business
names,
and I play the song again. Somehow I get
soothed back into the melody, no need to
understand the words.
copyright 2015
Amy
Uyematsu |
