Late as usual to work, I get in the car. Yesterday I gladly took the bus, but this morning I had already missed the 8:04 bus into downtown, so I proceeded to embrace the auto alternative (AA) (how many countless times since puberty have I quote embraced the auto alternative unquote?). Turn on AC , drive down the avenue, mail the subscription invoice to The Economist magazine with the word Cancel in purple ink written twice on it, via my work-supplied tres au courant Uniball Vision pen. I think The Economist is a terrific and first-rate 'zine, especially the weekly obit, but during my trial run I did not find time to read it; I barely have time to read the cartoons in the weekly issue of The New Yorker I subscribe to.
Rewind the narrative. Leave car running, walk six to eight steps to mailbox, insert mail, return to idling car, which is locked! All doors are locked, with cellphone sitting in plain view on the front seat, passenger side. I have never done this. Until now. It briefly reminds me of the time Violet G., in Dover, New Jersey, left her car running in her in-house garage below our apartment and almost killed us all with carbon monoxide, including newborn One and Only Son. (This was one time FirstSpouse's tendency toward paranoia proved invaluable, infinitely so. I owe her thanks for that. Infinitely so.) Walk up the avenue, and I mean uphill, in the heat, wondering why, and how. And fretting slightly over being ever later to work. Knock on our door. Fortunately, CurrentSpouse is not asleep yet from night-before work. She opens the door.
"What happened?"
"I was at the mailbox, and . . . "
"You mailed your keys," she replied in the fashion that longtime partners have of finishing each other's sentences.
"No, left 'em in the car, running. There's something wrong with me neurologically. I've never done that."
"You're just getting old," she said evenly and without rancor.
Grab her spare key off the rack of keys near the door (just about the only steadily organized aspect of our household). Walk fast and jog part way down the hill. Feck it. Slow down, I tell myself. Enjoy the whole episode. Roll with it. I feel light, almost laughing, not scolding myself for this lapse. "No judgment," as the beloved late Anthony DeMello pronounced frequently in the tapes I used to listen to in 1993, driving anywhere.
This is grace.
No ticket on the car. Nor is it towed away. (Glancing thought: In some cities this would look like a looming terror threat; such are the times.) Open door of idling car. Enter, sweating. Crank AC to max. Soothing.
Drive to work, with good success on the several traffic lights.
Manage a smile, upon entering work, greeting Mary V., at 10th-floor reception desk.
This is my little secret with the world. No high drama, no "poor me," no endless and tedious recounting to co-workers. The grace of anonymity.
Just gratitude to be in The Game (although the bus does indeed beckon me to return).
P.S. Didn't you read "busness" as "business"? I would have.
P.P.S. Change "gods" to "goddesses" if you are so inclined.
(Photo credits: Bus is in 'Yeats Country,' with mystical Ben Bulben in the background; and Pawlie Kokonuts walking in Sligo City.)
