Goose Crossing

“Dilemma of civilized man; body mobilized, but danger obscure.”

Philip K. Dick The Man in the High Castle

I was running a little behind this morning. More than usual. I was late, but I was only going to work, and I’m in no hurry.

Rush hour was just rearing its ugly head. Cars were beginning to rush through yellow, and sometimes red lights. Stop signs were more of a suggestion, roll up, look quickly and accelerate through the intersection. Nobody has time to stop, work is calling.

White knuckles, clenched teeth, muscles aching from the tension. Nobody wants to be late. It doesn’t bother them enough to leave earlier, just enough to drive as if they were in a race. Storming down residential streets, making up for lost seconds spent finishing the third cup of coffee.

There is a busy three-way intersection, the type I would love to be able to avoid, only a few blocks from my house. On one side there is huge distribution center, with all the attendant tractor/trailer trucks bustling in and out. On the other side is an enormous facility for consolidating garbage for the Solid Waste Authority. Small trucks shuffle in, empty their load and cruise out again. Larger trucks, splattered with wild streaks of color, the whole mandala of modern American rubbish, rumble out with covered trailers, taking the concentrated trash to the landfill on the other side of town. And, on the last side is one of those storm water retention ponds that are popping up all over.

I turn left at the intersection. There is a left turn light, and when it is green is the only time you can turn left. I like the concrete, absolute rigidness. I can set there luxuriating in the 3 minutes (or so, give or take a few seconds) of peace. Other cars fly past me, rushing madly from home to work, or work to home, or home to the donut shop or gas station or fast food place to grab a quick breakfast, something fried, filled with sugar or salt, and then to work. Frenzied, frenetic, fast paced madness. No rest for the wicked to the nth degree. There is no Zen, no harmony, only harried, hurried, untrammeled velocity.

Since I was running a little behind schedule things were more pronounced. Everything moved a little quicker. Cars jammed so close it was like one of those time lapse photos of traffic, everything running together in a wild blur of indistinct color.

I stopped to wait for the light to change. There was a small lull, a few seconds of space carved out of the granite facade of time, that left a small window in the screaming flow of metal. A family of geese, two adults and three goslings felt the time was right and decided to cross the road. Destination in mind, action initiated. A little feathered dance of indifference,

This street is ours

They didn’t care about schedules, time tables, attendance policies, staff meetings, or growing lines at the drive-through. It brought a little pleasure to my morning, watching them stroll casually across the intersection, ten feet outside the crosswalk, against the light. Mankind’s foolish conventions and slavish addiction to speed weren’t of any consequence to them. They were far enough and slow enough to create problems for traffic in all directions.

People were doing everything in their power to keep moving forward, to maintain that awful momentum they had built since climbing into their cars. Squealing, screeching tires, last minute lane changes and the sudden awful display of momentum violated, as a car screamed to a dead stop. In a way it made me proud of my extended family of morning commuters, they were willing to stop (no matter how angry it made them), or crash into someone else (to hell with the potential expense, I can squeeze into that narrow opening between the school bus and the beer truck) than run over this small, orderly family outing.

They were across and safely in the grassy area surrounding the retention pond when the light changed for left turn only. In the chaos that has become the soundtrack of life today watching those geese cross the road, casual and calm gave me a feeling of hope. Maybe someday we can be as smart as the wildlife.