Long Trip Home, alternately titled...Awareness

So, yesterday, I drove to Toronto to do some interviews for a series of articles I’m doing. The traffic on the way in was a bit heavy for the last few roads, but still, it only took me a little more than three and a half hours. Not bad.

Interviews done, I set off for home, thinking I’d beat the worst of the traffic and should make about the same time.

Wrong.

The traffic started the moment I got on 401, and continued until I was almost back in the States. Twenty miles an hour on a highway does not bode well for a quick trip home. I felt myself getting more and more agitated...then I stopped and thought.

In January, I picked a word for the year...Awareness. Sometimes I forget about it, but Monday, in that horrendous traffic, I remembered and just stopped. I became aware. I was stuck in traffic. I could either piss and moan the whole way home (and the whole way home was certain to be longer than the way to Toronto) or I could look for things to enjoy. Here’s my list of things that, because I was aware, I was able to appreciate.

The Scenery.
Let’s face it, most of the time when you’re driving like on congested, unfamiliar highways, you’re concentrating on not getting smooshed. Because we were going soooo slow, I had time to drink in my surroundings. Beautiful trees. Businesses. Homes. A storm had blown in, and I watched it retreat to the east, marveling in the clouds, so dark against the brightening sky overhead.

My iPod.
I put my iPod on shuffle. For those non-techs, it simply means the iPod randomly chooses songs. And since all the songs on my iPod are songs I like, that traffic jam was like a long radio stretch, where every song they play you love. I listened to Meatloaf crooning, "For Crying Out Loud, You Know I Love You," followed by songs from Wicked, Rent, Sideshow and Jane Eyre. One particularly great moment was when Briar Hill came on. Last fall, when my book, The House on Briar Hill Road, came out, a reader, Cindy Carlson, wrote and produced a song based on it. It was so cool to hear it sandwiched between James Blunt and James Taylor.

People Watching.
Okay, that sounds creepy, but as a writer, I love watching people and making up stories for them. The frazzled mother in her mini van with the backseats filled with kids and car seats. Now there was a woman I felt bad for. I was crooning in my car, and became very aware that even if she had good music going, she was also listening to a chorus of, Are- we-there-yets and He/She’s-touching-mes. I watched people go by and tried to guess their occupations. The lawyer, the businesswoman, the artist, the guy with the loud music who was maybe trying to be as aware of himself as I was.

Now, I finally made it to the US border in a far happier and relaxed state than someone who just took an extra hour to arrive at her destination should be in. The border lady I pulled up to looked very frazzled and a bit tired. And she asked for my ID.  I handed her my license and she asked if I had my Passport. Now, this was a moment of utter glee that I totally owned and was aware of. You see, I got my passport a year ago, hoping for some huge international trip. Harlequin sent me on a trip once to Salamanca , NY once and while it was a fine city, I keep hoping they ask me to go to someplace overseas, or a speaking gig in another country comes up. Then, I’ll be all ready. So, I've got a never-used, unstamped passport.  Back to the border...so she asks for my passport and I smile broadly as I handed to her. Alas, I didn’t get any stamps in it, but I used it. And that was gleeful.

Then, she asked why I’d been in Canada. I told her I’d been to Harlequin’s office and she asked why. And well, most of you know me by now. Before she handed my back my now-used-passport and license, she knew I was a writer, knew about the books coming out, and had her very own Holly Jacobs’ bookmark! LOL 

So, I pulled back in my drive over an hour later than I’d anticipated. But, because I’d taken a moment at the beginning of the trip to realize that I was stuck in traffic and that the only choice I really had was to  either piss and moan about it, or just figure out how to have fun with it. Because I was aware, I enjoyed a lot of weird little moments that might have just passed me by unnoticed otherwise. Good music, lovely scenery, people I’ll never know, but shared a crowded highway with...and even the first time I got to use my passport, and made a potential new reader!

I think that car-trip home was a rather good analogy for life. Sometimes, things are smooth and go just the way you want. Those are times that it’s easy to smile and enjoy life. But sometimes, you get snarled in a traffic jam. It’s nothing you could have prevented. Nothing you can do anything about except creep along until you’re out of it. Those are tougher times to smile and enjoy life, but if you pause for a moment and watch what’s going on around you as you putt along, you can find moments to be happy about. It’s just a little more work!

Holly

www.HollyJacobs.com
ONCE UPON A THANKSGIVING, American Romance 10/08
ONCE UPON A CHRISTMAS, American Romance 12/08
ONCE UPON A VALENTINE'S, American Romance 2/09
still available at eHarlequin...SAME TIME NEXT SUMMER, SuperRomance