Enjoy Being

The rain still smelled of ozone, its fresh scent arriving just in time for my hurried drive up North. I turn on to the freeway, the on ramp already black-wet, my wipers rushing as fast as they can back and forth, back and forth. ‘We’re trying, we’re trying’, they seem to be saying. But they aren’t good enough. Nothing is.

Where did all the traffic come from? Why can’t they get out of my way? Isn’t anyone going to let me in? What is wrong with people? Where did all the nice ones go? My face furrows. My body tenses. My mood turns thoroughly irritated.

Damn. I hate being behind cars bigger than mine. But I need to get over. That one, the one I have to get behind, he will probably be WAY too slow, too. All hippies are. And surely a hippie is driving. It’s a VW bus after all.

Then, there it is. Right there on the VW bus in front of me.

Enjoy Being.

And just like that, a simple script-written bumper sticker pierces me through the heart. Wake up. Enjoy being. Traffic? Costing you joy? What? I stare, shocked. What was I doing? I shake my head as if to shuffle it all away.

I roll my window down. Rain mixed with wind massages my face and shoulders, even my lap gets drizzled with the juice. My cheeks turn pink. I can feel the cold air on my teeth. Because I’m smiling. I want to thank the driver. He saved me from an ugly day. I put on my blinker and someone slows to let me in. I wave my arm out the window. I see a lone weed on the side of the road. It’s flowering. And beautiful. ‘I almost missed you,’ I sing out to it. I’m coming up next to the VW driver. He, too, has his window down. He is smiling. Enormously. His hair is completely soaked. He turns to me as I near. We smile at each other.

I want to tell him what he did for me. But I see he already knows. He looks at me with a knowing, a deep heart-centered knowing. Your heart is driving you, too?, his smile says to mine.

Are those tears on my cheeks or is it rain juice, showering my day with joy?