Traffic

I used to live in a neighborhood. I lived in it for a short time – maybe three years before we couldn’t afford to live in that house any longer and when I lived in that neighborhood, in that brown split foyer house with the salmon colored doors, I would walk up to the grocery store. I would have to walk down the hill, past the apartments we lived behind, and across the bridge to get to that grocery store.

On my way, I would never been able to resist the temptation to stop at the bridge and look down. I would stare at all of the cars that passed underneath me and wonder who the people were inside them. That woman in the red convertible - was she a free spirit? Where did she work? Did she have kids and a family back home? Did she have a home?

The man in the red truck – where was he going? Was he on the way to his job? Was he a hardworking man? Was he a man with a troubled past?

I'd get lost in the traffic below me. I felt different up there. I listened to the sounds of car horns honking and music blaring; I felt the vibrations of big semis going underneath the bridge. The wind whipped through my hair as I watch the small people below me in their toy cars. I wondered if God watched us like this, stationed high somewhere, just observing the people below.

I wondered if someday when I traveled beneath this bridge if someone would watch me. If someone would wonder about me. Where is she going? Is she going home? Does she have a home?

Eventually, I would have to stop wondering, I'd have to stop watching the scene below me. I would have to divert my eyes from the traffic and pull myself away from the bridge. I'd finally make my way to the grocery store, back across the bridge, past the apartments, and up the hill, back to the brown split foyer house with the salmon doors. My dad would stare at me strangely when I made my way back inside, as if wondering where I'd been for so long but he'd never ask. I wonder if he knew how I’d watched I’d been perched on top of the world and watched the people below me. I wonder if he knew how I’d spent my time playing God.