The maroon Honda Pilot was ambling through the school zones, keeping to the speed limit while other cars zoomed around it, oblivious to flashing yellow lights, or perhaps simply in too much a hurry to heed. I followed the rule-keeper, because I’m a rule-keeper myself.
This car was going slightly slower than the speed limit, but I was on my way back from a doctor’s appointment and had nowhere important to be. The car provides a good thinking space, quiet, confined, automatic. So I remained behind the Pilot not only because of my non-hurry but also because I’d noticed a purple Crayola marker sitting on the lip of the Pilot’s bumper. I wanted to see how long that purple marker would hang on through the starts and stops of traffic. I wanted to see it roll off the bumper and into the street, where it would likely embark on another journey, settling against the curb of the street or, less happily, smashed beneath the tires of another car.
But that purple marker held on, until the Pilot turned left on Knights Cross, where it disappeared from my view. It had held on for two miles—maybe more.
Dear Self:
Hold on like the purple marker.
