Car Rage and Compassion

Anger like a shank, pushed in where the neck meets the shoulders, then pulled up to the hairline and ground back and forth in jagged waves.

Thankfully the reptilian brain stem from whence the rage comes is clothed in a buttery smooth soporific chemical Kevlar, produced in most car rides longer than 5 minutes.

Strange marriage this - car-drowse cut through by car-rage. At some level, if there was perspective, I should actually have gratitude. Nothing, NOTHING seems to be able to cut through Dragonsloth - the stupor that my brain produces and descends like a fog of war around my senses. The only release from her siren song most days is simple surrender, a dip into REM or pre REM; but some days I am unexpectedly rescued, and this appears one of them.

But I'm not happy, I'm pissed.

It's the driver up ahead, see? They are driving a majestic 30 kms an hour. I've been in a commute for close to 90 minutes; am pushed to the end of my not insignificant will power to stay conscious and focused, and this clown is drifting through my trajectory from a to b, coaxing Dragonsloth to get the job done, and I'm pissed.

Many days I would happily take the invitation and pull over, let her wings close around me and drift into a brief release. Watch goes off 7 mins later, driver would be gone, I'd be back on mental terra firma, everybody's a winner.

Not today though, the end of my trajectory is anchored by somebody who is waiting for my arrival. Call ahead is not possible or appropriate. I am caught in this trap, sandwiched between 30k and Dragonsloth, slowly having the life drained out of me, and am not quite sure how I am going to make it to point B awake and aware.

I'm always delivered, it seems. I've played with Dragonsloth so much over the years, I know all the tricks that will somehow get me there. Coffee, coke, caffeine pills, cigarettes, mints and taste enflamers, and the final that always works as long as I can repeat the short bursts again and again - hold my breath. Either a slight hyperventilation followed by a big lungful of air and then 60 to 90 seconds of sensory relief from Dragonsloth, or if I want to cut to the chase, expel all the air out of my lungs, become bobo the human vacuum, chest sucked inwards, and wait 10 - 15 seconds for the fight for oxygen to rise and temporarily blind Dragonsloth. And sometimes, like today, I'm delivered by the quick and sharp venom of anger.

And boy am I pissed.

This isn't rational land, this is the iguana on the therapists couch, spitting its own venom and rolling in it, then righteously screaming about the pain and inflammation and searing wondershit it's lizard gills are coated with

I'm on the high horse and going for a gallop. Reptilian brain venom is now moving into the paleo-mammalian areas, then into the cognitive and emotional centers. I am projecting story lines and life histories and rationales for 30 k's lack of empathy. 30k has turned into a diseased, faceless receptacle of everything that is wrong here.

Vitriol and it's self justification fills the car with noxious phrases and imagery. I am squarely in Anne Coulter country now, one foot ensconced in the cognitive center, the other in the reptilian muck-land.

And then they wave.

It's my neighbor.

Anne Coulter land folds up like origami and is swallowed whole by Dragonsloth, who is Aslan-ed back and in, back and into his hibernation cave, and all the interiors of experience reflecting each other are washed in a gentle emotional saline and I realize:

That in this end, and maybe all ends, it really does all start and stop with compassion.

namaste.