(Im)patient
I pulled an abrupt 180° (and completely illegal) U-turn.
“What the hell are you doing, Alvin?,” my then fiance braced himself and looked at me askance.
We were headed into Disneyworld, where lines of traffic convening on the parking entrance booths snaked back interminably. I had espied a sadly neglected lone fee-taker in an empty lane clear across the horizon. Channeling my father, the aforementioned Alvin, I promptly pivoted, literally and figuratively, across six lanes of traffic.
Alvin!!!
My father was always in a rush, and saw societal rules as mere options which he could choose to observe - or not - if they stood between him and his destination or goal. He drove down the shoulder of the road to avoid traffic, and surreptitiously cut lines to minimize wait time, often humiliating me and my sister. He had no looming deadline to meet or flight to catch; he just didn’t like delays. He was not a rude man, but an anxious one who grew up on the streets of the Bronx, where his gang of tough pals influenced and guided him more than his Greek immigrant parents. When they needed a couch for their basement “clubhouse,” they simply lifted one from a fancy building’s unlocked lobby after midnight. He hustled to earn pocket money by running to White Castle for fries and burgers which he then resold at a profit on the schoolyard.
He drove with the urgency of someone transporting an ice-cradled organ to a waiting transplant surgical team. He bobbed and weaved and sped through traffic like Ali in a prizefight.
“Alvin, please. Please!!!,” my mother would implore from her copilot’s perch. “Dad, slow down!,” my sister and I cowered, unseatbelted, in the back. The velocity and intensity might wane momentarily in response to our pleas, but as if on autopilot it would wax to the max again quickly. He could not help himself. He insisted, like Raymond in Rain Man, that he was “an excellent driver.”
“Stop the car. Now. We are getting out.” She wanted to protect us, and walking down Route 1&9 in New Jersey seemed safer at that moment than driving in the car with him. Much to our relief, he decelerated and calmed down until we reached our home in Westfield. I had nightmares about trudging home down the busy highway with my mom and younger sister.
Pass It On
“Where are you going in such a hurry?,” I asked when he offered up his “secret” routes for avoiding downtown traffic when we moved to Westport 27 years ago. Things were different then: traffic meant three cars lined up to turn left onto the Post Road from Wilton Road. It was hardly the true horror show it is now. He could never answer, and it seemed that he was only hurtling headlong to an early death. He did achieve that goal at age 66. He smelled very few roses along the way, always focused on getting to the next one as quickly as possible, before anyone else.
I inherited his attributes for better and for worse: I intuitively know where I am in space and how to get where I’m going. I can parallel park a car with one hand on the wheel and the other on the back of the passenger seat in one motion - backup camera be damned. My middle name is efficiency. My second middle name, though, is impatience.
I bristle at the driver who doesn’t race off like an Indy car driver when the light turns green. I roll my eyes and sigh when a coffee customer wants clarification on a latte versus a cappuccino.
Where am I rushing to? Years and years of therapy, yoga, and meditation have taught me to at least notice when my jaw clenches and my shoulders pin themselves to my earlobes whilst the traveler ahead of me in the security line argues with the beleaguered TSA agent about her water bottle.
If I can remind myself to invoke compassion as well as mindfulness, I might cultivate empathy. Maybe that person idling at the light just received some upsetting news. Maybe the coffee client has only ever ordered Joe at a diner before and doesn’t know that a tall is a small. Maybe the flier doesn’t do it frequently. Maybe when I make it through the light, Starbucks line, or Security queue just doesn’t matter that much (you know I arrive at the airport eons before departure time).
I try to have empathy for my father, too. He cursed me with the anxiety he inherited from his father. But he blessed me with so much more than that, including unconditional love and support. I desperately wish, with some of the wisdom age has gifted me, and some of the insights I’ve gleaned in the 22 years since his death, that I could sit down with him over an unhurried cup of coffee and chat.