neverland?

In a place where I sometimes feel that everyone has turned into robots, cold and angular, just working for material things and status, I found a tiny bit of goodness left.

On the drive home tonight, after spending 5 hours in the library studying for classes this week, I was behind a new Jaguar, still with its 30-day tag crisp on its back end. The weather was nice, not hot enough for an air conditioner and not cold enough for a heater. I saw the window come down and out came a grey precision suited arm. The man held it there in the wind, and then he moved his hand up and down, making waves the way I’ve seen kids do a million times out of the window. I remember doing it too when I was younger.

He turned off into the neighborhood of expensive colonial-style houses and still had his arm out as I passed the street he turned on. I’m not sure why it made me smile, but just the thought of a 50-something businessman, who obviously lived in an expensive home and drove a brand new Jag, getting a kick out of feeling the wind through his fingers on such a nice day made the frustration of the day melt away.

I have often dreaded growing up, coming out of the age where being young and spontaneous and forgetful and dreamy isn’t acceptable anymore, into an age where being responsible and rigid is what is expected. It scares me to grow up sometimes, to gain all these heavy responsibilities, to be the one that other people, one day even children, will rely on. But seeing a grey suited arm out that window today gave me a hope, an assurance that, yes, I can still be the dreamy person I am, even if it’s just on the way home from work each day.