Driving home recently, the skies opened - wide. Poured rain. Piles and piles of heavy rain. Hoping against hope that the rural road leading to my neighborhood wasn’t flooded or I’d need to abandon my car by the side of the road, and walk home. Not a fan of wet, cold feet…
Carefully negotiating this mass of wetness, I saw a car, unexpectedly, pull out of a driveway, right in front of me. Whoa! That car came to an unexpected and immediate stop. And I panicked. My car slipped and slid, trying also to stop. Heart pounding, hoped there was enough traction so I wouldn’t slide off the road and into the ditch.
Skidded to a halt, with no ditch-dunking. Phew! The driver, who’d engaged in the scary stop, opened his door and waved me around him on the really wet two-lane road. What the heck? I was furious, my heart still pounding from my unexpected vehicular slip, sliding. And par for the course, composing a (none-too-friendly) script in my head, replete with searing judgments about this insensitive driver and his actions on this dangerous road. Jeez, have some courtesy for your fellow drivers, all of us struggling to stay afloat in this mass of wetness.
Cutting the other driver to smithereens, in my mind’s quickly-forming script, I slowly began to pull around his car. Suddenly, I saw the reason for his abrupt stop. A beautiful box turtle was (slowly) crossing the road. The driver had scrunched to a stop in order to avoid hitting it. Wearing no raincoat, and exiting his car in this cascade of wetness, he moved the turtle to the other side of the road. And me? My judgmental script evaporated. I’m opening my car window, sticking my head out in the pouring rain, shouting“thank you! thank you!” multiple times.
Like the unknown (and now soaking wet) gent with whom I was so angry just a moment ago, I’m a turtle lover. In fact, I’m such an ardent turtle rescue momma that I’ve narrowly avoided being hit by a car in my own mania to save a turtle. Nothing like going into a reactive mode when a turtle is at risk. Reactive? In my craze of “gotta save that turtle,” I literally slam on the brakes, jump out of my vehicle, (usually forgetting to look both ways for other cars) and barrel toward moving the turtle to other the side of the road. That little issue of saving the turtle somehow seems to subsume my own personal safety concerns. And to cap it off, frightened turtles often pee on the hands of ardent Turtle Crossing Saviors. Did I say I love turtles?
Oh, yes; that very uncomplimentary script I’d written in my head regarding the stopped driver. Left me cogitating the (often) reactive scripts I compose in my mind on the spur of the moment when I have no context, or understanding, of someone’s actions. Just diving, head first, into that deep and judgmental hole of “they’re wrong!” Wondering if the phrase “love turtles” (or slow down) might serve as a cue when, next, I find myself tumbling into judgment-land, without benefit of a larger picture. Time will tell…
Oh, Jan! I hear you! Well done, you!