Brain Lapse

Tuesday morning, the day after Memorial Day, I woke at 4:22 (somehow, that seems to be when I am waking on school mornings), got out of bed finally at 5:30, and was on my way by 6:15, thinking I'll get to school early and start grading papers.  I have at least a hundred papers to grade.

I opened the sunroof on the Volvo to let in the early morning smells:  pine, grass, foggy mist.  Every thing had a sheen of gray-green as I shot up the Sawmill River Parkway.  I was absorbed in the news of the Turkish ship commandeered by Israeli soldiers, the deaths of civilians, the videos made that showed both sides in the right.  I did not like that Israel had used live ammunition.  I did not like that a non-violent protester had sunk a knife into an Israeli soldier.  I did not like that Gazans are not getting in enough to live well.  I did not like rockets sent from Gaza into Israel.

And before I knew it, the road looked somewhat unfamiliar.  I looked for a sign -- and I was about to breeze past Katonah.  Katonah?  Exit 42?  That meant I'd driven 9 miles past my exit.  And not just past my exit, but past the exit for Mt. Kisco that followed my exit at Roaring Brook.  And another Mt. Kisco exit.  And the exit at Bedford Hills.  How did that happen?  Where was I?

I got off the parkway onto unfamiliar roads, and wended my way to Route 117 which wound its way past shopping malls and through Mt. Kisco's downtown to Chappaqua -- getting me to school about 20 minutes later than I had hoped to arrive.

I wondered -- was it that the news usually came on when I was about 10 miles south of exit 33 -- meaning that I still had 10 miles to go before my exit?  Was my mind just not on where I was and I was lost in the news and in my dreamy early morning thoughts, in particular -- how I dreaded going to work these days since I'd been "let go"?  My psychiatrist would have voted for the later -- saying there are no accidents.  Our brains do what they do because that is what we will -- consciously or not.