Just Saying

So yesterday I drove to the library in our little town, as I've been doing pretty much every day for the last four or five weeks, and was surprised to find the parking lot pretty full, considering it was about 4:30 in the afternoon on a day when the library closes at 5. Before I had kids I used to sometimes, when I was in the right frame of mind, park deliberately far from the entrance of my eventual destination, just like my grandfather used to do. He did this, I am told, because he figured the extra walk, short as it may be, was a good thing. Averse to suburban car culture as I am, I like this mentality--and the concept of these secret little personal refusals to play into a system you do not admire. But that being said, with an independent five-year-old and a squirmy, would-be runaway of a one-year-old, these days I mostly get as close as I can. Which--although I was alone--was the mindset I was still in when I pulled into the library parking lot.

I looped a circle, then returned to a spot I'd seen pretty near the front doors. It looked tight, but although I am a mediocre driver at best, parking is my forte; I take pride in my ability to slide into spots and parallel into impossible ones. I can do this, I thought. I turned in, put my foot on the brakes at just the right moment, and turned off the car, pleased with myself. It appeared I was centered perfectly between the cars on either side of mine. And then, I opened my door, slowly, so as to avoid hitting the car on my left with it, and realized there was not enough space for me to actually get out of the car. I tried to squeeze through but to no avail. Now angry with myself, I maneuvered my way back into the driver's seat, turned on the engine, and found another spot on the other side of the lot.

Why I am I telling you this? Because as I was stomping out of the car once I was finally able to open the door it occurred to me that I need to be more watchful of my tendency to do this, to focus single-mindedly on some goal or another, ignoring the context, the consequences--all of the possible ones. The best spot in the lot is meaningless, in other words, if you can't get outside to go where you're going.

That's all.