Understanding situations
The intersection at Northern Lights Blvd. and Minnestota Dr.
The situations of everyday life are so normal that it is hard to see them for what they actually are. In this new feature we reflect on what is in front of us. Here are thoughts from Humanity News staff after we stood together one afternoon at the major Anchorage intersection.
I don’t belong here standing on the corner of Northern Lights and Minnesota. No, this is where trucks meet cars and the people within them meet each other with impatience. This is where wastefulness meets loneliness and where dreams of another life are stopped by a green light.
When a group of us decided to stand on the corner of Northern Lights and Minnesota to observe what goes on at a busy intersection, my expectations weren’t very high.
I myself am filled with red light rage. I have a terrible habit of creeping forward, centimeter by centimeter, as if I could intimidate the light into turning green with my menacing purple Tracker. It doesn’t help that the red lights conspire against me every time I’m running late--they’re a vast network of evil, snickering lights, determined to stretch the drive time from my house to work from fifteen minutes to forty-five.
The point being, I spend a lot of time in my car being angry and in a hurry.
These states of mind do not a pleasant or safe driver make. As I stood on the busy corner that chilly evening, I took notice of the drivers’ faces. Some were wearing a scowl familiar to me--the look I’ve felt on my own face, the look that says This red light hates me, and I want to kill it. Others seemed disengaged from traffic altogether, staring blankly at their steering wheels while they wondered what to have for dinner, or made a metal list of things to do that evening, or tried to remember the names of all seven dwarves.
But there were a couple drivers who wore contented expressions. I don’t believe these people were delighted by sitting in traffic; but they did seem okay with having caught a red light. In a busy day filled with appointments and deadlines, with have-to-dos and gotta-bes, in a world where our soles and our souls are worn away as we scramble from one thing to the next, perhaps these drivers welcomed the brief intermission the red light allowed. I can’t tell you what these folks were thinking as they gazed at the traffic light, but I don’t believe they were counting the seconds until the light turned green. There is a chance, though, that one or two of these drivers were savoring the moment; perhaps they noticed how the clouds had lowered themselves over the mountains like halos that evening, or maybe they made eye contact with another driver, a brief human connection in a sea of engines and exhaust fume and urgency.
I approached a women in an SUV, offering her a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh. She smiled with disdain and looked away. Her window was rolled up tight, so it was impossible to tell her that I just wanted to hand her an insight about a beneficial way to deal with red lights.
The intersection is not just an engineering necessity. It is a real metaphor: the crossing point and the way we actually intersect. The arterial streets are our life-blood, streaming us in armored shells to private destinations. Standing on the street corner, pulling my coat tight around my neck against the cold, looking back at the made up and fashionably dressed lady, I wondered: How can we open up these shells, and build intersections of human souls and true identity?
The public is invited to join us on Monday, November 28 at 5:15pm at the entrance to The Home Depot for the next ‘Understanding Situations.’ After 40 minutes there and at the adjacent Lowe’s store we’ll retire to a nearby cafe for an additional 30 minutes. We’ll each contribute an anonymous paragraph for the upcoming issue of Alaska Humanity News.