It is odd what moments our lives grab us and shake us like a doggy toy until laughter and tears spill out. Odder still is the new way I view and perceive the world since being diagnosed. I have no idea why the mere thought of a moment from a few days ago can still tear me up and make me smile. But, that seems fitting as I'm clueless as to why and how it became one of those moments in the first place. I have chosen not to over analyze and just tuck it away into my internal cedar chest.
The sun, unusually not clad in Portland grey that day, was warm on my back that afternoon. I waited for my chance to turn left onto a busy road near my work. My windows were down allowing a light breeze to be company to the idle non thoughts one has at a long wait for a stubborn turn signal to go green. There was a lot of cross traffic busily being busy. That was all it was in my thoughts, busy blurs not registering as single entities but just a river of metal racing by. There was nothing significant about the jeep, waiting for its own left turn signal, my thoughts suddenly latched onto. At least not at first.
It was a red Jeep Wrangler. The windows were down sharing the same breeze the rest of us were sharing. For some reason the driver was wearing a black vest. I quickly decided he was a bartender or headed for a wedding. I voted for bartender. Who gets married at 4 p.m. on a Monday? The driver was also wearing unusually large sun glasses that reflected the world he looked at.
As my mind focused in more on the scene before me I noticed that the driver's companion was a dog. A big curly thing, colored a muddy brown doing what dogs do, head out the window drinking the wind. More focus in my mind and I noticed that not only was the driver wearing sunglasses but the dog had strapped on a pair of goggles. The dog with goggles struck me as so funny that out of character for me I tapped my horn. The jeep driver glanced my way probably expecting impatience being revealed by the middle finger but instead he sees my arm out my window hand high in the air giving him the universal thumbs up sign. The Jeep driver needing no verbal explanation and knowing that his dog didn't have thumbs returned the thumbs up in proxy.
As the Jeep with the goggle clad dog leaning out the window made thier turn I was laughing so hard I had tears streaming down my face. Apparently from four wide lanes away the driver could hear me and added a wave of his own as the jeep left my view.
This all happened in less time then it takes to read this. But in that brief moment in the most mundane of situations a connection was made between a stranger, a dog wearing goggles and myself. It was a moment I probably would have missed a few months ago.
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