Post-carpool Meditation

Returning from the carpool dropoff at 8 in the morning puts me on one of the busiest commuter highways in the nation. It's only one morning a week (we have five families!) so I can't really complain. After many attempts to find alternative routes from school to office, I've finally settled on one that runs parallel to the remains of the 19th-century Chesapeake & Ohio canal.

Plenty of cars still keep us a-crawling but but we are an orderly bunch, the commuters entering the biggish city from the mannerly suburbs. As two lanes narrow to one beneath a magnificent vaulting arch of a Civil War-era bridge, drivers take turns entering in a courteous, almost imperceptible alternating interweave of one lane with the other.

Beyond that, the road runs closest to the canal, which can be spotted through the trees. A whitewashed stone cottage with wood slat roofs are what remains of the lockmaster's lodgings to prove to us that this canal was once a going concern.

In the latest refurbishment of the canal, the National Park Service has planted huge rocks in a series parallel to the road. In the early morning sun (or rain), it gives one the illusion of a Zen garden--these rocks--somehow rather random-looking in placement, but with the obvious hand of man (and a bulldozer or two) controlling the whole. Intelligent design. Perhaps.

When traffic comes to a standstill, I can take in the serene scene of rocks, trees, water, and sky through the passenger window. I take a deep breath. Sunlight plays on the leaves. The carpool is done.

Comments

[Remainderman]

Sir -

Certainly a Zen quality to this piece.

I can say no more about it.