The empty rows behind me cause an uncontrollable dance in my shoulders. No one can interrupt me and so I am blaring guitar strums, fiddles, drums, the likes of Florida Georgia Line and Jason Aldean. I have roughly 40 minutes of whatever I want. It is hick-ish bliss and I am swept away in all sorts of undignified.

Until traffic stops. Unlike many who deal with this every day, I am excited. Something has happened. I may have to cancel my appointment or, like not arrive on time, and with a story.

In the cars next to me hands ball into fists and hold heads, people are on their phones. I am too (don’t tell my dad) because this is news. I attempt to sound lackadaisical in my texts.
“Yeah, I may not make it. The highway is STOPPED.”
As if it is such a bother.

Night quietly spills around me and soon I am in a sea of red, taillights everywhere blinking like signals at an intersection as we ebb and flow. Red, like blood that could be all over crunched metal ahead.

I remember going into labor with each of my kids. Pain that had me buckling on all fours at the top of my stairs, relief that I would actually be free of heartburn again. I remember the hospital and how it felt when our little ones arrived. Always a sterile room, lots of people, my husband giddy. The nurses, they became family, checking every couple of hours to see if I needed water, holding me steady while I tried to walk, getting eye to eye with me so that I knew their only job was to make sure I was good.
I also remember feeling like life was going on outside as normal. People were ordering coffee, meeting up for lunch dates, going to school, turning off their phones for their favorite Wednesday night T.V. shows…all while my life halted and I breathed in a new reality.  

Country music, the light of a phone reflecting on a young girl’s face checking Twitter, a semi trailing me with squeaky brakes and an engine like a jet, all the cars who were able to exit on the frontage road in time burning rubber like jailbirds, Toyotas and Fords and Chevys, and all of us who are going on with our lives. All of a sudden, I can’t dance.

Someone or their family is now breathing in a new reality.