“What's this now?” I asked my son after I turned off the road and into the schools' driveway. About a dozen people with placards had gathered on the sidewalk where the intersection jammed with cars. It was just after 7 a.m., his usual driver -- his sister -- had taken the day off.
"Anti-factsers," he said with a sigh. “They don't want their kids to wear masks or have to get vaccinated or to discuss American History, I guess if it means talking about the racism parts. But I don't think any of them have kids who actually go to school here.”
“That seems weird.”
It took several minutes to get through the line, let him off, and get back to the road where the protestors stood, waving at traffic with bare-faced, beatific grins. They were joyful in their work professing strongly-held but evidence-free beliefs.
As I waited for my chance to escape, a woman bundled against the cold wave at me, seeking some solidarity. Perhaps a thumbs-up.
I gave her a different finger.
It happened so suddenly. A knee-jerk reaction to a cheerful wave of a sign that bore a stolen slogan, and my undeniable urge to protest gushed forth. I used the only sign I had on me.
I was angry. Civility be damned.
The face outside my window changed from a smile into a startled scowl and finally rested in a downturned slant. I recognized the person then. I knew her. From a past life. One in which acquaintances seem to go deeper into friendship than they do.
This knowledge, I suppose, should have caused me to feel remorse for using such a base vulgarity. The telling it like it is becoming less clear when you're telling it to a familiar face.
But I had none of those feelings. I had all of the shocks of recognition and none of the remorse. I didn't feel caught in a weak moment. I felt relieved.
I rolled down my window and made my silent protest official, albeit with more publicly acceptable words. She conveyed, with equal reserve, that our diametrically opposed disappointments were mutual. I rolled my window up again and sat in silence until a break in the traffic allowed me to merge.
I drove away slowly, letting the distance between our planted flagpoles dilute my animus.
I don't need to know why she and the others have picketed a school none of their children attend using statements of things that aren't happening there anyway. Maybe she's a true believer, or perhaps she's searching for something that's missing from her life.
Aren't we all? Missing something?
I just hope she remains healthy and that she and her family gets through this crisis without a visit from harm. But I don't have to expend any more energy changing hearts or minds.
Consistency can simply become a thing we mold around our broken thoughts, rendering it into a defective weapon or an ineffective defense.
We may be out in the world glaring at one another, but we still fit in a box with Schroedinger's cat, destined to be right and wrong at once.
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