moving on, moving through

Summer is really, really over. I left for work in the dark today. Back to the big jail in East county to administer GED tests. I left at 6:30, figuring it would take half an hour to get out to the college and pick up the tests. It should have taken no more than half an hour, but it rained this morning. Whenever it rains after a long dry spell, all the oil and road scum floats out of the cracks in the asphalt and renders the surface slicker than snake shit. There was an accident which reduced freeway speed to a crawl. A full stop would have been preferrable because then I could at least knit. But no, I was trapped in the early darkness amidst the 18 wheelers and the SUVs, edging along between eight and a giddy twelve miles an hour. A couple of snails galloped past me in the fog lane, making insensitive remarks and waving their eyestalks in a mocking fashion. When at last I eased up to the site of the accident, long since dealt with and tidied away, it was like getting that first glop of catsup out of the bottle. Things flowed perfectly freely from then on.

Luckily, the fellow in charge of the programs at the jail, with whom I had to meet, was running late as well. No harm, no foul. But my day did not improve. This jail has been laid out with intent to confuse and disorient, and boy does it work on me. I was lost all day long. There are cameras supervising all the halls, and several times a heavenly voice would speak from above me to say, "Where do you want to be?" I would tell them, speaking to a point rather up and to the left for some reason, and they would determine that I was too helpless to be left alone any longer. "Stay there, and we will send an officer to guide you." This is especially humiliating because usually I have an excellent sense of direction and almost never get lost. Also, one of the nightmares that will bring me sitting bolt upright in bed with cold sweat squirting from every pore is the one where I am lost and late and alone amongst strangers.

So today was a learning experience. I have been lost and late and alone among strangers, and they sent kindly guides to lead me. Thank God!!

I will go back tomorrow. I don't know if I will ever learn to find my way around in there. I doubt they will let me unroll a ball of string so I can follow it back out. Nor are they likely to let me strew a trail of breadcrumbs. If only I could have a map . . . But if I can't take my car keys, I'm darn sure they won't let me have a map.

I'm home and safe and thinking perhaps I should bake some cookies. Gotta stay on the good side of the guards, or they'll leave me to wander forever.