Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Rearview Mirrors.

Whenever I come to a stop at a red light, I glance up at my rearview mirror. One time, I saw a girl wearing a Santa hat with her left arm slung carelessly out the window. Another time, I saw a mother with a stern face, looking straight ahead, silent, while her daughter sat in the passenger seat texting away. Sometimes I'll see a young couple: the boy will lean over and give her a quick kiss on the cheek and the two will smile. Once, I saw a wife talking on and on, for the entirety of the red light, her thick eyebrows moving erratically with each word, as her husband sat to her right with his chin resting against a propped up arm, bored out of his mind. Occasionally, there will be a dog, its proud head sticking haughtily out the window, tongue hanging out from the side of its mouth. It's really interesting, these little windows into people's lives. It kind of makes me wonder what the driver in front of me sees when he looks in his rearview mirror. A lonely girl singing to herself in the car? A tired athlete in her varsity jacket, her hair a total mess? Or maybe I'm just a face obscured by a pair of sunglasses, a total stranger who is nobody to the rest of the world.