RAIN MAN
The slogan, “Be here now.” sits on my husband’s desk. My son utters these words like an incantation, hoping to conjure up my image. Camp is over, and I am 15 minutes late. Again.
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Windows up, air on, I race along a familiar road on the 23rd straight day of summer gray. My gaze shifts to a beautiful brown arm extended from a white pickup truck to my left. A young man reaches to feel rain upon his skin. I know him from this one gesture — a sensitive, open to tiny gifts. Cool. Cool. Cool. A dreamer, free to let the here and now dance on his fingertips.
I remember a girl, head tilted, eyes closed, letting the Cool. Cool. Cool. dance on her tongue.
But I am late. My wipers reject the tiny gifts as I race ahead of the here and now, toward a future which has already passed.
