3, 2, 1 Contact

I am that person who creeps you out at the stop light by making eye contact with you.
I can't help myself.
I am always inserting myself into the car beside me, the truck across the way, the bus rolling under the swinging yellow light on a slightly windy afternoon.
Even in our little city, the chances I know anyone in the other vehicles is slim.  That old lady (q-tip head) slowly cranking the wheel in a left turn... is her arthritis bad today? Is she lost in thought of another car ride long ago, when her lover stroked her thigh... or to a time when singing children cajoled in the back seat?  That stern looking truck driver with the dark beard and darker eyes; is he wishing he was in a state where license plates were the same as his?  Is he lonely?  Or is home a lonelier place than the road?
Those young boys, with the loud bass beat rocking their car and cigarettes riding low on their lips... are they dreaming of being cool as they gun their engine and fist pump to the beat of the music?
The story teller in me has always played this game.
  On those occasions when I lock eyes with someone in a car near by, I wonder if they are making up the story of my life.  When they see me squinting through the sun streaked windshield, do they see me as a somewhat disheveled woman, mid-way or more through my ride on this earth.... do they know that my sadness has matched my glee?  That my love for those around me is fed by the love of those I have lost?  Can they picture me, young and wild with my sun-tanned arm out a rolled down window, long hair streaming in the wind, singing off key to a too loud FM station or cassette tape? 
3,2,1 Contact.  It is just the story of another life.