photo: jetheriot
The windshield you’re looking through is a curved slab of glass fitted into the front window of your car, an inner version of your outer perimeter of vision, serving to frame what’s important to see while you’re rolling down the road, invisible enough to see what you’re driving toward as clearly as possible while still protecting you from the elements, and coated with thin layers of plastic to prevent shattered glass, in the event of an accident, from being sprayed into your face.
The windshield is where the action is, where you need to be carefully looking when you’re driving, but if you’re like everybody else, you’re never always looking where you should. Your eyes may be open, your face may be pointing in the direction of the windshield, but you’re not always giving your full attention to what’s happening on the other side of it.
You’re driving down the highway late at night and you turn the radio on. The song you hear reminds you of someone and you wonder how he’s doing. You think back to the last time you saw him, May maybe, and the memory of your friend looms larger than the tiny raindrops collecting on your windshield. It’s easy to do at this hour. Only when the singer sings “windshield wipers slapping time” do you return to the rainy drama unfolding on the road in front of you. You bat the beads of rain away with your wipers, sweeping the view clear again. Three songs go by, each as riveting as the next, and even though the wipers never stop moving across it, you never notice your windshield again until, out of nowhere, red brake lights and the image of the car in front of you growing larger re-captures your attention. You don’t always watch where you’re going.