darting

“You’re f— kidding me, right?” she mutters repeatedly to herself as she steers her milky blue Jeep down the 405 Freeway, darting her eyes between the highway ahead and the black car in the lane next to her that is inching too close for comfort.

And hardly a day has passed since when that question hasn’t been darting around the edge of my mind, flaring ridiculously into view every time I misplace a word, a name or a pair of glasses.

What makes it extra special: “I enjoy the scramble and huff up the challenging crags. I’ll sometimes trail run up and will have to bound over a basking, slumbering snake or two. Harmless but spooked. Not to mention the scramble of feral rabbits darting every which way as I come lumbering down the path. It’s that kind of ravenous tranquility no amount of yoga or meditation can ever hope to attain. No small amount of nirvana, I say.”

In the moment, between darting thoughts of suffocation, I thought of the Astroworld crowd crush in 2021 that left 10 people dead and many more injured.

But then Michael Cera’s, if I recall, is in his parents’ bedroom, and he’s saying his lines and his eyes are darting around.