Traffic is cool

I sat in traffic for about an hour this morning. No big surprise there — most people in Cape Town living outside the City Bowl probably sat in traffic for about an hour this morning.

What was unusual about my early-morning traffic experience was that I enjoyed it.
Not endured it, but enjoyed it.

Allow me to explain:

Most mornings I ride my scooter to work. I zip through that very convenient space between the two lanes of patient cars, I wend and weave my way through waiting commuters (how’s that for alliteration!) and I don’t see much along the way (except for glowering faces, longing, I like to tell myself, for the freedom of the scootered life).

This morning I got a lift to work, in a car (imagine!) and although it took at least three times longer to get there, it was far more serene. I’ve always thought of traffic as something to be fought against, something to try to get out of as quickly as possible, something wrong, in fact.

But my experience this morning was the exact opposite. We left the house in a rush, but once we were settled in the car there was no rushing at all … Just a quiet, slow trip to work, the radio informing us of horrors from around the world (I’m not a big fan of newscasts, to be honest), the spring scenery strolling past (there are an awful lot of flowers lining the highway in Cape Town), the city slowly waking up.

It was lovely.

And while I can recognise that were I to sit in traffic every day I might not enjoy it as much, I can also recognise that surely, surely this is a choice we make? To rile against the injustice of morning traffic jams or to see them as quiet moments of reflection?

I’m throwing it out there, anyway.

Suffice to say, I was late for work. But I wasn’t frazzled or strung out (I’m trying very hard to eliminate frazzled strung-outedness from my emotional vocabulary). I was feeling rather Zen, in fact.

So I’ve decided, for the time being at least, that Traffic Is Cool. It forces us to slow down, and from where I’m sitting anything that forces us to slow down has to be a good thing.

Anyone want to join me?

PS: If you happen to drive a big, shiny BMW four-wheel-drive kind of car, and you just noticed that your tow hook isn’t there any more, it fell off just before the Gardens Centre bridge. I tried catching up with you to tell you, but the lights were all green … Sorry.