Day 13 we are challenged to go for a walk and write everything little thing we notice. Now that sounds like fun I often do, and will do, just that. But today I've been travelling all day, and I'm just going to try out a bit of prose poetry, a rant, perhaps, about 'everything I noticed' a week ago, when I was
Applying to Renew My Driver's License
My mood sinks, my afternoon shrinks, when I observe a long line just inside the door. "This line is only for tabs," a voice calls, "all others over there." I'm in luck. My line is "over there." A yellow sign, "Applications for drivers' license and renewals" presides over three clipboards, neatly overlapped on a high counter like cookies in a bakery. No cookies, or even coffee, on offer here. I take clipboard and pen, head for a seat among black, formed-plastic chairs deployed along a wall. "Grab one for me too," a young man says to his girl. l don't know she's his girl friend, but they both seem young, so, maybe...Curls ranging from yellow to strawberry blonde cascade gently down her back. Observing this, I allow four other applicants to step up and draw numbered tabs, which I now notice for the first time . I pull number thirty four, take my clipboard to the farthest chair, next to the young couple, who are talking about the licensing process--the test, who has passed, who failed-- in gentle, genial tones. A plain looking, white woman, a mother, apparently, brings in a teen aged girl in, moves two chairs to the wall at an angle a few feet away from me, directs the girl to sit, goes to pick up a clipboard and pen, gives them to the daughter, and evidently instructs the girl how to fill in the form. They must have pulled number thirty three, because they are soon called to the desk, which they approach together. I wonder whether someone who needs so much direction is ready for driving yet. But that is not my business. I finish filling in my form and have only time to write a few sentences of this observation before I am called by an impassive, middle aged clerk, to hand over my current license, verify my answers, 'Step around the corner of the counter, please,' to prove I can read a few ABC's, and pose for a photograph. Feeling rather impassive myself, by this time, I assume what I hope will be a pleasant smile, my picture-i.d.-to-be for the next ten years. "No, not yet," the woman says, "sign here first." I do. "Now step back there." I do, and I smile again. "That's it," she says, and hands me a yellow copy of my application form, which will serve as a temporary license, together with my old card, the corner snipped off, until my new card arrives in the mail. Not very poetic. Maybe I could eke some verse out of this. Mostly likely not, I decide, as I pass chairs of license applicants and the line of tabs applicants on my way out of the drab and perfunctory office, back into the fast lane of life.
Applying to Renew My Driver's License
My mood sinks, my afternoon shrinks, when I observe a long line just inside the door. "This line is only for tabs," a voice calls, "all others over there." I'm in luck. My line is "over there." A yellow sign, "Applications for drivers' license and renewals" presides over three clipboards, neatly overlapped on a high counter like cookies in a bakery. No cookies, or even coffee, on offer here. I take clipboard and pen, head for a seat among black, formed-plastic chairs deployed along a wall. "Grab one for me too," a young man says to his girl. l don't know she's his girl friend, but they both seem young, so, maybe...Curls ranging from yellow to strawberry blonde cascade gently down her back. Observing this, I allow four other applicants to step up and draw numbered tabs, which I now notice for the first time . I pull number thirty four, take my clipboard to the farthest chair, next to the young couple, who are talking about the licensing process--the test, who has passed, who failed-- in gentle, genial tones. A plain looking, white woman, a mother, apparently, brings in a teen aged girl in, moves two chairs to the wall at an angle a few feet away from me, directs the girl to sit, goes to pick up a clipboard and pen, gives them to the daughter, and evidently instructs the girl how to fill in the form. They must have pulled number thirty three, because they are soon called to the desk, which they approach together. I wonder whether someone who needs so much direction is ready for driving yet. But that is not my business. I finish filling in my form and have only time to write a few sentences of this observation before I am called by an impassive, middle aged clerk, to hand over my current license, verify my answers, 'Step around the corner of the counter, please,' to prove I can read a few ABC's, and pose for a photograph. Feeling rather impassive myself, by this time, I assume what I hope will be a pleasant smile, my picture-i.d.-to-be for the next ten years. "No, not yet," the woman says, "sign here first." I do. "Now step back there." I do, and I smile again. "That's it," she says, and hands me a yellow copy of my application form, which will serve as a temporary license, together with my old card, the corner snipped off, until my new card arrives in the mail. Not very poetic. Maybe I could eke some verse out of this. Mostly likely not, I decide, as I pass chairs of license applicants and the line of tabs applicants on my way out of the drab and perfunctory office, back into the fast lane of life.
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