外出自粛だったからこそ、懐かしい思い出に浸る
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Day Dream in Self-isolate
People in the world had never imagined that we would be restricted to go out side freely, meet others directly, and have conversations in a cheerful manner until last spring. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced us to stay home at work and in private anyway in order for the virus prevention taking fragile people's lives. I am one of them who are ordered to work from home following the government direction since April. It is no problem with my work, providing counseling business persons at companies, using PC only because we use technology by its nature. However, I had never experienced WHF. In addition, it had been fantasy for me not to be able to meet directly people for hanging out. As a result, I had plenty of time to visit in myself during staying home like others did.
In June, one of my friends in the US where I studied from 2005 to 2010 sent me an mail after 5 years, saying he was studying at Medical School. He was my jazz piano teacher but my teacher had a dream to become a medical doctor like his grandparents. His contact sparked me to start my old memories while going abroad popping up my mind when taking a break between work and after work. Yes, it was like movies, broadcasting many scene impressive. I was so happy with people in my society in CO, chatting, playing music, singing songs, hanging out and traveling together. Additionally, I tried doing many things alone like long distance driving. Driving experience in the US gave me some unforgettable memories.
During WFH, I viewed outside from the window in my place, where there are trees in neighborhoods as well as houses. Foliage were in the sunshine and bright. My mind started flouting over the scenery...and then a movie theater in my mind was open and stated screening my old memories in random. I watched that I was aufully slipping and spinning over the icy and snowy highway in CO, twice after changing my car from Subaru to a Ford Taurus, beautiful red one. Fortunately, there were many cars on the road at that time but they successfully avoided me and I was never injured. I drove alone from CO to California twice including one return trip in stead of flying. It is some 1200 miles, 2000 km on way. I remembered that one of my friend who loved driving a long distance advised me that I could do a long-distance driving after experience with it with my friends. And I did and it was great adventure for me.
It was like a dream. I planed on taking a job interview in California for a therapist position. I lived in CO at that time, and I chose to drive to there from CO instead of flying. I had experienced once driving from CO to CA when going to an internship; therefore, it was not so hard for me to try, although this time was a round trip, which measures a total of 4000 km. It was in 2009 and I was using a paper map as well as Googe maps at that time. While checking the road map, I realized one different point between the paper map and Google maps in which, there was clearly a road from Bakersfield, in the gate of CA to the destination, the southern part of CA city, in the paper map; yet Google maps showed a different road. The road that Google Map recommended was in a roundabout way. The road in the paper map was almost straight to the destination; therefore, I simply decided to take the short way. I left my place.
Although it was happening that my car was slipping in the snowy road and getting into the bunk that is the middle of space between both car lines, after that, my trip was so smooth to reach the gate of CA, Bakersfield. I went forward without hesitation on the road that the paper map showed me. After coming down from the highway and entering the local road, I found some fences and one signboard which said that "No phone connection next 70 miles". What's that? Some worries went through my mind but I spoke to myself, it is just 70 mile to be patience. I didn't like to come back to select another way because it needed a lot of energy so I continued driving. No problem, that's OK, I can complete it. It was a sunny day in autumn and very warm. It was afternoon around 2 pm. The landscape was just wide open. The both lands of the road looked dried ground without trees. The two-truck road was stretching towards the horizon and the road was winding up and down. The landscape was covered with orange color due to the sunshine and the high temperature. It was kind of fun driving on road which was up and down in the beginning; however, it was never ending, driving up and down, up and down, and up and down...It might past an hours, I realized there was only one car passing by but no other cars. The sun was setting, resulting the landscape was gradually colored more orange. It was still very warm. I was started agitating and thought anyway I would drive out this road...that's why Google maps had not recommend people to use...I made sense really. I was falling forward to the handle and my butt were floating because of that up and down. Go, go, anyway, go fast!
I was driving for around two hours and some cars were coming. Finally, I had reached out to the inter-junction where was connected to the city streets. The phone connection was recovered. I was relieved that my car would not have stopped in the middle of the road that I just past. On next day, I arrived at a hospital where I would take a job interview. When i was just driving through the front door of the hospital towards a parking lot, my car suddenly stopped...and would not move by all means. It was broken. If the car had been down in the middle to that 70 miles road, during its 120 km road...
At the point, I came back to earth from the film in mind. I was looking at leaves outside from the winder of my room. I was still feeling my emotions in that scene that I had driven the road. It is like a dream, day dream. After coming back to Japan from US, I have been busy to establish my expertise; therefore, I have forgotten those old memories in abroad. WFH gave me opportunities to recall a variety of memories created by my efforts. I rushed to resume my work after experiencing my daydream with kind of nostalgia and satisfaction in my life. Thank you, Self-isolate for giving me time to look back my life.
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