things seen on my run this morning

[asakiyume]

A car, marigold-orange, with a black stripe on the hood, coming up the hill. It was low and sleek. "Must be some kind of fancy-pants car," I thought. "I wonder what it is."

As it came closer, I saw that it had "MUSTANG" written on its windshield in huge letters. So that's what it was. Thank you, car, for answering my question. If all cars would label themselves that way, it would be much easier for car-blind people like me to identify them.

A shadow of a bird, passing over me. I looked up but couldn't see anything. Then a couple of moments later, a crow. Its shadow was so far ahead of it! It landed in a tree and cawed. Good morning to you too, crow.

Another runner, an old man in bright green and blue, who runs like he's about to collapse but who manages great distances. I waved, he said "Good morning! How are you?" "Pretty good," I said. "How about you?" "I'll be good soon," he said, smiling.

Comments

[evelyn_b]

Hah! I'm also car-blind, except about Mustangs. Enough of them have "Mustang" written in a little stripe along the side that I can now recognize them without the stripe.

[asakiyume]

I tell you, I'm so car blind that if I saw a hundred mustangs with a label and then one without, I'd probably doubt myself... probably. I can recognize my own type of car, a Kia Soul, because it's so strange and boxy.

[sartorias]

The shadows up north really do slant entrancingly!

[asakiyume]

It was like the shadow was pulling the actual bird along, like a person pulling a kite.

[minoanmiss]

That's such a beautiful mental image.

[asakiyume]

It's what I was struggling toward! What does this look like--I've seen this relationship before between earth-thing and sky-thing. But I couldn't *think* it until that comment.

[amaebi]

I am also car-blind. Chun Woo used to find this amusing, but I pointed out that he can't identify birds or plants, and now it seems natural to him.

[asakiyume]

I think with a lot of work I could maybe remedy the situation but I don't have a lot of motivation ....

[st_martin_a]

I like your writing style. Some mindfulness going on there. Great way to spend a run.

[asakiyume]

That's tremendously gratifying to hear; thank you!

[umadoshi]

I am so bad at cars. Not just types of cars, either--even when I'm a passenger in a specific car fairly often, I have at least a bit of trouble IDing it in a parking lot.

*idle comment prompted by being pleased that other people also use "car-blind"*

[asakiyume]

Idle comments always welcome.

For a while I had a car that I couldn't identify; I had to look at license plates. Finally I realized that the hubcaps were kind of unique--then I could zero in on those and confirm with the license plate. My husband's car I could only identify by the license plate.

I'm always amazed when my neighbor says something like "I saw your car at the mechanics." Like... how do they **know**?? I could never in a million years identify my neighbor's car