Highway 101

shut down yesterday because of a tanker spill causing traffic to be rerouted through once quiet neighborhoods and hours wasted in perpetual commotion. Fortunately, I was not in it but saw the news on T.V. from work, thinking that there will be many passengers late for their flight if they hadn't tuned in. Carried over today, the left lanes are still blocked and the 511 traffic information has issued a severe alert to avoid 101 if at all possible and look for alternate routes. Lynn has a meeting today with Dr. Snow in Palo Alto at 4:00pm and if it were not for this accident, I would attend. Instead, I declined because of the horrid traffic I would have to contend with on the return going to work.
The meeting today would consist more of Lynn's relationship with her mother. Defining that her mother, as abusive as she was in her younger years, is now older and cannot harm Lynn. And yet, with harsh memories of Lynn's abuse, she remembers, vividly, each hit, swat, paddle or verbal assault being said to her or her siblings. Lynn was the caretaker and protector. How one so little and innocent can be subjected to such crimes by the hand of her own mother. It is unimaginable. On the other hand, my father was the disciplinarian. My mother could only stand by to listen to our cries as we were hit by my father's bare hand upon our backside. I tend to think that my sister was the favorite because she was rarely hit at all. My brother and I, because of our mischievous antics and my being such a rebel, we were always being spanked or locked downstairs in the cold dark basement. My brother was always the one to stay close to the door, breathing up the bottom light for fear of seeing into the void of the monsters he would dream up to scare his sisters with. Fearful of the dark and the demons that lay beyond the stair, I would hear him whimper. Mom would eventually let us upstairs and into our room without dinner. Our tummies grumbling, we were more terrified of our father and went to sleep that way. Hours later before my father would leave for work, I would listen to his rituals of making sure the windows and doors were locked. He would appear at each of his child's bedside and offer kisses upon their foreheads as if he were asking for forgiveness of his abuse. He would achieve this act of love until we were in our early teens. I'm not sure if my brother or sister had any recollection of this fatherly act of love but that memory of him remains.