A brief meditation on the subjectivity of human experience

Stuck in traffic today, and the loud music coming from the car next to me draws my attention.

Teenagers in an old Grand Prix, one girl with her foot up to the corner of the window.

Garth Brooks belts out from their radio and they sing along, stopping only to take drags from their cigarettes.

The sun, the temperature, and the humidity are all in balance; the end of summer climate just beginning to give ground to the cooler days of fall.

Enough of a breeze that you can restlessly imagine a life on some pier somewhere, loyally tending your lighthouse, but not so windy that you get owie booboos in your eyes from blowing dirt.

They close their eyes as they sing.

Obese, sure, but young.

And I think to myself, I bet they are having a moment.

One of those larger than life moments handed out to the young with disgusting generosity.

I squint at them and consider my own moment.

 In my car, a Down Syndrome boy snores in the backseat; the relaxation of sleep allowing him to break wind without discretion.

Next to me, Elsie sings along to her Ipod; her voice is yippy and abrupt; almost as if you kept slamming the door on Benji right after encouraging him to speak.

At a certain level of octave and volume, waves of breath make their way to my side. The breath of someone who brushes her teeth with Laffy Taffy and Blow Pops.

Suddenly I am struck by the subjectivity of moments.

Objectively, the teens and I are experiencing the same period of time; but in their experience, the period is fleeting, exciting, full of all of life's biggest emotions and fueled by a shameless, guilt-free indulgence of nicotine and modern country music.

For me, it is farts, breath, and the deranged warbles of the schizophrenic.

Maybe this is why we hate teenagers.

The light turns green and they drive off into their future. Straight on into love and delicious heartache, spontaneity; perhaps early onset diabetes but Od's Bodkin who gives a damn.

My car dies and I have to restart it while the old man behind me lays on his horn.

It's pretty loud, and the student in the back seat awakens with a tremendous snort. "Cookie, cookie, " he mutters, but his hand is signing 'toilet'.