The title of this post might lead you to believe this one is about how my writing has “saved” me.
But that is not the case today because this post isn’t about me. It’s about Lou Zant, and how frickin’ lucky that dude is.
It’s been a frustrating 24-hours for my husband because he was supposed to fly out for a ten-day trip yesterday, but he couldn’t catch a flight out of San Fransisco as he’d planned. I dropped him off at the airport in the morning, but the whole drive home to Sonoma, he kept calling me with more bad news about his flight options.The combination of Spring Break, some inventory issues with planes in the mix at SFO, and just a general feeling that yesterday was not the day to leave forced Lou to rent a car and drive home for the night after booking himself out on a confirmed flight that was leaving Oakland today at 11:00 a.m.
He seemed to have left our house in plenty of time to get to the Oakland airport this morning, but California traffic is no joke, and when you can’t cruise in the carpool lane, sometimes that factor can totally screw up your day. Lou called me not long after he hit the road and he was moaning about how bad the traffic was, and how stressed he was getting about time. He had to get gas in the rental car, turn it in, and then ride the shuttle to the airport — and when you’re sitting in a traffic jam that has you rolling at 10 miles an hour, those kinds of factors can make a guy worry.
As soon as I hung up on that call with Lou, I took a minute to say a very intentional prayer for my husband. I always worry about Lou’s aggressive driving. And my worries even flare up when I’m not with Lou because he always calls me when he’s doing five things in the car, or trying to talk to me while navigating his way to some complicated location with lots of turns and odd freeway entrances.
So I just prayed, “God, please protect Lou from himself and from others! Please!”
I mostly worry about crashes and tickets — two things you can totally mitigate by driving slowly and carefully. But Lou continually reminds me of the fact that he’s literally been driving for 50 years, and, he’s even done it for a living. But none of that makes me feel better when I know Lou is in a hurry, and when his only goal is to win a race against time.
That’s why I felt my body brace for an incoming call from Lou about thirty minutes after his first call. My mind was already in the locked-and-loaded formation to help me cope with the news that something bad had happened. Sure enough, right after I said hello, Lou launched into the following recap of events:
“Dude, you’re not going to believe what just happened! I got pulled over by a cop and he was PISSED. He said I was speeding, and he saw me cross over a yellow line, and then he witnessed me making an illegal turn. He was fuming mad and me, and all I could do was just humble myself and tell him he was right. I did do all of those things, and I’m sorry. He said it didn’t matter, he was going back to his cruiser to write me up a bunch of tickets. So I just sat there and felt terrible — and time was ticking down, so I was just mostly hoping he’d hurry. But then I saw the officer get out of his car, and he came around to my window. He said, ‘Well, I guess it’s your lucky day because I can’t find a pen. So you’re getting off with a warning. Don’t screw up like that again.”
And that was that! The angry officer handed Lou his license and Lou got on with his life again.
Lou was pretty giddy in the retelling of this story, while I was totally conflicted about the whole thing! I wanted Lou to feel more rattled by the experience, but honestly, I think Lou felt more alive than ever. He was boarding the rental car shuttle to the airport when he called me, and he had plenty of time to make his flight. So he’d won the race against time. He’d looked into the face of danger and danger itself had to lay down…
Mostly I’m thankful that Lou didn’t crash, didn’t get “a bunch of tickets,” and, I’m relived that he made his flight. But being wired the way I am, I struggle against myself to decide if I should be relishing a shady victory like this one. I did ask God to protect Lou from himself and others — so did God hide all of the officers pens to keep Lou from getting a ticket for all of the tricky things he did?
I’m totally not qualified to answer that kind of existential question!
But as I’ve stewed and pondered on my feelings about this whole chain of events, I guess there is a part of me that’s slightly jealous of Lou. I don’t naturally understand how comfortable he is with risk and with pushing things to the very edge. We are so different in how we approach life, and his extremes scare me. However, my extremes might actually kill a person like Lou, and so I really don’t want him to be more like me just so I can understand him.
I did go for a hike after Lou was likely already buckled into his seat on his plane bound for Dallas, and when I was in one of my favorite spots to pray, I thanked God for answering my prayer. And then I did something I’ve never done before:
