The driver brought his vehicle so close to my rear bumper the headlights illuminated my dashboard.
He tailed at about 2 feet as we traveled west on Manatee Avenue toward the island and then he swerved left, crossing the centerline to pass at about 65 mph.
My grandma would have offered a remark like, “He’s in a hurry to see someone. The irony is he’s the kind of person nobody wants to see.”
Too many of us all too often unnecessarily hurry.
My first resolution in 2019 is to slow my pace to island time, unless I’m on someone else’s clock.
One way to accomplish this is to walk more and drive less.
I’m fortunate to live within easy walking distance of a park, a beach, supermarkets and retail shops, restaurants and, if I allow myself enough time, my workplace.
I realized as I was listing my resolutions this absurdity: I drive to the gym, where, depending on my workout, I spend 15-45 minutes walking on a treadmill. Yet, I could walk to the gym in 15 minutes and skip the treadmill.
Driving less will help me achieve my first enviro-lution of the new year, which is to consume less of everything.
I resolve to eat fewer packaged and processed foods, fix household items rather than replace them, mend clothes, observe meatless Mondays and avoid single-use plastics.
When I do make purchases, I am resolved to buy local, organic, recycled and natural items and skip printing the receipt.
I resolve to learn more about where I live — the history, the culture and the environment — because I can’t inform without building that knowledge base.
As I did for 2018, I also resolve to promote environmental justice, which involves less tiptoeing around touchy subjects and challenging those who exploit or damage the environment — locally, nationally or globally.
I resolve to get more involved in my community, which includes joining local groups, such as the area Audubon Society and Sierra Club chapters.
And, lastly, I resolve to read the books piled on my bedside table, including:
“Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History” by Dan Flores.
“A Hole in the Wind: A Climate Scientist’s Bicycle Journey Across the United States” by David Goodrich.
“The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea” by Jack E. Davis.
“The Death and Life of the Great Lakes” by Dan Egan.
“In Search of the Canary Tree: The Story of a Scientist, a Cypress and a Changing World” by Lauren E. Oakes.
The last on the list was a Christmas gift from my scientist brother and his scientist wife. So it is on the top of the pile and I resolve to make it my first read of the new year.
This column was published in The Islander newspaper.
Archives for The Islander are online here.