A sea of brake lights.

I have very early memories of hearing the mysterious codes over the radio. I understood everything else from the back seat- the talk show host’s jokes, the mattress commercial, the news report, the weather forecast. But the traffic report was gated in the adult world.

Eventually I recognized all the terms: stop and go, the Terwilliger curves, Sunset highway, the Banfield, southbound, inbound, and all those freeway numbers. The speed talkers rattled off enough that my parents knew which highway to avoid, but it remained a puzzle in my mind. The report was rhythmic and familiar, but it had no frame of context in my childish world.

With traffic and weather together on the eights: eight, eighteen, twenty eight, thirty eight, forty eight, and fifty eight after the hour.

I was driving home from work yesterday, and the familiar traffic chant interrupted the news. All the places and codes fit neatly into my commute. I realized that I had been let in. I knew what all the terms meant and which highway to avoid. It was some sort of coming of age moment in my mind. I must be a grown up.