The line is three blocks long, people waiting to get into the DMV.
I’m in this line half an hour before opening, and even when the doors
open and the line begins to move, the wait is interminable.
The old woman in front of me, who can barely stand, is cheerful, wants to chat.
I am relieved when the two men in front of her in line are receptive, amenable to her social behavior in this godawful place. I resist mightily, avoiding eye contact, keeping my responses to her inevitable queries short.
She keeps talking about how grateful she is that the line is moving. I nod.
She says, it could be worse, and I think but do not say, could it? Could it be worse?
I admit to myself I’m a baby and I dislike long lines and crowds,
and when I finally get to check in, my second piece of ID does not work.
My wife’s name is associated with the address,
even though my name is right there below,
and now I feel myself on the verge of anger.
I’m nervous, as if I’m in some kind of trouble.
She gives me a call number anyway, and I am in a dash to get a pdf
of something with my name on it more clearly associated with our address.
I’ve lost the chatty lady in the crowd and I’m writing a poem with my Notes app.
I’m singing a song in my head with the lyrics
“it’ll be over soon enough, yeah, it will be over soon.”
After what seems like another hour of waiting for Godot, who never comes,
my number is up, as they say, and I make my way to my assigned teller.
She receives my pdf of the second document that verifies where I live
and she happily takes my $60 for an ID that I will have to replace on my birthday.
One would think at this juncture that the wait would be over,
but one would be wrong about that, as there is one more line.
This crowd is waiting for ID photos and something breaks down,
the camera glitches or something, as this young woman sits for ten minutes
while they try to get her picture over and over again.
I’m going on my third hour here at the DMV and I finally leave
with the temporary version of the thing that will allow me to fly.
I fly directly to the neighborhood record store, where I buy
the new album from Black Country, New Road, a strange little
progressive alt folk band if there ever was one.
I will work my way through the rest of the day trying
not to be angry at anybody. As a result of my DMV imprisonment,
I had to skip my morning meditation for the first time in
one hundred and one days. I wonder if the DMV counts
as a kind of meditation practice, three straight hours
of remembering to breathe and trying not to lose my shit.
michael jarmer 