I wasn’t even old enough for school when I sat in the back seat one night, returning home with my folks from Thanksgiving with my grandparents. The highway was illuminated by streetlights. As we drove by, shafts of light appeared to reach down to the car’s windshield and push us to the next lamppost, as bargemen pole a raft down a river. It seemed as though we were passing through a vast system that lovingly guided us and guaranteed our safety from the hazards of the road. As young as I was, I knew there were no bargemen mounted on the lampposts. The phenomenon was caused by the reflection of light upon the curved glass of the windshield. I had this ordinary explanation at hand, although I was unable to elucidate the physics of it and would still be unable to do so today, but the reality was not that interesting. I preferred my fantasy. It suited me well as I whiled away the time on the long journey. I tried to share this observation with my parents, but I must have described it poorly, or they lacked the imagination I possessed because they couldn’t see it. It’s not that they passed it off as childish dreams, although they could have. They just didn’t see it. Beams of light had no use to them beyond illuminating the road. It didn’t bother me much that my parents failed to validate my vision. I didn’t need them to. It was enough that I saw it. It was a wild thing that I had no need to keep as a trophy. I think about this memory often, whenever I have an occasion to reflect on the stories that sustain my spirit. Belief in a loving God, free will, eternal life, arcs bending towards justice, and the five-second rule; what they all have in common is that evidence is beside the point. It is not necessary that these things be true in the factual sense, they all convey a truth deeper than facts can get to. Such sentiments can sometimes be true even when they are fiction. Not long after I graduated from school, so full of knowledge I thought I knew everything, I chided myself for the story of the bargemen. There was no vast system that lovingly guided us and guaranteed our safety from the hazards of the road; it was my father at the wheel who had struggled to keep his tired eyes open and the rubber side down. I had taken my father for granted and ascribed all my good fortune and safety to imagined bargemen, a sure sign that my father was doing his job well. I may have even thanked him for driving us home that night, years later, awarding him the recognition he so long deserved. He would have thought my gratitude was just as strange as my myth. A good father does not think he needs to be thanked for driving his family safely. Today, I finished school so long ago there is much more to know. I realize my father did not get us home by himself that night. He had my mother to keep him awake. The laws of psychics contributed by providing friction on the tires, keeping our car on the road when he made a turn. Other drivers stayed in their lanes. Someone else built the roads, painted the lines, and yes, put up the lampposts. Far away, unseen engineers kept watch through the night, ensuring the lights stayed on. I now believe the story I made up about the bargemen was closer to the truth than when I gave all the credit to my father. I left school under the sway of the myth of the individual, a fiction more fantastical than that of the bargemen. There is a vast system that lovingly guides us and guarantees our safety from the hazards of the road. I knew it then but forgot it when I went to school. It’s important to give fictions the credit they deserve. They are glimpses of the truth, if not the truth, itself. They die when you mount them on the wall. You're currently a free subscriber to The Reflective Eclectic. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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Monday, 2 June 2025
Beams of Light
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