time out:INSIDEMY MIND

That’s not true. I don’t decide to wait. It just happens.

Which is how my life usually works. I don’t choose to do things. I find myself doing them. Whether the thing is active or not — running down the street or not running down the street — I don’t decide to do it. I don’t say to myself: Okay, let’s run down the street, or Let’s wait. I get thinking about something and then something else, and lose track of the world, and when I come back I find that I’m running or waiting.

My mind moves all the time, and the rest of me follows after it. Like a detective following a trail of footprints in search of a kidnapped child.

Huh. That went dark, eh? I was trying to describe how my mind works, and now I have a picture of a creep pasting letters into a ransom note.

WE HAVE YOUR KID

If you’re tired reading this, I understand. Also, if you’re confused.

Also, how do you think I feel?

Forget kidnappers. Back to my explanation. What happens to me is that my mind gets a whiff of something, and I follow it. Like now, I have to rest for a minute, and while I’m resting my mind gets going, and I’m dragged after it. I’m like a little kid trying to walk a big dog. Which is a nicer picture at least. A little kid walking a big dog isn’t creepy, it’s cute. I don’t decide where to go — Rex decides. I go where Rex goes.

So I wait at the bus stop while my mind works on that marching band picture. I get to thinking about how our lives play out like we’re in a marching band. We need to play our instruments and maintain marching speed and we practically kill ourselves to keep up. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Finish school, run to practice, do your chores, study for the test, get a scholarship, a job, a raise, a better place to live. Get married and start a family. Then make sure your kids step as fast as you do. And this scary scenario is what we call success! We’d all be better off at moseying speed.

Shoom — shoom — shoom.

That’s what I mean when I say I don’t really decide to wait at the bus stop. I get thinking.

Ruby understands me. I remember playing the board game Clue one time and I got lost thinking about the pieces. What if the Colonel wanted the wrench to kill someone, but Miss Scarlet was already using it to fix a leaky pipe? Something like that.

I don’t know how long I spent pondering the plumbing inside the Clue house, but when I came back to Ruby’s bedroom, she was lying on her back on the floor, reading a book. I felt bad.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was wandering around in my mind.”

“Everyone does that,” she said. “We all daydream. But most of us have a big sign over the doorway of our mind: THIS WAY OUT. You don’t have that sign. Your mind is a maze, and you get lost in there. It’s okay, Gussie.”

“What should I do?”

“Maybe you should enjoy it. Hey — you can have fun by yourself. Lots of people can’t.”

“So what if Colonel Mustard and Miss Scarlet got married?” I asked her. “Would they make an orange baby? Or maybe peach? Princess Peach — no wait, that’s Super Mario. But think of the weapons! Princess Peach in the Conservatory with the Punch Glove …”

Ruby laughed and laughed. She’s the only person I know who always understands me. She may be the only one in the world.

Thinking about Ruby makes me less worried. The bus will come or it won’t. I’ll catch it or I won’t. My heart is not pounding like it was a minute ago. It’s on its way to moseying speed.