A moment in the car

I'm sitting in the passenger seat of the wondervan, with my wife at the wheel. Everything in the world that matters to me is safely tucked in between the bumpers. Two of our three little folks have drifted off to sleep, while son the elder sits in his man-cave back in the third row, tuned out on his iPod, and nervously wonders why I'm looking back at him, smiling.



Because you're a kind-hearted, handsome man-child. That's why.



We're powering our way into the night, hoping for a safe, uneventful journey as the cloudy late spring sky slowly loses its light and gives way to a graying darkness. My wife and I speak in occasional, clipped speech, usually finishing each other's sentences. We've done this route through the hinterlands so often that we can almost do it on autopilot (almost!) We don't much enjoy the tension that comes with a long drive away from home. But we do relish the small moments of Levyness that these trips offer up. They're the kind of little opportunities that are lost to history if we don't at least try to grab ahold of them.



We're stopping now so that I can get back behind the wheel. As you can clearly see, I had nothing earth-shattering to report from my front-seat perch. But I wanted to remember this moment. I wanted to remember what it felt like when everything was simply right with the world.



Your turn: How do you know when your world is spinning right?