Oh Jen, I suppose I should mention ...
After being away from people for months and months and months, and I had to re-emerge, I had a new problem -- driving.
At first, this occured even at slow speeds. I couldn't "weed out" all the stimuli. So I saw every piece of trash rolling across the road in front of me, every bird, everything behind me, coming at me, coming in from the sides, all simultaneously. When I would come to a stop light, I questioned: is it really green? Maybe I just think it's green... what do the others think?
Even now, when I come to intersections, I ask myself, "Okay, are we all in agreement here?"
I had to throw this into a matter of faith, that all of us on the road were having the same perceptions. Also, it took great discipline and focus. In time, I learned to do it again.
But I still can't drive the interstates, years later. I'm "interstate-disabled", heh. This can be a problem. But most places worth going can be reached by back roads of some sort or another.
Something I wrote before my re-entry became manageable again:
Metempsychosis
Stop-go inching chokes
The cranky idler. Daring
Demands metallic chromemen
Grumble. Give me. Give me.
Move these nervous, fleshy
Walking things: can you
Not control them?
Crimson-backdropped
In dusk, the day softens
Milling, merging movers.
Twisting, arching trees umbrage
The bravest, darting vehicles,
While wire cages hide
Between the tiny twigs.
(Lost contrast in the nightfall...)
Always, you crush me to the yield --
You bring these intersections
Of leggy trunks and passers,
To burn away my life.
Beamlamps bounce --- reflecting
Stopsigns, vaguely glaring --
And blend in mirrored rearview.
Your eyes are skyward, blissfully
Glimpsing evening stars
Beyond the wire foliage,
While street horizons span
Inside wide windshields --
Distorting sunset's dusky peer.
The road opens wider,
Looking back, full-turned...
VLambert