Spring Fever?

    It happens every year.  At some point in the spring.  This year, it happened just a couple of days ago.
    I’m driving along a highway, a highway I’ve driven dozens or hundreds of times before.  It’s a mundane kind of drive, going from one ordinary place to another ordinary place to do ordinary things.  Nothing special about any part of the day or any part of the drive.  Nothing at all.
    And then it happens.  Regardless of the weather, the traffic, or what I had been thinking about.  It happens.
    The highway that I see ahead of me, well, it kind of changes.  I mean, it’s still the same, and I still drive along it, but it’s different.  Just for a second or two.  A couple of seconds that last for ages.  No, that’s not right.  It’s more like the road I see for those seconds imprints itself deep inside my brain, or my soul, if I have one of those.
    What I see is this: the highway ahead, and its verges, guard rails, lane lines, and any other parts of it, are a still image that’s a little over-exposed and clearer, sharper than the highest of high-definition images.
    Big deal, right?  But it’s not just the image on its own.  It’s what it’s telling me.  As clearly as if I was driving towards a gigantic billboard, this stretch of screen-capture highway is telling me that this particular road can take me anywhere, can open up to other roads that go anywhere and everywhere.  Across the country, the continent, the globe, even.
    It’s like an invitation.  A beckoning.  A temptation.  A reminder.  A reassurance.  The world is accessible, available, waiting for me.  And I guess it’s that, that message or insight, or instant of craziness, that is what’s imprinted somewhere inside me.
    Not that it makes me want to rush off on a road trip.  Not at all.  More like a life trip, if that doesn’t sound too 1960's.  I feel uplifted, euphoric, even.  I feel excited to be alive.  I feel like there’s no end of possibility ahead.

    By the time I’ve done all this observation and feeling, the highway has long since returned to normal, and my ordinary day continues on its ordinary path.  Except that now the ordinary is part of something more, part of anything and everything.
    I guess my spring driving experience is just a form of spring fever.  But it carries me along for a while before it fades, and I know it will happen again next year.