Driving
The man hopped into his car and set his eyes on the distant mountains. They loomed in the distance, shrouded by clouds and lightning. The man rushed in and out of the traffic, heading straight for the mountains, a silent challenge in his heart. The windows of the small car were open and the rain fell inside the windows, splattering up on the man’s face. The thunder sounded it’s challenge, and in response, the man reached to the radio and turned up the volume. In the game of chicken between the man and the mountain, the outcome was uncertain. As he approached, the mountains parted before him, and he went through the mountains, the lightning and thunder and angry reproach at a called bluff. Higher ground lay ahead.
I love driving. The value of getting in the car as a therapeutic tool is only one of the many reasons I’m so ticked off at the oil companies for hiking up the price of gas. At the rate it’s going, the only therapist I’ve ever had will soon be out of my price range. Such is life. I’ll have to find some other substitute.
I love driving because of the way that the car becomes an extension of the person when you turn, when you flip on the windshield wipers, when you turn on the radio. Man and machine, working together in some sort of harmony. While I miss my S-10 most assuredly, there were things about it that kind of ticked me off. My Cavalier is more utilitarian, certainly (and also better in gas mileage, a fact I hardly considered at the time.)
I love driving because of the twists and turns of the road, and the ease with which a person can navigate a familiar road, and be so cautious on an unfamiliar one. I love the idea of heading in a direction, and the path being laid out in front, with untold obstacles and challenges. I love the lay of the land, and seeing the terrain shift under the wheels of the car. Cresting hills and racing across an open plain. Twisting up a mountain road, and clearing the mountains to see the valley beneath.
I love road trips, where the distance and time and the passing land washes the emotional slate clean, as if the distance has a means of emptying our emotional garbage cans. I love the music and singing along, not caring who sees because you’re in the middle of who-knows-where anyways. I like driving into big cities, and feeling the traffic pulse around me. I like thinking of all the people who live in that tinier universe of the city, and where the traffic around me is going. I like to look the people in their faces as they travel to their destinations. I wonder what their lives are like, who they love, what makes them anxious, if they know Jesus, and if they do, what He is doing in their lives.
I love the familiar circuits I drive back home. I drive them often in my dreams. The roads are my friends, they know me, and they know my emotions. There are roads I only see when I am upset or angry. There are roads that only see me when I am lonely. There are roads that only see me when I am in love. There are the roads that have watched me grow up. I think of the road in front of my old house, which has grown longer since the days when the dead-end was in my front yard. I think of the road in front of my parents house, and how my brother and I and the neighbor kids used to play basketball all the long summer days. I think of the roads I had on my paper route, and the older folks I so often delivered to. Dayton, Mackinac, Devereaux, Shannon, Windwood. I remember the days when it snowed and my dad used to take my brother and I around the route, sitting on the back of his truck, little bro and I jumping off to throw the papers to the waiting doorsteps, the soft plop of the paper hitting the snow-covered steps.
I think often of the roads I drove with tears in my eyes, and the music blaring so loudly that the speakers buzzed. I wonder now what made me suffer so much pain. Honestly, most days, I don’t remember. Much of the pain I can’t remember, I only know that it was there, and is still there, to some extent. I forget what caused it. I know the pain circuit well, but that rarely makes me angry. I don’t know what happened to make me so upset for all those years, but the extent to which my mind has detailed it, it must have been something horrible. It’s either a terrible shame or a great blessing that I can’t remember.
There are things I do remember. I remember the trip to school when I was 18, when my brother and my friend first decided to call me a pimp, and how upset it made me. I remember the night before I left Wisconsin for my first summer away, and the romance that made my life so frantic for that few weeks. I remember driving to Minnesota to see my friend Jeff with my brother, the first big trip I was allowed to take after I turned 16. Little bro and I drove proudly that day. good times. I think of the terrible trips home from Minnesota after having to leave good friends to return home. So much time has passed, and yet, I remember it like it was yesterday.
I remember driving back and forth to school, the four seasons weather of Wisconsin a rarely acknowledged blessing. The winter mornings when the frost hung on the trees and made the whole earth appear white. The beautiful autumn leaves changing, and racing down the road, cresting the hill on Five Corners Road just before I had to stop at Highway M, the farmers fields and the forests stretching out for miles around me. I remember the summer, with the rows of corn whipping past my open windows as I when from place to place. And I remember with fondness the spring growth spurt, when the earth threw off it’s browns and grays and returned to the greenness I’ve grown to love. I remember it all.
In a week, I’ll be back in Wisconsin. But between then and now, I’ve got the chance to enjoy a long, cleansing road trip. It sounds like fun. I’m stoked for the trip, and I’ve still got 5 days left here before I leave. Ah well. There is plenty to do here before I leave. And the miles aren’t going to get longer before me. They at least, will not change. I’m going to go study for an exam now. So long, folks.