driving

I miss driving. It’s kind of a funny thing to say, given the sheer amount of time I spend in the car for my work commute, for running my kids to and fro, for any number of daily tasks. Such activity is a necessity of my daily life—it’s not driving.

This evening I had to make a quick trip through darkened streets to pick up my youngest. The streets were unusually quiet as everyone was presumably watching the Superbowl. Inside my car, The War on Drugs (horrible name but absolutely magical band) was on at full volume. The moon peaked out from behind the clouds and suddenly I wanted to just keep driving, on and on, no thought to destination. That is driving. This small moment of it was as raindrops are to one dying of thirst in the desert.

Growing up rural, I did a lot of driving with no actual destination. Especially on dirt roads throughout the mountains, but also on side roads that were lightly traveled. You could put in miles and not see another pair of headlights. My mind would quiet down and I would experience a very rare calm. Just me, cigarettes and whatever cassette I was playing. If it was a clear night, I’d stop somewhere random and look at the stars. Every single time I would think of the Huck Finn quote:

We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.

If it was raining, I wouldn’t stop. I’d just keep driving, sometimes turning off the music so I could listen to the swish of the swipes, a soothing effect that suggested all storms could be washed away and one could begin anew. I was not yet so far from my Catholic upbringing to think that redemption was unimportant, even as my mind wrestled with my body. Such conflict is endless and repetitive and we are probably a long way from evolving past it. Maybe it makes us human. I was just grateful for the ability of the rain to wash it away.

Driving was mostly done alone, but on rare times there was company. The time I picked up my girlfriend and we ended up in the woods under the stars and for the first time I understood the magic of intimacy. The driving made it possible. The time my best friend and I drove into the woods, drinking down a six pack and chain smoking, while it began to snow. The way the snow looked in the headlights is a beautiful sight I will take with me to my grave. If you’ve been blessed with a friend like he is, and to share such a moment, you will never die bitter. Beauty is always possible.

So many drives then, so few now. Tonight I’m driving and a voice drifts out of the speakers. “I’m just a bit rundown here at the moment.” I am, and maybe driving would cure that, but I have responsibilities and so I return home. I wonder how one makes time to drive when they don’t know when they will need that time. Magic is intent, I like to say. But not all magic is intent; sometimes it is happenstance. Sometimes the doors open when you press the clutch down and shift up, sometimes when you shift down, and many times not at all.

I rarely, if ever, figure things out. Yet once in a while I’m graced with a moment, the hum of the engine and the churn of the tires on the pavement gifting the moment of beauty beneath stars that have no need to reveal whether they were made or just happened. Because it is one and the same.