Here's where I should wax philosophic on the benefits of slowing down and smelling the exhaust fumes, but that's not really it, exactly. See, I've always liked to drive, beginning when at 15 I convinced my father to let me take our Oldsmobile up and down our long country driveway. He went with me the first couple of times, was convinced that I wasn't going to kill one of our numerous cats or dogs, and gave me free reign. After school I'd wait anxiously for my mother to get off work, since she drove my practice car. She would get out and I would leap in, roll all the windows down, and crank the radio. I'd slowly back away from our house, turn around in front of the basketball goal, roll down to my grandparent's connecting driveway, and turn around to repeat the circuit. I did this A LOT. So much so that by the time I eventually had "range" or whatever they called that driving class, I was good enough that the instructor was a little suspicious. "Just your driveway, huh?" he'd say. "Yes-- it's a long driveway," I told him, more than once.
Driving became my thing, and once I got my license it meant both the freedom to go places and to drive nowhere in particular. There are so many little back roads and cut-throughs and hideaways out in the county where I grew up, and I started to make a systematic study of every road I'd ever wondered about. What if I turn here? How about here? Occasionally I'd hit roads where the pavement would run out and turn to gravel, and then to dirt, and then winnow off into weeds or wind up at a farm house that was probably the reason the road existed in the first place. I figured out how things connected, and also realized that there were just tons of little roads out there. I would never see them all.
I'm treading around being "meaningful" here, I know-- and it's not unintentional-- but one practice I picked up was habitually yet spontaneously driving past certain places, just to be near them. And as I drove away from our book club meeting tonight and felt the lately familiar urge to drive past our church, I realized that I've always been doing this. I've always had a secret destination.
The first one of these places was the house of the boy I loved but who didn't love me during high school. That one was somewhat tricky, since he lived at least 30 miles away, but town was in between our houses and I could sometimes half justify driving out there. Generally I didn't even make it that far, since I was still coated with the adolescent belief that I shone like a homing beacon and would be picked up on some kind of subconscious hormonal radar, but I would at least drive past the big sign into his development while my heart went pitter-pat.
The second place was Court Square in Harrisonburg, and that soon changed into drivebys of the nearby house on Collicello St. where this long-haired, army-jacket-wearing, former-instructor-turned-boyfriend lived. So I was still driven by love, only this time it was requited. He is, in fact, sitting at this moment across the room with a book written by a roommate from that very house (soon being released as movie starring Shia LaBoeuf and Gary Oldman, but I'm getting off track). That place was a nexus of nerves and creativity and desire and dirty floors, and I still drive past it whenever I'm in town.
Then we moved to Ohio for 10 years, and all sorts of things happened-- various degrees, lots of apartments, marriage, some jobs, and a baby, and there were a few destinations through all those stages. The one that sticks with me the most is the little grotto to Mary on the way to my gym our last few years in Columbus, and how she saw more than one tear of frustration that our collective familial path was so unclear. She never said a word, of course, but it always made me feel better to go and sit with her. She's such a mom that way.
Next we moved to Richmond, and for over two years this little driving urge went underground, but now it's back. Gasoline isn't 99 cents a gallon like it was when I was in high school, and I'm old enough and busy enough now to know that this whole impulse is a little bit crazy, but every so often, I give in. Every so often the kids are quiet or even sleeping in their car seats and I add an extra few minutes to a nearby errand and drive past our big, beautiful, quiet stone church, facing a park and in between a theater and a Catholic cathedral. I slow down and look up it and it's just a few seconds and then it's gone, but every single time it's a little reminder of something important to me, and of prayers and hopes and maybe a little bit of an enacted symbol, though I'm not going to cook over animal poop.
The traffic jam tonight added maybe 10 minutes to my drive home. I rolled the windows down and turned up my music and looked out over the lights beneath the interstate. Slowly but surely, three lanes of traffic narrowed into one lane-- the only way forward, at least for now. I leaned my head back, looked up at the sky, and felt completely at peace on the journey.
No comments:
Post a Comment