If they don’t want us to get in car accidents why do they let us listen to whatever music we want and make the world on the other side of the windshield play out like a movie? I look forward to long drives when I can imagine my movies.
Cars drive right down the line where reality meets fantasy. When I drive I am exactly where I am and I'm also always dissociating. I'm projecting into the future when I know exactly I'll arrive at my destination. This gives me the illusion that I am the master of my reality. A frustrating set up from the get go.
I do all kinds of things badly; drop cell phone calls, drop little pieces of gum and mints under the seat, my tube of chapstick falls apart, I poorly dictate ideas into Evernote on my phone, I text, I glance at my email. Everyone else driving is doing these things, too, probably worse. Drunk! With a cat! Who knows?!
When my son is in the car I tell myself to set a good example, but then he demands a certain song or podcast and I must go into my phone, which I try to do as stealthily as possible. Get in, get out. Eyes on the road.
Yesterday I arrived home from work to find that a DHL driver had driven straight off our driveway, through some small bayberry bushes I’d planted last spring, and gotten stuck in the soil midway between the lawn and house. Was he drunk? was my first thought. It took a lot of confidence to drive so far in the wrong direction. He probably really had to gun it over the bushes. The van was backwards. He had delivered a small envelope.
When I was 15 I took driver’s ed with a guy who had a lot of life advice to share. He had years of driving experience took great pride in his role as an educator. The only thing I remember from that class was him telling us that after bathing it was better for the skin not to use a towel. It was best to air dry otherwise the skin could get too dried out. That’s what he did. Together we imagined him standing wet and naked in his bathroom.
A different driving instructor took us out on the highway. My first experience driving 60 mph was fundamentally terrifying. Driving that fast, all of us at once, passing each other, etc. felt very wrong, especially when going over a bridge near the retired naval ships in Philadelphia. Seeing those enormous, decrepit grey vessels, so far from their former splendour, with peeling paint and illegible text, made life’s glory seem so precarious.