Learning to drive, for me, was liberating in all the expected ways. I loved being able to make plans with friends and not having to worry so much about sorting out a ride. I loved being able to drive myself to school—I could leave a little early, if I wanted, and have more time with my friends in the morning. I loved being able to drive to and from work and roll down the windows, crank the tunes…classic high school stuff.
I also loved things I didn’t expect. I loved rolling down the windows when it was starting to rain, and feeling the water cut through the dust. I loved driving on the freeway and watching the sun set over the mountains. I loved driving on Central Avenue late at night, counting streetlights and red cars and feeling the city air against me. After the AC in our car broke, I loved feeling the dry summer Phoenix air slap my face as I cruised 60, 65 mph on the freeway, watching dusk, nightfall, and eventually feeling midnight surround me.
Since coming to college I have missed driving a lot. I especially miss my night drives. When I feel like I need some space to move, think, look at the world, I’m not sure where to go. Some of my best ideas have been born on Central Ave past sunset.
I don’t know what it is about driving that breeds contemplation. Somehow driving in the dark with something soft on the radio is so much different than sitting in my room thinking. The first car I learned to drive was a stick. For me, the simple action of switching gears and letting out the clutch was a sort of kinetic ritual. I felt connected to the machine. I was in control of the motion of the car, and in tune with my surroundings. I was able to look around and really see.
One night, driving slowly in the dark, I saw a man sitting in the dark and it prompted me to head home and write the following:
Wariness creeps across my awareness as I drive, half-blinded by the dark. His face is made manifest to me by the glow of his cigarette on an otherwise unlit street. I recall that as I passed by this very spot hours earlier, during the dusk that yielded this near-dawn, I saw him. Same place. I wonder how many he has smoked since then. Unease stifles me as I try to look away and keep driving but the allure of that glowing orange spot draws my eyes again and again. I begin to drive away, slowly, and I adjust the heater in my car. I imagine, as plastic vents spew warm air, that as I breathe it, I feel a bit of what he feels, inhaling that orange-tipped roll. To quench the parallelism, I switch on the radio, listening for something cool, stale. To dampen my unsettlement. As I drive away the streetlights are orange like his cigarette, and they sear my eyes as the heater sears my face, as the image of him sitting there, faint and glowing orange, sears my mind. Despite my unrest I cannot look away or turn off the heat or forget. Why did he just sit there, all alone, through the night?
In the in-between moments, when I don’t have a particular task to follow or a deadline to make, the moments when I’m driving just to drive, I find peace. We all practice self-love in different ways. Days when I am worn out and need a break, I miss being able to drive at night and soak in the moments of the darkness.
