Everything is better in the quiet car.
In the quiet car, everyone is calm.
~ Jenny Offill, Weather: A Novel (Knopf, February 11, 2020)
Photo: Matthew Jones
Truth
November 5, 2019 by 21 Comments
In “How Steam and Chips Remade the World” (op-ed, Oct. 19), John Steele Gordon remarks that “a man from half a century ago would surely regard the . . . smartphone as magic.” As one of those men, who keeps his phone more off than on, I disagree. Driving cross country as a 19-year-old in a beat-up car with only $50 cash and a gas-station map, without interstates, was a magical experience. Magic today would be a young person doing the same, or finding a parent who would let them.
~ Stephen Borkowski (Pittsburg, Texas). In letters to the Editor. (wsj.com, October 24, 2019)
Photo: Ansel Adams, Desert Road, NV 1960 (via Newthom)
Driving Kenilworth Road. With Intuition +.
June 29, 2019 by 33 Comments
Just another morning commute. And then, maybe not so much. Like a take from Hannah Nicole’s A List of Soft Things “Watching a time happen and thinking, I will remember this.”
5:25 am. Tuesday morning. GPS estimates 15 miles in 21 minutes for the morning commute.
Traffic flows.
Body is rested. (For a change.)
Mind is clear. (For a change.)
Sirius 7 on 70’s fills the cabin with Johnny Nash. I can see clearly now, the rain is gone / I can see all obstacles in my way / Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind / It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) / Sun-Shiny day / Look all around, there’s nothin’ but blue skies / Look straight ahead, nothin’ but blue skies.
I scan through the playlist for the Eagles’ Peaceful Easy Feeling. Can’t find it. Try to lip sync a few bars. Painful. I give up, and turn my full attention to the road.
I’m on the last leg of the morning drive. I-287 W, exit to the Hutch. I wait at the stop light. 0.3 miles from the office.
I wait.
Light turns green. And just at this moment, my skin tingles. Odd. And then there’s a whisper: You might want to slow down here. [Read more…]
Driving I-95 S. With Ray…
June 8, 2018 by 28 Comments
9 p.m. Thursday evening.
2.5 hours of sleep the night before – the body (and mind) have quit. I’m done. It’s done.
An eggshell blue Extra Strength Tylenol PM caplet rolls in the palm of my hand. Please. Work your magic. Free me of this Mind. These thoughts. These chains. This swirl. This madness. Just let go.Of me. Please.
And it does. I find Goldbarth’s layer on layer, down and down. And down I went.
5:40 a.m. this morning.
I blink to clear the plume of narcotic, misting Tylenol PM. Both hands grip the wheel – Steady DK, Steady. There’s a giant Semi to my right, Transpro Intermodal Trucking Inc., Bensalem PA, and a five-foot high barrier on my left…thousands of pounds of concrete which I can reach out and touch. Lane feels tight. Walls on both sides close in. Steady DK. Steady. I reduce speed to 55, glance in the rear view mirror, wait for oncoming traffic to clear, and swing the car across two lanes. The convoy of trucks and early morning commuters stream by – all racing to beat The Rush to Manhattan. Not today Friends. Not today. I’m out.
6:05 a.m.
It’s me and a floor of empty offices and desks. The air conditioning is humming. The overhead florescent tubes buzz. I log into my PC, wait for the gremlins to load. While I’m waiting, I flick through WordPress posts. It’s Ray on the rural roads in South Carolina. My eyes scan his post, my pulse slows, the body softens and I’m swept away in “Take the Backroads“:
“There is something refreshing about making your way through cornfields, strawberry fields, horse farms and peach orchards at 50mph or so. It is much more relaxing than driving on the Interstate at 75mph and being passed by 18 wheelers…I made my way the thirty-two miles from the meeting back home, I drove, windows down, through a large cornfield as the sun was setting. The air was fresh and sweet and since there was little traffic, I was able to drive well below the posted speed limit, breath deep and take it all in. When I was younger, I never would have done that. I probably should have.”
Yes Ray.
Yes.
Notes:
- Inspired by : “One of the deepest and strangest of all human moods is the mood which will suddenly strike us perhaps in a garden at night, or deep in sloping meadows, the feeling that every flower and leaf has just uttered something stupendously direct and important… There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense of having missed the full meaning of things. There is beauty, not only in wisdom, but in this dazed and dramatic ignorance.” – G.K. Chesterton, Robert Browning (Thank you Beth @ Alive on all Channels)
- Photo: via Mennyfox55
Let’s Go
September 2, 2017 by 23 Comments
…“Let’s go” is on the minds of many people in these last days of summer, especially the getting-out-of-here, going-away, going-home mood of Labor Day weekend. And it is much simpler by car…The long improvisational trip by car is quintessentially American, just as the road book is a peculiarly American form. […]
Yet it is perhaps truer today to say that the road trip has kept alive the romance of travel. Consider the misery of air travel, in what constitutes an average journey by plane. Much has been written about the stress, intimidation, limited space, germ-laden air and the intrusion of other people—the oaf in the seat in front of you who lowers his chair back into your lap, the child behind kicking your spine, the agony of the middle seat. Then there is the sludge that passes for in-flight meals, or the option to pay $7 for a “meal box” of chips, pretzels, cookies, candy, three crackers and a rectangle of industrial cheese that resembles a yellow piece of Lego but isn’t as tasty, and it’s five hours to LAX. After Sept. 11, 2001, casually showing up at the airport—often at the last minute, in my case—and easy boarding became distant memories, and since then air travel has degenerated further, so that the simplest flight is a secular version of hell. […]
This is why—for reasons of dignity and personal freedom—more and more Americans are rethinking the air journey and seeking the pleasures of the open road. […]
Not much on Earth can beat the American road trip in travel for a sense of freedom—no pat-down, no passport, no airport muddle, just revving an engine and leaving at will. Though the driverless cars that await us might have their uses in dense city traffic or on tedious L.A. freeways, they will certainly diminish the exuberance of a driver gripping the wheel, flooring it and rejoicing, “Eat my dust.”[…]
The American road trip rekindled my interest in travel and, most of all, reminded me how lucky we are in our country’s spaciousness and modernity. […]
So over the course of 2012-14, in four seasons, I drove tens of thousands of miles, meandering through the back roads of the deep South, listening to the blues on the radio, visiting churches and gun shows and family farms, and writing down people’s stories—of hardship and striving, raising families, struggling in adversity and remembering the past. […]
Nowhere else in the world (though Canada is a contender) is it possible to drive 3,000 miles—the distance from Boston to Los Angeles—and be certain that you will encounter no roadblocks or obstructions; that you will always find a place to stay and somewhere to eat. […]
Though I’ve been driving in the U.S. since I got my license 60 years ago, there is an immense amount of landscape I have yet to see. Driving through the deep South was a wish fulfilled, and so was my trip along the entire 1,900 miles of the Mexican border.
But I still have plans. My Road Trip Wish List includes: driving from Cape Cod to Seattle with many detours. Heading north from Cape Cod and keeping on, past the villages of my ancestors, until I run out of road around Lac Albanel in northern Quebec. Or heading south, as I mean to do soon, crossing La Frontera and taking an extended road trip in Mexico. […]
What made the experience a continuing pleasure was that, in my car, I never knew the finality of a flight, or the ordeal of being wrangled and ordered about at an airport, the stomach-turning gulp of liftoff or the jolt of a train, but only the hum of tires, of telephone poles or trees whipping past, the easy escape, the gradual release of the long road unrolling like a river through America. It is in many respects a Zen experience, scattered with road candy, unavailable to motorists in any other country on Earth.
~ Paul Theroux, excerpts from The Romance of the American Road Trip (WSJ, September 1, 2017). No other travel experience, especially today, can beat the sense of freedom it brings
Photo: Guy Le Querrec (via Mennyfox55)
Saturday afternoon drive: Then the car becomes a meditation chamber
June 17, 2017 by 24 Comments
The basic instructions for beginning meditation are to sit quietly and concentrate on nothing but your breathing for five minutes. Simple enough, right? I can’t do it for ten seconds. I can turn down the lights, burn all the incense and play all the soothing music I want but, after the briefest pause, my brain will recommence to whirr, instantly, uncontrollably.
Until I get on that blissfully empty stretch of open road, that is. Then the car becomes a meditation chamber. It all happens by itself. Breathing slows, the benevolent sky swells out, almost always a blue so pure, clean and enamelled that even worries of climatic catastrophe recede for a moment. Maybe there are some clouds, artfully arranged. Choose your moment to leave town — I like to leave at around 5am, just before rush hour — and there won’t even be any traffic to speak of. Just the white noise of the purring engine to amplify the calm, blissful silence, which will at last find its way into even the most stubbornly busy mind.
Dropping into the Central Valley from the mountains surrounding the Tejon Pass is like breaking open a petit four, getting past the glossy, pretty exterior: inside is the cake. The urban surfaces of California are what we see in movies and on TV: slick, manufactured, shouting, cajoling, bamboozling, seducing, ready to sell you something. And then the confected beauty of the city gives way; now the land reaches far out to the sky. Your ears pop from the pressure change, and a sign advises you that the next gas station is 19 miles off.
~ Maria Bustillos, from “On the Road” (Aeon, May 2, 2013)
Sources: Quote – Andrew Sullivan, Ode to Highway. Photo: Guy Le Querrec (via newthom)
It’s been a long day
November 16, 2016 by 60 Comments
I-95 N.
Leaving work early.
Traffic has slowed to crawl at the notorious rush hour bottleneck at Exit 8 in Stamford, 10 minutes from home. There’s a towering billboard overhead shouting: Think Train. (Or something like it. Let’s not let facts get in the way of a good story.)
My Speed: < 5 mph and slowing. Red tail lights flashing and aglow in all directions on six lanes.
There was unusual calm in this moment on the asphalt.
And then ––
There’s the unmistakeable crush of metal on metal…
I snap my head up to see an oncoming car bearing down on me in the rear view mirror.
Everything moves in hyper slow motion now…
I brace for impact. [Read more…]
Last Exit to Elsewhere
May 29, 2016 by 22 Comments
Hang in there to the end of this video…
[…]
I’d gone out, come back around, only to find one thing. I was older. And, here I was trying to make sense of things. To say there is nothing out there is incorrect. To say that the desert is stingy with everything except space and light, stone and earth is closer to the truth. I still dream, but I’m not restless anymore.
Drive. And come alive.
September 7, 2015 by 17 Comments
East Hampton, Long Island-based artist Grant Haffner paints vivid landscapes inspired by the beautiful country roads and bodies of water of his hometown. Using acrylic, marker, and pencil on wood panel, the painter deconstructs the road scene into a striking series of graphic lines and eye-catching colors. Each image captures the exciting feeling of driving for miles down empty highways—watching power lines pass by in a blur, feeling the dips and turns of the road beneath the wheels, and enjoying the boundless expanse of sky overhead.
“When I drive I feel completely alive,” Haffner says on his Saatchi Art profile. “For a small moment, in between this place and that, I am free from reality. My truck and I become a motion of blurred color, barreling through space and time. I like to keep my window open to listen to the sounds that traveling makes, to enjoy the smell of the landscape. Every trip is a new one, not one sunset is the same. On the road I am a part of the painting. I am movement, color, sound, adventure and emotions. This is my landscape.”
~ Jenny Zhang, Gorgeous Pastel Paintings Capture the Endless Freedom of the Open Road
Notes:
- See more @ Grant Haffner’s bio and gallery: Granthaffner.com
- Source: My Modern Modern: Grant Haffner Open Road Paintings
Wheels take me, anyplace today
May 2, 2015 by 11 Comments
Kaleo is an Icelandic indie pop / rock / folk band established in 2012 and their first major public appearance Iceland. Firmly a phenomenon in their home country of Iceland, the four-piece band Kaleo is set to descend upon foreign shores in 2015, bringing their gorgeous blend of folk, blues, country, and rock to a wider mainstream audience in America. Best friends since attending elementary school in the small town outside of Reykjavik, the band began playing together at the age of 17. They named the band Kaleo, which means “the sound” in Hawaiian. Kaleo has since moved to Austin, TX. (Source: officialkaleo.com)
[…]You and me together riding into the sun
Live without care, with the wind in my hair
Driving through the desert, yeah I’ll go anywhere
Take me where the wheels take me, far away
Wheels take me, I can’t stay
Wheels take, any place today
Imagine myself in an automobile
a hundred miles an hour if you know how I feel.
Alone with my mind, leave my worries behind
I might even reach the border, it’s just a matter of time
I said take me where the wheels take me, far away.
Wheels take me, can’t stay.
Wheels take me, any place today.
Ohh I’m going to San Diego, here I come.
San Fransisco, it won’t be long.
Sacramento, yeah in the sun. I just might go
I said I’m going to San Diego and San Jose
San Francisco and hang by the bay
Sacramento, yeah all the way I just might go
all the way to Mexico oho
I just might go all the way down to Mexico.
Driving I-95 S & N. Kooser. In the Head.
January 6, 2015 by 32 Comments
It’s 5:45 am.
It started tracking me yesterday morning.
I’m driving to work. Dark is lifting to dusk.
I’m returning to the office after an extended vacation.
My head is tumbling with To-Do’s.
I round the corner for the last 1/2 mile stretch and there it was.
Full. Bright. Beaming. Silent.
I stare, and enter a few second refuge before pulling into the garage.
It’s 6:40 pm.
I’m done with my first day back, of meetings back to back.
I’m in my re-entry. Decompression? Gone.
I accelerate down the exit ramp and there it is.
Full. Bright. Beaming. Silent.
It’s tracking me the entire ride home up I-95 N.
And gracefully nudging me from exhaustion, to fatigue and softly settling me into calm.
Yes, Mr. Kooser.
I have missed so many. The count is well into the thousands.
But, no Sir. No Sir.
I didn’t miss this one.
Driving I-95 S. The Circle of Life.
December 13, 2014 by 19 Comments
The Departure.
The Frenzy.
The Packing.
The Awkwardness.
The Race to the Airport.
The Small Talk.
The Drop-off.
*
The Drive Back Home.
Stewing in Silence.
Lamott’s Drowning in Uncried Tears.
Smoke from Melancholia Filling the Cockpit.
An Amputee Rubbing his Stub – Where’s my Limb?
*
The Gap.
Tongue’s first day with his Missing Tooth.
Zeke Turning, Turning, Turning. Can’t find his spot. Lands Heavily, and Sighs.
First Thanksgiving Dinner with the Circle Broken. His Seat Sits Empty.
*
The Return.
“Who’s Picking Up Eric at JFK Airport?”
Everyone!
Notes: Image: Leniwi-ojcowie. Related Posts: Driving Series
Driving I-95 S. Wading in Dissonance.
December 10, 2014 by 22 Comments
5:33 a.m. I enter the on-ramp. Pre-rush hour traffic is gliding down I-95.
Where you at today? What’s it gonna be? Which DK is going to show up?
I glance at the dash. 39° F. Overcast. Low hanging mist. Light is beginning to creep through the gloom.
A fulsome night of sleep. No anchor pulling down on this a** today. Today, I’m rumbling.
I glance at my watch – a late jump for an early morning meeting.
Delegate down? Cancel? Reschedule? Odysseus isn’t hearing the lovely sea nymphs but Glaser’s Siren Call. And he starts to wail. And wail. And wail.
The first rule is the best. Rule number one is that ‘it doesn’t matter.’ ‘It doesn’t matter that what you think. Follow this rule and it will add decades to your life. It does not matter if you are late or early, if you are here or there, if you said it or didn’t say it, if you are clever or if you were stupid…it doesn’t matter.’ Wisdom at last.”
The app calculates my arrival time: 5 minutes before the meeting start time.
Tight. Too tight. Serves you right for agreeing to burn it on both ends. Burn. Burn. Burn. [Read more…]
5:00 p.m. Bell: Heading Home
October 3, 2014 by 11 Comments
Driving. Just another morning. Rollin’ down I-95.
September 9, 2014 by 18 Comments
6:30am.
Traffic is building.
I turn the corner to the I-95 on-ramp. Man in coveralls is standing next to his graffiti stained Seafood Delivery truck. He glances up at me, pauses briefly, and then continues to flick through a bulging wad of bills in his right hand. (You declaring that income, Friend?)
There’s a semi truck in front. A Friendly’s ad adorns its back door: “Eat More Ice Cream.” (What kind of cruel joke is this? You friend, need no more ice cream. Saliva begins to build up, quicker than the traffic flow. I’m worse than Pavlov’s dog. I could use a tall, thick Coldstone Vanilla shake. Right now. I’d skip lunch if I could indulge. I would. I might.)
I come up on a gargantuan, two-trailer Fed Ex semi. Driver sitting up high. The truck gleams in the morning sun. (Bucket list: Need to drive a Semi cross-country. Is he delivering new iPhone 6+s to Manhattan Apple Stores? Gadget man starts to twitch.)
I pass downtown Stamford and see the RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) logo towering over the city. (Well laddies. Is it time to cut the cord from Mother England?) [Read more…]
Breathe. Beachy Head. 1:38 min.
August 29, 2014 by 25 Comments
Above Beachy Head in East Sussex, England.
Saturday afternoon Drive. Hmmmm. Too Young To Die
May 3, 2014 by 35 Comments
Which reminds me of one of my favorite David Crosby tunes.
↓ click for audio (David Crosby – “Too Young To Die”)
Sweet old racin’ car of mine
Roarin’ down that broken line
I never been so much alive
Too fast for comfort
Too low to fly
Too young to die
Thank you Jack for sharing.
Live & Learn 