Hard skills: driving

Dad taught me to drive. My experience with driver's education wasn't a particularly good one. My instructor was more interested in his Mountain Dew in cigarettes, and I had to drive with a car load of bullies and other kids from school who didn't like me and would do things like flick my ear and kick the seat, all while the instructor chugged his green pop and chain smoke Basics.

So when it was obvious that I needed more practice before the driving test, he took me out in his 1989 Chevy S-10 Blazer. This was no small thing. He special ordered it from a dealership in Indiana. I remember the day we drove to trade in his truck and pick it up because I remember the cicadas. Walls of fat insects flying hurling themselves against the giant plate glass windows, flying and hurling and either falling dead or bouncing until they fell dead:

on the ground
in a rotten ankle tall pile
of failed cicadas.

 And then one of them flew into the Blazer and hid under my seat. The sound it made sounded like it as waiting to devour my kicks.

Dad loved to drive and I think he wanted to be able to share that with me. Because he was sick most of my childhood, there were a lot "father/son" kinds of things we simply weren't able to do.  But I WAS worried, because even though my driving instructor was a bully ignoring, Mountain Dew chugging, chain smoking USE LESS instructor, I did manage to scare him at least twice to the point that he nearly choked on his Pepsi product. And my Dad wasn't exactly KNOWN for his calm nature.

But he talked me out of the driveway and away. He took me down back roads near the house; very little traffic, but narrow and windy in places. And he talked to me about why he liked to drive. It was a chance to let his mind go, he said. He could focus on driving and not have to think about anything, or he could think about things, decompress, or just listen to the radio. Dad was the only adult who had told me it was OK to listen to the radio while you drive.

He never used the word meditation. But that's what it was about for him. A meditation. And yes, I'm sure he also felt those feelings of independence I used to feel when I drove. But he didn't attach driving to his freedom, his masculinity, or his economic status. He drove because he loved to drive.

I don't know how he'd feel knowing that I don't especially like to drive. But I do like to be in motion. This sometimes takes the form of travel. A lot of times it just takes the form of walking. I like to walk and meditate, or walk and think, or walk and listen to music. I like to walk and take in the world in small, deep draughts.

I like to think he'd understand.

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In Motion

Chicago --

Getting out of River City is always fraught. Or, at least, it seems that way lately. I tell myself it's important to remind myself: it's the time of year. Summer travel is a always a little .... more. More crowded. More expensive. More prone to run late. 

I decided to cheat on the old grey dog and use Megabus for my run up to Chicago. Yes, I could have taken a bus up to Indy and rode train... except that regional train travel is complicated thanks to the monumental lack of foresight that led to the decommissioning of the Indiana State Hoosier. It would have extended this leg of my trip a bit too long, and I would have had to spend at least one night in the Indiana Depot... an accommodation I've experienced many, many times too many.  In order to be an even more particular traveler, I opted for the option. -- at the cost of an additional $2 -- to reserve a specific seat. I chose one on the left side of the bus, next to the window, near the front, on the top level. 

That proved to be a complete waste of time. Not only was the bus an hour late, but my seat and the one next to it were taken up by a future seminary student and his prodigious amount of luggage. I wasn't the only one to fall prey the hopeful, false advertising.  Two women across the aisle and one row up from me were actually sitting in seats that had been reserved by a young woman and her friend. When the young woman attempted -- politely -- to explain they were sitting in her seats, they were incredibly rude. Sure, they were probably still sore at being bamboozled. But that's no reason to call a fellow sufferer a bitch.

Bus travel isn't my preferred mode, but it gets the job done. Mostly. At least regionally.

So I remind myself the delays are seasonal. Interstates are construction- choked arteries. There are more people on the road, and because we're heading out during rush hour, delay is almost guaranteed.   But there's been a steady increase in people moving around the country by bus. Flying can be prohibitively expensive, and trains don't go everywhere people really need them to go.

More people are in motion, for reasons and excuses to numerous to list. No, they're not traveling; at least, not traveling in the sense that I travel. And they're not vacationing in that Sunday Morning retirement IRA commercial sense, either. But people are in motion. Not in control, but still in a damned hurry. And because of this, and because public transit goers tend to see themselves as consumers rather than the consumed, the gentility and etiquette I saw a few years back is wearing off like tired, neglected paint. 

But the sunset in Indiana, just north of Indianapolis, is lovely. The colors are autumnal: purples and blues highlighted with splashes of tangerine, splashed across the sky above an endless ocean of green fields waiting for the harvest. And that, more than anything, is why I don't drive.