Drive

When you can't afford therapy and you've got yourself a mind-full of swirling, whirling thoughts; it doesn't feel so much like settling to opt for an open stretch of highway with a brand new playlist and a full tank of gas.

It's an icy, cold Tuesday. The kind that bares its teeth and snaps at your nose and bites your fingers, the kind with pale blue skies and wisps for clouds. The kind that has you feed your kids breakfast, hop in the rusty blue Subaru to drive 130 miles to attend a funeral, and drive 130 miles home in time for dinner and bedtime.

John burned me a playlist he made the night before so I could have some music to distract me, to enjoy on my drive. I saved it for the drive home, not knowing what was on it, and feeling certain I needed to keep things mellow for my drive out.

The thing is, having the car to myself felt like a vacation. Two hours of silence. Or music. Or me singing at the top of my lungs. But I didn't have to answer anyone or tell stories - I just got to sit there and think.

The funeral service was beautiful. Thoughts to unwrap another time, I think. But I'm so glad I went. One thing the pastor said, just as he was starting the service, was this:

Relax into your emotions. Whatever it is you brought here today, God's big enough to take it. So sink into it, whatever it is. And God will meet you there.

People show up at funerals for a lot of different reasons, and I find it easy to be caught off-guard by what gets dredged up out of our own grief chambers, what triggers unresolved anxieties to flare up again, by what scars get ripped open.

Relax into it, he said. We don't often give ourselves that permission.

::

I'm heading home, driving southwest. The road curves and bends, and the sun passes back and forth across the car. The early hour at which the sun is slipping out these days never fails to surprise me. And while I'm not blinded, the scene is backlit by the setting sun, barns and silos becoming silhouettes, dark blank slates masquerading as road signs.

It doesn't matter. The route is both familiar and foreign. I know it by heart, but it could be Midwestern Countryside, Anywhere, USA. The view depends on where you're coming from, where you're going, and we all create our own maps of the landscape.

I slide in John's CD, my mind buzzing. It was C's funeral, but there were so many there who had lost. A grandmother who lost her grandson, and barely hung onto her daughter. A husband who lost his wife. A brother and mother, missing their sister-daughter, grieving for the children she left behind. They shared their stories, carry-ons towed along on this trip, the telling of stories marking lives and loss on the map.

Chris Cornell wails from the speakers, and I belt out the lyrics with the full force of my voice. I crank the dial to the right, and it doesn't go back down for 100 miles.

Why does it feel so good to sing at the top of my lungs? Why do I envy the impassioned release of the singer?

Relax into your emotions. God's big enough to take it.

I need the release. There's a lot whirling around inside and if I don't open the pressure valve, something's gonna blow.

The familiar drum beats and the Beastie Boys are screaming in my face. Listen all y'all, it's a Sabotage.... And again, I sink into it. I drum the steeringwheel and yell as loud as I want, right along with my Boys, and they don't care whether I get the words right.

And then it's Ben Folds, plunking out a melody and crooning along with his piano. He's there with me - Oh, I've been thinking a lot today.... And on it plays, and on I sing, and on I drive; the sun sashaying overhead, the center line guideing me over hills and around bends, past farms and fields, dry and brown and brittle and cold.

The Black Crowes pick at their guitars and slow things down. I settle in, I quiet myself. It felt good to yell, to belt, to pound the wheel with my palms. But when she carries a lock of hair in her pocket and a cross around her neck, it becomes too much and I surrender and the road blurs with tears for too. many. people. and I relax into where I'm at, and God meets me there. Taking it - my anger, my fears, my grief, my hope, my tears.

And I drive.

My husband knows me. His music transports me as surely as this Subaru. I listen and I'm there.

He splices in some old school Black Sabbath to curl my lips into a smile and some STP Art School Girlfriend to send me back to the smoker's wall outside our college dorm and a little Cake to sing the praises of a girl with mind like a diamond, who uses a machete to cut through red tape. I laugh and I remember the easy days, care-free and self-absorbed, heady and brand-new in love, the days before I grew my mother-heart, before I got the ephemeral nature of my days or the gift that is waking up healthy each morning. I remember and I laugh and I sing and I drive.

::

What is it about driving? The control? The forward motion? The speed? The solitude? The forced time to sit and do nothing but think?

The music blares and the rubber rolls over miles and miles that stretch like days ahead of me.

I'm approaching home, but I'm in another dimension. I know that if I pull in that driveway and walk through that door to house-full of chaos I will be scattered and fragile. I need to ground, to gather my thoughts, the contents filling the car, threatening to spill out a window cracked, to reel myself in and plant myself firmly in the moment.

So I take the next exit and pull into a parking lot, pulling out my journal and my pen. Thoughts and feelings spill onto pages, emotions running over, dropping as ink splots on paper. I purge, I ground, and I put it in drive.

I feel like I'm coming out of Savasana, bringing myself back to my surroundings, rubbing my fingers against my thumbs, opening my eyes into palms, light seeping through the spaces, a gentle re-entry into stark surroundings.

The farms fade, the city emerges. I pull into town as the sun lowers behind the buildings, behind the trees. The hazy yellow tint that shone on my drive, the amber glare that filled the car is gone. Like that. I blink the straining out of my eyes, and I see clearly. It's blue and grey, a subtle pink and a pale orange where the sun had been. There's snow on the trees, cars full of people heading to and from their Christmas shopping, heading home from work. A jet glides across the sky, coming in for a landing; and I'm ready to see my kids, my husband.

I round the last corner and pull into the driveway. The lights are in the house and I can see them through the windows. It's been a long day, a long drive.

The needle points to damn near empty, but I'm feeling very full.

***

Linking up to Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge (#best09), response to prompt 'best drive'