Driving

I’ve been driving 13 hours straight. The road, act of driving, part of my muscle memory now. I could close my eyes and feel the curvature of the interstate, make the corners, see the reflective green signs through my closed eyelids. This is nothing new. I’ve been driving all over the continent for decades. The berms, embankments, left-lane exit ramps are all second nature to me. I know them like my tongue knows my mouth. Drove so long today, drove so long in my life. There is a sort of meditative trance. The radio becomes white noise, mixed into the engine and the high-pitched whistle of the tires on the road. Metronome of striped lines before me. I’ve been driving for 13 hours, and a lifetime. My head is clear. Automatic behavior frees up the head.

Hemmingway said writing is easy, you just sit at a typewriter and bleed. Most anything is easy with that attitude. If you learn to sit and bleed you can work wonders with what is offered to you, always. You can hit the road in cold black night, and watch a day be born. The sun passes over you, and glares into your rearview mirrors after 13 hours.

I’m alone and still but I’m moving fast. It’s meditation and progress, sure, but every hotel room is the same. Every city looks the same. A city tries to exude character but they all have gas stations, McDonald’s, monuments, people, ugly dead grass medians, bridges, inside jokes. I wake up and forget where I am. I drive away.

Tomorrow I’ll be somewhere I’ve never been. A new place. I will forget it. I will drive to another place, feeling mostly the same.