Everyone seems surprised that I chose to make the drive from the Bay Area down to LA. Maybe it’s because I’m doing it on my own. That’s a long drive, they say, as if that isn’t the whole point of me doing it. I laugh when someone asks was it cheaper than flying? I don’t have a practical reason for taking the long way down. It’s simply because I can.
Subconsciously, I’m hoping the drive might preemptively cure all the questions and anxieties surfacing with this season of life. Will 400 miles on the road let me run away from my feelings or give me ample time to sit in them? There’s absolutely no guarantee that this road trip will present any God-given answers. Although I sure wish life worked that way.
The drive itself is mostly uneventful. I put Gracie Abrams and Lizzy McAlpine on repeat. My first night is spent overlooking the Pacific, mesmerized by the coastal glory of Big Sur. None of it belongs to me. I relish in how easy it is to lose track of time here. Reminded of how a lack of urgency is one’s most natural state of being. The moment I leave this place I know that urgency will quickly re-emerge—the rushing towards what’s next and the underlying fear of running out of time. I breathe in, acutely aware of the silence around me. The redwoods are whispering, a waterfall trickles, and my shoes trudge along on the dirt. How easy it is to hear my own thoughts when all the noise is tuned out for me. I get to pretend, for a moment, that this is my reality.
I’m reluctant to leave but I have to keep moving. When I make it back into town, I waste a dollar and an hour on a slow charge, mentally kicking myself for letting the rental car guy convince me to stick with the electric option. Maybe the upgrade would’ve been worth it.
I find a new charging location and take an unexpected phone call, timed so well it has to be a sign from the universe. I put the call on speaker and let the sound of conversation fill the car. When I break my own silence, I feel the weight of each word spoken aloud. As if they carry the finality of a knife. Drive safe, bye.
I untether the car and turn back onto the freeway. Thinking of how it easy it is for strangers who become friends to become strangers again, and again and again. 88 miles to go and the pink skies on my left are dimming into darkness. A friend is falling in love across the world and I think I’m letting my heart break for itself on the 101. Such is life.
I’ve forgotten how the privacy of a car allows you to safely yield to your feelings, and I almost roll my eyes at how perfectly dramatic this entire scene is turning out to be. Older is playing and tears are rolling involuntarily down my face, onto my shirt, my chest. Each drop piercing in my solitude. Grief is the only way I can describe this type of heaviness, though I’m not totally sure what I’m grieving in the moment. Everything, in a way. Everything that never happened, everything that did, everything that could’ve been, everything left unsaid. Everything I couldn’t control and everything I could. The older I get, the easier it becomes to grieve without good reason. This grief is profoundly ambiguous.
I try to scream and nothing comes out. But I feel better after trying, and I’m glad no one was around to witness it. I let all the love and anger and regret and forgiveness lingering from this decade disappear with every passing mile behind me.
An open road can be numbing, but today I find it practically meditative. Who knows what’s up ahead? Reckless Driving comes on, rather pointedly, and I think about how to move through the world as one who is rarely reckless. With kindness, at minimum. With hope, at best. I slow down because it’s darker than I’d like for it to be as I wind down a road by myself. More practically, I realize I don’t know how to change a tire in case I suddenly get a flat. I vow to learn before my next road trip. Just in case.
I make it to my destination for the night and run into a taco shop 5 minutes before they close. I take my order to go, sulking about how there’s nothing glamorous about these lonely moments of doing a road trip on your own. I briefly recall an artwork from the Tate that made us chuckle—I am the curator of my own misery.
Another night in a bed that isn’t mine. Another day peering at a laptop screen in the earliest of daylight hours. I pick up a $13 slice of cake from the famed Madonna Inn just because I can, and text a friend to see if she’s around for the next leg of my drive. We end up on a bench overlooking Ventura, splitting a slice that is much too big for one person. Exchanging stories about how the smallest signs can remind us of our solitude. Wondering how to justify and satisfy the whims of a wandering spirit. I drive away with renowned gratitude for kinship, feeling lighter with each passing hour.
It’s less than 50 miles now to LA and the cars are speeding up beside me. I’m pushing 85 without even realizing. The number of lanes have multiplied. I pass the remaining time by theorizing about the difference between a wild spirit and a wandering spirit. Maybe a wild one chases freedom—but a wanderer simply moves freely. Beautiful in concept, difficult to pin down in definition.
I think that’s everything I aspire to be.
I merge onto the 405 and the wear of the drive is finally hitting me. Or maybe I’m just weary of always having somewhere I need to be. Gunning again towards the next soft place to land. There’s a part of me that can’t help but wish, briefly, that I had just a few more days ahead of me on the road…with nowhere to be. Where are we all going so fast anyway?
i love you, love this 💘
best one yet !!!