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Driving

One of my favourite past times, rain or shine, is to go a drive in the car. Though I don’t mind driving myself I much prefer it when someone else drives. And I could sit in the car forever. My family joke about whether there will ever come a time that I will get board in the car. I honestly believe the answer is no.

You see when I’m in the car driving for no reason, on the road to nowhere in particular, I feel free, like the world outside has disappeared. Some people enjoy driving because of the things they see and the places they go, and I enjoy that too but really driving nowhere feels like running away, in the best possible way. This is why, to my sister’s dismay, my rule is if you’re going somewhere, to do something it doesn’t count as a drive.

I sit beside whoever my companion that day is and we put the world to rights, reminisce dream, laugh, sing and sometimes even cry. And with each of the people who I go out in the car with I have a different type of experience. Most of the conversation that ensues on my many drives is absolute inconsequential nonsense. Sometimes we end up laughing so hard we cry, like the time I was convinced Richard Attenborough did animal documentaries only for my sister to ask if I was thinking of Jurassic Park. And other times we have conversations that run so deep we have to drive for a little longer because the conversation couldn’t possibly end yet.

Sometimes the world is moving so fast that it feels like it’s running away from me, so sometimes it’s nice to run away from it. Time is so scarce and life is so busy it is easy to live alongside those you love but rarely manage to connect. Driving and shutting out everyone else but the person I’m with is my way of connecting.

When I ask ‘can we go a drive?’ what I’m really saying is ‘I want to cut the world down to you and me’. 
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