Driving

I have been driving a lot. I think I have always driven a lot, compared to most of my friends. I like driving. I always have. When I had social media my avatar was a photo from when I was 3 years old and screaming because the car ride at Disneyland had ended. I actually vividly remember that ride and even that photo. I remember the feeling of the car bumping back and forth along the rail. I knew that I was not driving very well, but once in a while I could feel myself getting the hang of it. And then it was over. I thought that if I could just have another go at it I could learn.

I have been driving at night, along freshly paved roads with bright and solid freshly painted double yellow reflective lines and glowing bumps. Drives through forests where there are no lights but headlights and the yellow lines swirls towards me. I had a Little Tikes driving game when I was kid that was like that, a little screen that looked like night driving and yellow lines in a black sea.

See, there is this theme of chasing after the feeling of freedom that cars gave me. And my car is still that for me. For some people their car is their refuge, a second or maybe first home. For me, my car is a vehicle. My car is more like an arrow. I climb in and shoot myself towards the sun.

But I suppose I should admit there is a deeply pleasurable experience to be had when driving. Driving is best approached as a full-sensory experience, with windows down and climate controls working to normalize the cabin temperatures. At this time of year, winter, the heater is full blast on my knuckles as cold air pours in all four windows and open sunroof. Along with the air comes the smells of forests and farmlands. The volume on the stereo is accordingly raised to overcome the wind noise. In pursuit of refining this experience I have gravitated to slower country roads that allow me to travel under 45mph in order to minimize the sound of wind buffeting through the vehicle. These country roads and forest highways smell incredible and traveling through countrysides and gliding through redwood forests becomes so much more than a commute. I am lucky to drive along the California coastline at sunset, with golden light flooding Highway 1, with golden hours chock full of cliffs and family running across the road with arms full of beach supplies. I have never felt the pain of traffic in this state. When one recognizes the ecstasy of driving in such a place traffic is transformed into a slow motion sequence that gives one the ability to look around. To roll the windows all the way down. Tow look up out of the sunroof and through the canopies into neon blue-orange expanses.

Last year I told a therapist that I wasn’t enlightened, I was avoidant. He laughed and said he wanted to put that in his next book. But as I have grown more aware of my time in my car, I can’t but feel like I was wrong last year. That there is a part of me that is, in fact, enlightened. Maybe it is just a small part of me, the part of me that knows the optimal speed to drive with the windows all the way down and The Beatles blasting, taking the long way home because the sunset is that good and dinner isn’t for another couple of hours anyways. I think that is enlightenment. I think that is beyond drugs. I think that is finding joy in the spaces in between. Transience is beautiful. Our lives are constantly en flux, and the times when that is all that we are, flux, might be scariest, but are also the most beautiful.

I remember now that I had come to this place before. I remember riding my bike across San Francisco from the BART station in the Mission to Ocean Beach where I was living at the time. I would take the long way, I would bumble my way through the millions of cutty little trails through Golden Gate Park. I would stop for dinner sometimes, or sometimes I would just bee-line for the beach. I remember catching a glimpse of a sliver of pink sunset through my bedroom window and dropping whatever I was doing to walk my 2 block pilgrimage to the ocean to stand in the namesake of my neighborhood, to bathe in sherbert sunsets with a glass of beer in my hand. I remember realizing that for my birthday I just wanted to see my friends and family, and inviting them to go camping with me, ecstatic to just sit around a fire with whoever could or would show up.

I think I am enlightened because I started throwing off the things that weighed me down. Literally en-light-ened. To be able to stand in a moment of peace and stillness. To enter into solitude with reverence. To release the people around me from expectation. But then I learned to doubt myself. I started to question this gift of peace. I rejected the joy that comes from simplicity. I let someone tell me that I was settling, that I was avoiding the deeper pleasure that complexity promises. But there is nothing wrong with the simple man that I am. There is nothing wrong with taking immense pleasure in sunsets, in seeing them as superior to any instance of premium streaming content or piece of art in a gallery. I suppose I am ok with people thinking me a fool, with people looking down on me for loving my drive home from work, for loving my time at work hanging clothes, for loving the littles moments shared with strangers in line at the grocery store.

Life is too rich to let anxiety win. Life is too precious to let greed drive us away from the goodness we have been given. I worry sometimes, and I fall prey to the false promises of the world, too. But I am starting to find my way back to the good, to the peace that God gives us freely and simply. I know it is not supposed to be that easy. I know that it totally invalidates all of the hard worl that we do in the pursuit of meaning and fulfillment. But I promise you, We cannot work towards it, we cannot strive towards it. We can only humbly accept it. We can only humbly accept it for what it is and accept it where we are in the present moment. I know. It stinks that it isn’t more complicated. It is unfair that it is so easy, because then just anyone can have it, even the people who didn’t work hard for it. What about the hard work I have put in? The great person I have become? All of the sacrifices I have made? What about all of my belongings and all of my travels? All of my memories and all of my plans? Are you saying it is all vanity?

There is a real and lasting joy and peace. There is a real and lasting transformative power that can invade the present and create something new and awesome. There is a communion with the holy spirit that is available to us all all times, and is in fact yearning for connection with us always. I think that is hard to believe. So maybe, for now, just believe that I have found enlightenment driving my Ford Focus over Hecker Pass at sunset.