07.23.2001 - 2:39 p.m.

So the other night I was driving. I was in one of those moods where it's more or less obligatory to gun the engine after each stop. I was singing. Not even with the radio, just belting out bits of whatever felt appropriate: "Don't call me daughter/hold me like you'll never let me go/when I fall in love, it will be forever/because every rose has it's thorn..." I didn't stop when I ran out of words, just kept singing some tune I don't remember. I was tight and jittery but driving so I was okay. Driving, I am always okay.

My car was made for roadtrips. I get in and pull out onto the road and it purrrrs... everything I need is within reach. I have napkins and snack crackers and a tire gauge in the glove compartment; sunglasses, a pen, a hair thing, several dollars in change, and half a pack of Trident in the armrest; travel games in a back compartment; extra oil, a tent, and a sleepingbag in the trunk. Tapes and a 2001 Atlas under the passenger seat and a Maryland map in the door. I could, at any point, just go. When I drive I am never tired, never hungry, never sorry. I never even have to pee.

I don't know if this happens to everyone, but often I just want to wake up the next day and be in St. Louis. Or not St. Louis, in New Orleans or Maine or a dingy truck stop halfway to the other ocean. I want to drive forever, to catch up to the sunset on my three and a half gallons and never need a refill.

I bet if I ever stopped thinking, and just believed, then it would work. But so far I've always remembered, just in time:

Right. Laws of Physics.

-stonebridge

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