annabanana

i got my license as a teenager like many of us do, but since we didn’t have a family car, i never made use of my new ability. i took the test, and basically never drove again. as an urban person, i rarely felt the need to drive and considered myself Very Clever to have avoided the cost (both financial and environmental) of owning a vehicle.

but this also meant i never got comfortable behind a wheel. as the years between me and my driver’s ed course turned into decades, my mild nervousness driving, on the rare occasion i’d be asked to, dwindled into active discomfort and anxiety.

then as my sad little basket of loved ones killed on the road began to fill, i became downright phobic.

and my lack of confidence really was firmly supported by lack of skill. the whole situation felt impossible.

interestingly, one of benefits of having almost every aspect of my life broken is a strange sort of liberation. when it feels equally shitty to drive, or put on socks, why not try driving?

you know, after you get those socks on.

my landscape may have been razed, i may have an emotional concussion, my will-fingers may be snapped, my heart may be skewered by a blade whose handle sticks out of my back, but i’m here to tell you, there’s life after death. i’m not sure i’m human any more, but i’m here, fiercely loving, savage, and disloyal to anything that isn’t juicy and good. that isn’t nourishing. i’m filling myself back up. laying new stones. i have to love each brick, or it doesn’t get placed.

today i’m going on the longest road trip i’ve ever been on alone – about 11 hours! – in rosie, my first vehicle purchase. an old VW van—ha ha! rosie, my rusty beauty queen! my brown barbaloot!

i’m scared and excited.

oh my god. i put this off for years (although to be fair half the time it was because i was broke, not just scared ) and now i feel like my mouth is all taken care of. i’m clean, filled, and all caught up.

man. it’s like getting your taxes done. or underarms waxed. it feels so good afterwards.

87) crisp windy fall days
88) london
89) cuniform writing
90) dramatic late afternoon light through scuttling clouds
91) large grassy hills (walking, running around, taking naps on)
92) feeling pretty
93) feeling healthy
94) the company of friends
95) perspective
96) the drive over duffy lake road
97) being able to drive myself somewhere
98) my borrowed van
99) marimba bands (although, strangely, they also make me cry.)
100) being able to do what i want

and, two of the most important to me, for good measure:

101) purpose
102) a quiet, settled mind.