This week I’ve been thinking a lot about my dad. He died five years ago last month. A lot has changed in the world and my life since then, but there are some things that are still the same. It’s better to remember how someone lived as opposed to how they died, and I was thinking about how much my dad loved cars and loved to drive. He had a detailed knowledge of most classic cars, but he liked Buicks especially. In most of the stories that he told, there was some detail about the car he was driving at the time, someone else’s car that he was in, or a car he would have like to have had.
For my dad, the ideal driving path between points A and B was not a straight line or highway but whatever patchwork hodgepodge of side streets, back roads, and scenic routes that could be reasonably strung together. When we were kids, we always thought it took forever to get anywhere, like to our Grandmother’s house, because my dad would take city streets and then connect to some random roads. If he’d taken the highway, we would have maybe saved 15 minutes, but as children it felt like we spent hours or even days in the car.
He loved to drive. I don’t know what it meant for him – I never asked him. For me, driving always meant freedom, so I also love to drive. I realized that without saying anything to us at the time, he was showing us some important things about life on the back roads with the windows down and the wind deafening. The destination is important and we get there eventually, but you choose what kind of journey you have. Do you notice what’s around you, find new paths, and enjoy the experience of getting somewhere? Or do you ignore the world around you, go the same way every time, and focus only on what will be there when you get there? If you’re only focused on where you’ll stop, you miss out on everything as you’re driving. Maybe it’s a historic landmark or some beautiful natural display, or maybe it’s a part of town that you’ve never seen. Maybe it’s someplace that you’ve driven past before and going there reminds you of who you were then. It’s important to enjoy the moment, the sweet air whipping past your face, the sun trying to bake the car, the tall wildflowers swaying in the breeze on the side of the road, and the feeling that everything is just fine because we’re on the way.
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