That Slow Evening Drive

Certainly never been a wild child but I've always been one with restless feet that needs to move, hence my relentless speedwalking that leaves everyone else choking in the dust. When I was a kid, I remember one of the things my dad used to do to calm me down was to take me for a quick drive around town. One of my fondest memories actually, of my dad drumming his fingers at the wheel to a crooning Elvis and me cheerfully riding at the back with my nose eagerly pressed to the windows watching the world go by in lazy evenings.

Nowadays of course, it's usually me at the wheel with Buble wailing away about kissing fools and occasionally my dad at the side peppering me with well-meaning but unsolicited advice on life, love and my lousy driving. Of course since I'm usually recklessly flying at warp speed while zig-zagging dangerously along the five-lane highway, I figure the driving advice is certainly warranted - as is his yelling away desperately while clinging helplessly to the buckle as I attempt miraculous Fast N Furious 90 degree turns at top speed.

What can I say? I cut my eyeteeth driving with the need for speed on the rough, reckless city streets - although I've got to say that my sad parking skills and my lack of knowledge about the inner workings of an automobile ( hell, I'll marry a sexy mechanic dammit! ) still has sufficient room for improvement. Don't even get me started on my dad's neverending complaints when I try my poor best at parallel parking. Seems like he isn't the only one to doubt my sanity when I'm driving though since an ashen-faced Big Bicep Barry has questioned it himself.


Wanna ride with me?
Driving can be a chore to some but it has never been a problem for me ( reckless driving aside ). Oddly enough, it's about the only time that I have solely to myself during the day - totally alone with my random thoughts - and I'm actually concentrating on one thing without desperately multitasking a thousand other activities. At work, I have a number of patients to see to at the same time while juggling various requests from colleagues and nurses on the other. And usually by the time I get home in the evening, I have a dozen mundane chores to attend to with another handy dozen left waiting on my plate which leaves me doing the multitasking like a thousand-armed demigod.

But all that gets shoved onto the backburner while I'm driving. During that hour when I'm driving alone on the highway with jazz and Jack Johnson playing in the background, I resolve interpersonal issues, work gripes and various financial woes. Those quiet solitary moments also lend me the time and space for my creative juices to flow and my imagination starts to soar, painting various images and montages for the bedtime stories that I write.

Of course then a killer maniac in a sports car zips to the front of me, barely missing my fender and all that zen creativity flies out the window as I let loose with a plethora of nasty curses. :)