Since I was little, a great majority of my time has been spent getting places. I live slightly to the left of the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire. The nearest grocery store is half an hour away, and if I was shot, I would bleed out onto the floor before the ambulance got within 10 miles of me. To get to work, I spend 30 minutes driving down a series of back roads to the top of a hill that is slightly to the left of the middle of nowhere. Getting to the airport is a production, with the time I roll out of my driveway in the ballpark of three hours in advance. I spend most of my time getting to places, so it makes sense that the place I feel the most at home is staring out the windows of a car.
There’s a certain stillness that I connect with while watching the world whizz by. It’s an illusion of being stationary, while moving farther away from where you started. I feel most comfortable in a car because it’s an easy freedom. Living where I do, it’s hard sometimes not to feel abandoned in the isolation of the woods. Some days, I itch so badly to leave I drive around for hours without stopping, no destination planned, no goal to accomplish. The hum of the engine and the crackling static of the radio keeps the small space from feeling claustrophobic, and the road curving in front of me is full of untapped potential.
The trees in Wilton, N.H. look the same as the trees in Peterborough, and the same as the trees in Swanzey, but the heaving roads and narrow intersection feels like an escape from the ordinary. It’s got a lot to do with the fact that I’m in control of where I’m going. It’s hard to feel stuck where you are when where you are is flashing by through the windshield. I can decide to get lost, or I can decide to turn back around and head home. It’s the luxury of being able to hand pick my own path -- there are no expectations to meet, no qualifications I have to have. It’s just me and the open road. To be honest, it makes me feel like a bit of a cowboy.
In this cowboy metaphor, the car is my horse. It’s my ticket to the wild, wild west of the New England countryside. The only rules I have to follow are the rules of the road, but my rules have more to do with turn signals and less to do with herding cattle. Being in a car does this thing to me; It creates a little, buzzing world all by itself, where I can relax and watch things change around me. It’s a place where the familiar blends with the new, the old blends with the undiscovered, and I can decide where I’m turning. It lets me be an adventurer, an observer, and, most importantly, a cowboy. To put it simply, I’m most at home when I’m not. I’ve been waiting to go ever since I found out that there were roads that could take me -- and it’s my turn to drive.
