The sun sets. Peaceful. Or seemingly so. The city wakes up. The bars’ bright signs light up the sky. They draw people in like moths to a light. People have shed their worries, and prepared themselves to take on the night. Some will come out victorious, others not so much. Either way, there’s a light that comes with the darkness. A lighter mood. A lighter air. They’re all ready to get lost in something.
I feel the same, yet different. The sun sets. Peaceful. The crowd fills its usual places, but I know just how to get to where I need to go. But where do I need to go?
The drive – therapeutic. The silence – relaxing. The wind as it blows on my face when I roll my windows down – rhythmic. The black pavement begs me to keep going. It doesn’t know that I’m addicted to the stillness of the night, and the motion of the wind through my hair. I won’t stop driving. Every bump in the road jolts me back to my surroundings. Should I be driving while observing this beauty? Is it daydreaming?
The steering wheel gets a break from my melodic shouting tonight. The radio rests its voice. I want to hear the wind play with my car as it moves through it. I want to hear the grasshoppers sing to one another. And if I decide to pass by a bar, I want to hear the hum of a crowd that relishes this night like I do, just in a different way.
Some may say I’m escaping reality. I believe I’m facing it. It’ll all melt away and I’ll remember my most basic elements. As I drive aimlessly I’ll, in the most honest of ways, reflect. What’s the topic tonight? My life? My day? That one moment that took up five minutes of my time, yet somehow left an impact?
The possibilities are endless, and there’s no one to tell me what I can’t think about. Or what I can think about. I’m imprisoned in my own mind, yet it sets me free. Pray the gaslight doesn’t come on. A harsher reality that threatens my personal revelations. I title these drives my “relaxation time.” Really I’m escaping. But not escaping reality. These drives are my reality. My time to realize my reality, without those distractions.
In the summer I put my hand out and feel the warm air. It’s hot, and almost sticky. I used to face it flat out toward the wind, and the wind’s opposition would often leave my arm sore. I found that holding it flat out that way in the summer warrants a few bug deaths. It feels like a rock hitting my hand, and I cringe and immediately coil back.
In the winter I put my heat on high, but the wind still punctures my body like tiny needles. Maybe one time I am so brave as to extend my arm out of the window, but not too much time will pass before I’m regaining the feeling in my fingers when I all but stick them inside the air vent.
So there I am. And here I am. I’m nowhere I know, but the nowhere knows me. The nowhere is waiting to be discovered, and it wants to help me discover myself.
The title has many different meanings, to many different people, but I allow myself to take it just for these moments – to maybe make me feel like these little adventures are more mystical than a trip in the dark down a back road. I am, in this moment, the midnight rider.
