Driving

Diary

It's far too easy for me to get in my car here.  In Northampton i'd scoff at driving anywhere.  If someone suggested meeting for drinks in Amherst (barely fifteen minutes by car) i would respond with shock: 'you want me to drive WHERE?'  I walked everywhere and was more than happy to let my car sit unused for weeks at a time.  Now i'm on Cape Cod though and i find myself turning the key in my ignition more than ever, this despite raging gas prices, despite my depleted bank account, despite having a perfectly good bike and everything i need just a five minute ride away.  And i don't even go anywhere!  I put on Tori Amos bootlegs and rove around, aimlessly.  I've been back barely three weeks and already i've regressed to my teenage self: angsty, restless, and addicted to driving.  Yes, addicted.  Driving can be quite narcotic.  The forward motion is soothing, the velocity thrilling, and it’s comforting to know that no matter which direction i drive in i will always end up at the ocean.  I don’t have to decide which way to go and the lack of freedom provides the illusion of safety, but it is all also stiflingly familiar.

I was raised on Cape Cod, but it's not home.  There's no family homestead and i have barely any family here, just an aunt and an uncle.  Yet everyone seems to think i’ve gone ‘home’ for the summer.  The distance between my reality and theirs is striking.  I grew up here but without roots.  My father never managed to build a life for himself never mind one for my me or my sister: no real estate, no career, no respite from instability.  And mom?  Well, after the age of six mom became little more than a memory.  Still, whenever i tell someone i’m from the Cape the response is predictably positive.  “How amazing!”, this person will say, his or her brain filling with images of JFK on a sailboat, suntanned and serene.  The truth is, my childhood was more than a little stilted.  As a teenager i was too busy working to find time for the beach and too obsessed with escape to bother with it.  So i would spend what little free time i had driving around, sometimes with friends, mostly alone, thwarted on all sides by ocean, vast and deep.