Driven to interaction

Two years ago, when gas prices seemed magnetically attracted to $4 a gallon and even the most hard-boiled possessors of gun racks talked of melting their Ford F150s into plowshares, I proposed an experiment to my wife.

“How about I get rid of my car and go carless and see if it’s possible.”

Her response was something like, “Yeah, good idea, ya idiot.”

We live in a rural area. The choreography of child-rearing and employment preservation is heavily dependent upon internal-combustion-for-all. Yet, in the mysterious curvature of space-time – where every now and then the curlicue of irrational dreams falls upon fate that loiters like a rat – I am now in Month Five of not driving.

Here’s my report: Carlessness is possible. I’ve ridden shotgun beside many interesting people. I’ve logged many pleasant miles on my Merrells. And though I’m suddenly seeing rhythms in the world I hadn’t noticed before, in conversation I try hard to resist the temptation to downshift into the sort of intolerable, low-gear ponderings made famous by Verlyn Klinkenborg (that’s difficult, I must admit).

Though certainly you could say my proposed protest against fossil fuels was premeditated, that’s not how I found myself being motorless in a motorist world. I had a seizure in September that knocked me cold. By law, in Massachusetts, I cannot drive for six seizure-free months. So far – knock on a Dodge Woody – so good.

Klinkenborgish meditations on the slow life aren’t my only vice these days. But geez, what am I to do? Am I not to take note of the seasonally foreclosed upon robins’ nest atop a tree by the playground? Doggone it, when you’re no longer a card-carrying member of the forward-heaving herd, when you're no longer steering effortlessly upon the earth's surface, the world engulfs you as its own. Your five senses take five solemn oaths of engagement.

Crap. You see what I mean?

Klinkenborgish crap, Part II: You notice the intricate rhythms of the world like never before. The same tradesman with a coffee in his hand takes the same left-hand-turn at the same corner at the same time each weekday morning. The same high school student makes a dash for the bus with his coat unzipped, still chewing his breakfast. I could go on. The same guy in a blue Jeep passes me at the same time while shifting into second (he waved to me during Month One, now in Month Five no longer waves, probably out of respect for the fact we don't know each other). I’ve imposed a new syncopated beat in my own right, maybe the only one within miles coupled to these rhythms – me and the guy across town who got a DUI.

Judy, a neighbor, sometimes drives me to work. Her daughter serves in Iraq. Her son is sick like me. Her front porch is about to collapse due to dry rot. I never knew these things until I became her passenger.

Sally, who is usually going my way, sometimes drives me in the afternoons. She suffers from chronic headaches. She dreams of living in Miami. I never knew these things until I became her passenger.

My other new vice concerns emotions and marriage. I don’t wish to freak out my wife with the intolerable sappiness of Sappho, but I’ve come to understand the meaning of the most powerful words ever uttered by woman and man – to love each other “through sickness and in health.” Now in Month Five, she has yet to blink. Of course she hasn’t! But … but, still.

We were at Race Point at the tip of Cape Cod 10 years ago when we made our marriage vows. She was stunning in her grandmother’s wedding dress. I had mustered up as much handsomeness as was within my means. Sickness was not on our minds. Then this: A crash course in old age for me, a heaping load of new responsibilities for her, and a profound respect for that one particular vow whose implications were only theoretical at the time.

She’s the one who drives me the most – to get my haircut, to the community center, to the store. I'm a powerless passenger, my hands bookended between my knees like I'm eight-years old again. She drives too fast sometimes. I sometimes need to hang on to the door handle. I’ve learned to shut up about these things because of the other things. I've learned to shut up about the fact she can't bring herself to make it through a single sentence of Verlyn Klinkenborg without yawning. But who really cares?

I could now trace her profile while blindfolded. That's what's important.

Through internal combustion and eternal combustion, she drives me all the way to love.