A Journey of A Thousand Miles

Driving and the Dream-State

Between Thursday morning and Saturday evening, I drove over 1,100 miles. Two eleven-and-a-half hour stretches, separated by thirty-six hours; from Hamden, Connecticut to Chapel Hill, North Carolina and back again.

My body feels stiff, battered. My foot tingles from hovering between the gas pedal and brake. My brain is just now shaking off the miasma of teeth-gritting hypervigilance and sustained tedium.

I was lucky to have two fulfilling missions: to take one daughter down to Chapel Hill to settle into her new home, and to bring another daughter, along with her dog and my son’s girlfriend, back up north. I wasn’t just dropping off a load of building materials at Walmart, and I don’t have to take to the highway again today. But I realize, in this whine, that I am describing a job that many spend decades doing: long-haul trucking. I add it to the growing list of occupations I am incapable of, like actuary and commercial fisherman.

One thing I can say about driving for so long is that there’s a zone that you enter when you’ve got around eight hours under your belt, where dream state and acute awareness intersect. I imagine it’s like dropping acid, but without the fun hallucinations. It’s a weird headspace, where you and your car become one. Stopping for gas and something to eat and seeing your fellow humans feels surreal, like you’ve suddenly been popped into a terrifying Diane Arbus photo. We stopped at a Wawa somewhere outside Baltimore, and a woman with don’t-fuck-with-me eyes peering over her mask and clutching a rheumy-eyed miniature poodle shared the filthy two-stall restroom with me. The dog crept under the stall divider to watch me squat to pee. No one said anything.

I just got back into the car and became, once again, my purpose: to get us home safely. Nothing and everything remarkable about it. I hit the road. I’m still recovering.