Motion Therapy

Inspirational song: Drive, She Said (Stan Ridgway)

I've always thought driving was therapeutic. I've done it many times over my life, just grabbed the car keys and driven, alone, with no particular place to go. Sometimes I was mad, and needed to remove myself from a situation where I was in danger of saying or doing things that would later prove to be unwise. Sometimes I was bored, and wanted a change of scenery, or hungry and too lazy to feed myself, so I wanted junk food handed to me through a window. It doesn't usually pay to drive sad, as I get a little self-conscious about driving with tears streaming down my face, as if other drivers can see me clearly and will judge me, and in my low moments, that seems to matter. It has often proven a great way to get to know a new town, especially since on those occasions when I was mad, I always tried to get lost on purpose. I think my intention was that if I was lost, I could be gone longer, maybe to the point where the people I had argued with would actually become concerned by how long I was out. It never worked. Other than a couple cities that mess with my internal compass, I just can't seem to get sufficiently lost. It never takes more than a couple turns to get back on familiar turf.

I had a passenger on one of these drives tonight. My friend waiting for her diagnosis yesterday got it, and it was every bit as dire as we expected. More so, really. And if that wasn't enough of a crushing blow, she had a tire blowout on the way home from the doctor's office, which was just the last straw for her fragile emotions. She needed me to take her to the shop where her car was this evening, but by the time I picked her up, I realized what she needed more was just to be out, with someone who understood and would let her talk about anything and everything. It was dark by the time we got moving, and we took off through the more rural suburbs north and west of here. She's lived here her whole life, and even she didn't recognize the roads we were on. I think that was good, because it helped her feel like she was removed from her surroundings that were weighing heavily on her mind. We didn't resolve everything, but I think by the time I dropped her off at her car, she had her feet under her a little better. I think I'll take her out like this again sometime soon. I don't know that I can have any effect on her medical condition, but I know for certain I can help her reframe her attitude about it on these excursions. Any little bit helps.