Driving

Everyone has dreams, I suppose. Not as in grand, majestic aspirations, but rather simple things. Moments born in the ideal. Moments you can see so clearly and so often it's as if they've happened. Here's one of mine:

Seated in a car I am hurtling through the warmth and torpor of August sunlight. Windows down and the all-encompassing rhythm of popular music. Radio. Connected as it is to time and place, this is now and virile and quakes within my chest. At any given moment I can tell you exactly what this song is.

The leather is hot, clutching skin when we slow, and colored glass blocks the sun's heady amplitude. I grip the wheel and feel my palms jump in starts against the plastic. I can smell her. Despite the highway air and my soap and toothpaste I can clearly discern a nameless perfume and draw it in.

The seat behind is crowded with bags. Towels and books and footwear. I have folded the seat to accomodate this purpose, and the cabin is unusual in its spaciousness. Wind whips at straps and cloth unsecured. They flap in time to the music.

The road commands attention. Rigs and weaving cars bear plates from up and down the seaboard. I shift my head and our eyes connect. Sundressed and sunglassed your lips squirm at their corners.

I put out my hand.

I put out my hand perpendicular to my body and just above the gearshift. I uncurl my fingers. You place your hand in mine and squeeze. That's all.

35 miles out and I wonder at the time we're making. It doesn't matter. I came for this.

I have considered this so often. There have been so many women in the seat beside me. There haven't been any. Each reflection was an attempt to see the particulars of that face; to trace the contours of fabric and determine the outline beneath. I wanted to know who she was. Needed to know.

What I had never considered was the identity of the driver. I am not that man. I took for granted that when such a thing eventually came to pass, that I would have since transformed. I took that for granted. A sobering thought but a hopeful one. The real journey. The wheel I'm holding.