You know what I miss the most about being at home?
All the driving.
No, I'm serious. It's always mystified me how much people whine about driving -- be it commuting to work/school, going on vacations, or doing errands. People hate driving. I've never understood this, but it's become even more weird to me now that I haven't driven anything in nearly two months.
See, my mother decreed that the rattletrap was not coming to Saskatchewan with me. It eats coolant and the vital systems of the thing are slowly failing. She didn't want me to wind up stranded on the side of the Trans-Canada highway in the middle of December with nobody within a nine-hour drive able to come rescue me (this was before we got here and found out several people in my hall did bring vehicles and probably do care for me enough to come rescue me from the side of the road).
I miss a lot of little things about driving. I miss watching the sunsets as I cruise down the highway. I miss seeing the streetlights stretching out before me on the way to tap class. I miss slowing down to forty and studying the buildings in the small town near my home out of the corner of my eye. I miss feeling the steering wheel under my hands and the solid click of the turn signal.
I miss the peace that came with driving... of not having to do anything else, just drive. And think. And maybe sing. You don't have to pause what you're doing to change over the laundry, or write something down, or check your email, or any other combination of ten things at once. You have one task and one task only. Just drive. I miss that assurance of knowing that if you keep going, you will get there all in good time.
But I think if I'm honest, most of all, I miss the music.
I miss JAG on the way to Bible study. I miss Daniel Amos on the way back from my friends' house. I miss Prodigal on the way back from ballet (Electric Eye) and the other Bible study (Just Like Real Life). I miss White Heart on the way to tap class and dance team. I miss Crumbächer on the way to get groceries. I miss listening to Michael W. Smith's Christmas whenever the heater's running and the snow is dancing in the high-beams.
Basically, I think I mostly just miss music. And streetlights. And dusk. And home.
Showing posts with label highway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label highway. Show all posts
13 October 2013
27 August 2013
Dusk
My favourite time of day is not night (as many assume due to my tendency to stay up till four in the morning), it's actually dusk.
At dusk, it's not completely dark and you can still see the trees and the outlines of the clouds that only a few minutes ago reflected the sunset.
Dusk is the centre of all the magic. The sunset is just fading, the streetlights are just beginning to be visible, the air is just becoming cool, quiet is just beginning to settle over the land. Dusk is the rare time of day that is equally gorgeous both in the city and the country. And it's fleeting enough that you can never get too used to it.
Around this time of year a lot of my driving happens to take place over sunset and dusk. It's all at the same time on the clock, but thanks to the changing of the seasons I drive around at sunset now and not in the dark or in full sun.
Driving is one of the few times I'm well and truly alone. Sometimes I enjoy it, though sometimes it kills me that no-one is with me. Today I enjoyed it.
Initially I hadn't wanted to go anywhere, but I needed to be at a practice at the church and so I (rather begrudgingly) drove to the church, in full sun. But by the time I left the church to drop off one of the others at her place, the sun had dipped behind the buildings and the trees. By the time I drove up to the last intersection in town, the pale pink sunset was already beginning to fade.
There are two ways home from this intersection. You can turn right and go straight, or you can go straight through now and turn right later. My parents prefer going right at the intersection and then driving straight home, but my love for city lights means I often go straight through the lights.
If you go straight through the lights, just beyond the halfway point between the lights and my turn, there's a little town. At dusk it's mostly closed, but the streetlights are on, the two gas bars are still open, and there's a little pub on one corner which always has coloured lights to stand out against the grey-blue sky.
Even before the town, though, the highway is beautiful. It's lined with trees most of the way. There's one short piece just before the town limits that's nearly closed in with tall pines on both sides of the road, then the trees open up just as the road drops and you go around a bend and over a creek. I often think I've wound up in the mountains, due to the view. It may be nicknamed the highway of death, but at least it's a lovely place. (This was the highway where I had my accident, and I know of at least four others who were also in serious wrecks along this stretch. One was fatal.) On the other side of town the trees thin out, but by then you're preoccupied with the beauty that preceded it.
Songs like Walls Of Doubt and Ghost Of The Heart were playing on my stereo as I headed into (and out of) the little town, complementing the scenery. But then that was the end of that CD and I put in my (shiny brand-new) Dig Here Said The Angel CD, hoping I could hear the title track before I got home.
With some careful speed-limit finessing (which can only be done in the country because city people get angry when you drive slower), I not only got to the third track, I managed to make it last for the entire stretch of road from my second turn to our driveway.
Driving along a gravel road, with headlights barely doing anything to illuminate it (I narrowly missed hitting a porcupine), and listening to that song while watching silhouette trees rise up into the steel-blue sky as a yellowish green light (a remnant of the sunset) illuminates a few sparse clouds to the west is a magic moment. Getting out of the rattletrap right after the song ends and letting that gorgeous chorus melody echo through your mind as you stand in open stillness at the edge of dusk is perhaps even better.
At dusk, it's not completely dark and you can still see the trees and the outlines of the clouds that only a few minutes ago reflected the sunset.
Dusk is the centre of all the magic. The sunset is just fading, the streetlights are just beginning to be visible, the air is just becoming cool, quiet is just beginning to settle over the land. Dusk is the rare time of day that is equally gorgeous both in the city and the country. And it's fleeting enough that you can never get too used to it.
Around this time of year a lot of my driving happens to take place over sunset and dusk. It's all at the same time on the clock, but thanks to the changing of the seasons I drive around at sunset now and not in the dark or in full sun.
Driving is one of the few times I'm well and truly alone. Sometimes I enjoy it, though sometimes it kills me that no-one is with me. Today I enjoyed it.
Initially I hadn't wanted to go anywhere, but I needed to be at a practice at the church and so I (rather begrudgingly) drove to the church, in full sun. But by the time I left the church to drop off one of the others at her place, the sun had dipped behind the buildings and the trees. By the time I drove up to the last intersection in town, the pale pink sunset was already beginning to fade.
There are two ways home from this intersection. You can turn right and go straight, or you can go straight through now and turn right later. My parents prefer going right at the intersection and then driving straight home, but my love for city lights means I often go straight through the lights.
If you go straight through the lights, just beyond the halfway point between the lights and my turn, there's a little town. At dusk it's mostly closed, but the streetlights are on, the two gas bars are still open, and there's a little pub on one corner which always has coloured lights to stand out against the grey-blue sky.
Even before the town, though, the highway is beautiful. It's lined with trees most of the way. There's one short piece just before the town limits that's nearly closed in with tall pines on both sides of the road, then the trees open up just as the road drops and you go around a bend and over a creek. I often think I've wound up in the mountains, due to the view. It may be nicknamed the highway of death, but at least it's a lovely place. (This was the highway where I had my accident, and I know of at least four others who were also in serious wrecks along this stretch. One was fatal.) On the other side of town the trees thin out, but by then you're preoccupied with the beauty that preceded it.
Songs like Walls Of Doubt and Ghost Of The Heart were playing on my stereo as I headed into (and out of) the little town, complementing the scenery. But then that was the end of that CD and I put in my (shiny brand-new) Dig Here Said The Angel CD, hoping I could hear the title track before I got home.
With some careful speed-limit finessing (which can only be done in the country because city people get angry when you drive slower), I not only got to the third track, I managed to make it last for the entire stretch of road from my second turn to our driveway.
Driving along a gravel road, with headlights barely doing anything to illuminate it (I narrowly missed hitting a porcupine), and listening to that song while watching silhouette trees rise up into the steel-blue sky as a yellowish green light (a remnant of the sunset) illuminates a few sparse clouds to the west is a magic moment. Getting out of the rattletrap right after the song ends and letting that gorgeous chorus melody echo through your mind as you stand in open stillness at the edge of dusk is perhaps even better.
21 May 2011
The Free Alberta Highway
Two days ago I was driving on the Anthony Henday highway that goes around Edmonton. The purpose of this highway, I'm told, was so one could go from the south side to the north side in fifteen minutes. To the credit of whoever planned it, that is generally the case.
Unfortunately, even though the highway has only been in heavy use for like three years, they have already decided that rather than fill in the moonscape that is 50th Street, they must do their construction on the almost butter-smooth Anthony Henday.
I'm here to tell you few things are more frustrating than sitting in an endless string of traffic going exactly six kilometres an hour for a good half hour (at least). Those orange construction signs line the roads, telling the traffic to condense into one lane but when nothing materialises in the cleared-out lane, the impatients pull out and zoom ahead -- only to finally reach a physical barricade a kilometre later and have to merge back into the lane they just left. Which makes the lane insanely slow for those of us already in it because these idiots keep sticking their hood ornaments in our way so we can't just suck up to each other's bumpers and keep the impatient blockheads out.
So they merge in and we continue. Beads on a string, being slowly added at one end and pushed along a thread, no hope of escape.
Finally, after almost half the highway, we see evidence that the construction signs might actually be telling the truth -- there's a pair of highway maintenance trucks.
As we pass it we see... two men, one holding a shovel.
That's it.
I have been delayed for a half hour because of two men and one shovel.
Unfortunately, even though the highway has only been in heavy use for like three years, they have already decided that rather than fill in the moonscape that is 50th Street, they must do their construction on the almost butter-smooth Anthony Henday.
I'm here to tell you few things are more frustrating than sitting in an endless string of traffic going exactly six kilometres an hour for a good half hour (at least). Those orange construction signs line the roads, telling the traffic to condense into one lane but when nothing materialises in the cleared-out lane, the impatients pull out and zoom ahead -- only to finally reach a physical barricade a kilometre later and have to merge back into the lane they just left. Which makes the lane insanely slow for those of us already in it because these idiots keep sticking their hood ornaments in our way so we can't just suck up to each other's bumpers and keep the impatient blockheads out.
So they merge in and we continue. Beads on a string, being slowly added at one end and pushed along a thread, no hope of escape.
Finally, after almost half the highway, we see evidence that the construction signs might actually be telling the truth -- there's a pair of highway maintenance trucks.
As we pass it we see... two men, one holding a shovel.
That's it.
I have been delayed for a half hour because of two men and one shovel.
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