I am a tree-hugger with the greenest of intentions. I believe global warming is a serious threat. I’m willing to make sacrifices like wearing a sweater inside in the winter (although I do promise to complain about it), and using the ice cream cone shaped light bulbs that make my house feel like it is lit up like a grocery store. I am a huge proponent of public transportation. This town, growing as it is like bamboo, needs light rail more than a million new parking spaces. But …
I love my car. I love driving around in my own traveling bubble, going where I want whenever I want and singing loudly to the radio as I do it. Strangely enough, the thought of sacrificing my morning commute gives me a tight feeling in my throat. I really love my car.
Now don’t get excited. It’s nothing sexy like the racy red convertible I had in my twenties, or a status symbol like Lexus or a big SUV. It’s not even a hybrid like I know I should be driving. It’s a light blue metallic Honda Odyssey mini-van, bought used on Good Friday three years ago and instantly dubbed the “Easter Egg.” See, I told you it wasn’t sexy.
I’m aware that it doesn’t sound thrilling, but when you consider what the space inside my car does for me, I think I can be forgiven. I work three-quarter time, which is not nearly enough time to get my job done, so those 30 hours are time-crunching deadline-meeting ones. I have twin seven year old boys, whose energy could power half of South Park for a month. Plus, word is out among all stray animals in the Charlotte area that I am a soft touch, so I have 2 dogs and 2 cats, all of whom need to be fed and played with and cleaned up after. I have a house to clean, kids and pets to care for, and a husband who has the nerve to think he deserves some attention too. Even the computer seems to need something. I pay my bills, respond to e-mail and check both my work and personal calendars there, so sitting down to my desk is anything but a relief.
But my car, now that’s another story.
My car sits in the garage, waiting for me in the morning like a well fed cat. I get in and close the door, and suddenly all the demands of the world are outside, and they can’t get in because THE DOOR IS LOCKED. I plug in my phone to charge, but I don’t turn it on. (It’s unsafe to talk on the phone while you’re driving, and if you don’t believe it, check out what the driver is doing the next time you see a car executing a bone-head move.) I can put the stuff I need for the day in the seat beside me, and I can be confident that no one will move it or walk off with it. I have complete control of the stereo. I don’t have to listen to “We Are the Dinosaurs” even once if I don’t want to. If I don’t change the station immediately when REO Speedwagon is played, no one ever has to know. If you don’t like my singing, well, I don’t have care about that either.
My latest discovery has been audio books, which for an avid reader like me are like manna from Heaven. I had resisted for a long time, as there is really nothing quite so wonderful as a book, and to listen rather than read seemed somewhat like a betrayal of the written word. But I was tempted when I spied the audio CD’s of the actor Michael J. Fox’s Lucky Man in the bargain bin at Borders Bookstore. It would be nice to hear it in his own words, in his own voice. Five minutes in I was hooked, and it dawned on me that this was a way to read in my private and beloved car without looking like a weirdo holed up in my garage. I could read and do something else at the same time. Genius!
Now, I long for my car even more than usual, and I actually start to get grumpy if there is no traffic in the morning to slow down my arrival at the office and allow me to find out what happens next. I resent having to leave my oasis. As a married woman and mother, it seems like I share everything with everyone in my family. I share all the rooms of my house, my computer, my bathroom and my bed. My car has become the escape that my teenage bedroom was, and the thought of losing it drives me to distraction. So is loving it really that wrong? Isn’t it the American Way to love your car, to love roaring down the highway and coming and going according to your own whims and not the times prescribed by the bus or train schedule?
Well, maybe it’s not wrong, but in the end it is pretty selfish. Despite the apparent opinions of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie, driving is a privilege and not a right, and it requires the exercise of responsibility. I learned the rules of the road, obeying them the majority of the time, and I go through the hassle of getting my mug shot on my driver’s license at the necessary intervals. I pay a ton of money in gas and on car insurance and dedicate a large part of our house to the housing of our cars. So, I met my obligations, and it feels like I should be allowed to drive to my heart’s content. If I buy myself a little much needed privacy in the bargain, so much the better.
Yet driving in an urban area is still a community act. I have to wait my turn to get onto a busy road and adjust my speed in accordance with traffic to avoid piling into someone. I am in the thick of the crowd when I’m driving no matter how I try to pretend I’m in my own private universe. The fact of the matter is all these private universes mean that there are too many cars on the road, adding emissions to the air and burning fuel, taking up space and slowing things down. And with the growth of the region, it is only going to get worse.
So I know it’s wrong, and it’s starting to make me feel guilty and ruining all my fun. The air quality on hot days is getting worse every summer, so I work at home when I can, looking wistfully at the car and trying to come up with excuses to go to Target. I walk to the drug store up the street when I don’t have to buy too much to carry, and I’m buying a basket for my bike, so I can hit the grocery store without cranking up the car too. (This, in spite of my images of the Wicked Witch of the West on her bike with the basket with Toto inside. And if my husband is reading this – don’t even say it.)
Sometimes I can even force myself to remember how much I enjoyed my subway commutes when I lived in Washington, D.C., when I had a leisurely walk to the Metro station, a warm seat on the train and could read a book or magazine as I sped toward work with no intellectual effort on my part.
As the world evolves and I use my car less, I will have to find the will to carve out my privacy inside my hectic house. I’ll learn to imagine a drive in the car as a treat instead of a daily staple. I’ll put my audio books on my iPod, and carry my stuff in a backpack instead of strewn on the passenger seat. Maybe my iPod could somehow generate a force field and make me feel like I’m in my own universe again.
But I’ll miss the singing.