Thursday, 31 January 2002 | Drive

The streetlights climbed slowly up my hood, over my windshield, and down the back of my car. Slowly, because, for once, I was driving slowly. I can't remember the last time I drove aimlessly through town, zigzagging, U-turning, taking my time. Probably because I'm perpetually busy (or something like that), because I like having a destination, because I'm always in the spaces between, running late and catching up, because I think it's an irresponsible waste of fuel.

Tonight, though, I climbed into my car alone, rolled the windows down, and drove. I drove down streets that I haven't been down in years; the people I once knew there moved long ago, or my apartment changed, or my job. I again saw the things whose details had disappeared, my memory having tilted the streets and the distances between buildings. Raleigh was French: familiar, but growing increasingly distant each day without practice.

The strangest part was that when I had to make my first decision (right or left?), I had no idea where to begin. I could only think of the streets surrounding my parents' town, from high school afternoons of flying down back roads that had more cattle than traffic lights. But I then I remembered destination wasn't the purpose. Aimlessness was the purpose, which might sound like an oxymoron, but it actually makes sense.