Nine Year Itch

Occasionally I latch onto a recurring train of thought. It's very deja-vu like. A warmth of familiarity wraps itself around my mind and I'm amazed how the details can come back so sharp and tangible. The feeling appeared tonight while driving home. I faced a two hour commute after 6 pm in a driving rain accompanied by high wind, ground fog and dozens of eighteen wheelers spraying water over the roof of my car as I passed.

Yes. As I passed the hulks in my little Malibu. This is when the familiar feeling caught my attention and I sat up a little straighter. An audible "Oh" probably slipped from my lips though I don't remember that. My awareness of what was happening came on in a rush. I processed the details: high wind and slashing rain. Gouts of water sprayed by big trucks. Malibu nearly pressed to Jersey barrier. Ground water pooling under left tires, materializing out of the dark. Rolling fog obscuring tail lights and painted lines on asphalt. Speedometer reads 80.

80? Yes. Things slowed down then and I could actually see the revolutions of the tumbling fog-pillows. I eased off the gas as sheets of water sprayed by trucks hung in the air before colliding with my windshield. Brake lights flashed in too-slow patterns on the vehicles I passed. The song "Drifters" by Paul Rodgers playing on my iPod immediately gained clarity. I heard the phrases "highway of my life" and "shadow on the wind" and I connected with them.

For the last nine years and four months my role for my employers has been a field manager. Rather than being tied to one location I have been responsible for many locations. Sometimes the number was 10. Then it was 36. This year it's 57. I proudly display my road warrior tag. I should get a license plate frame that says road warrior and has a picture of Mad Max. Four hundred miles in a week is what I call travel-lite. Sometimes I pile up fifteen hundred miles or more in five days.

The realization is that I am at home on the road. I am desensitized to the rigors of life in a car. An unintended consequence is supreme confidence in most situations. Example, lost in a city with no GPS, map or cell phone? Fine. Where's the sun? Cloudy, huh? No worries. Just start following other people. They're probably going to a highway or other populated area. Middle of the night? Even better. Lot's of police cars idling, watching for drunks or killing time until the next call sets them in motion. Find an officer and ask him for guidance. There's a ton of other cues and clues, too. Commuter train blows by. Head in the direction is going or where it came from. Train stations are located in centralized locations, easily accessible for travelers. I could go on all day.

I just know I am in charge in the car. I don't want to ride. Passenger seats are not for me. I'd rather walk than sit in the passenger seat of a Porsche or any other thrilling sports car you can name. Gimme the wheel. Plug in my iPod. Crack the windows. Slug my coffee. The other drivers all seem inferior. They make all the wrong decisions. Why? because they're in my way. Stop looking at your phone or unwrapping your Whopper. If driving is the second or third most important thing you're doing when you're behind the wheel, you don't get it. Yes, I have updated Facebook while driving before. I rarely ever do that anymore. But I can because I'm such a better driver than you. I choose not to because I need to keep an eye on all the other inferior drivers.

So the recurring feeling is time awareness deal where I see it all happenng slowly. My confidence soars. I slide by all the other cars like they're slowing to a stop. It just feels right. I secretly hope Petty's "Running Down A Dream" will come up next on the iPod. It's the perfect driving song. Instead, it's Mark Knopfler's "The Car Was The One". Hmm. Even better.