In these spaces of tension
that imitate the practices of everyday life: coming and
going, long journeys and short distances, changing lanes,
rushing past and slowing down - every person is contained
in these aluminum force-fields attached to rubber wheels in
motion. We are strapped into these barriers, these moving
blockades,the way we are all committed to our own
subjective opinions as we mediate through the world, “I am
who I am” and these perceptions simultaneously promise to
keep us safe and burden us with isolation from one another.
But we have choices. We choose our passengers as we do
our companions, we choose car exteriors and interiors the
way we choose our clothes and our diets. We play different
radio stations. We hold different things in our glove boxes
the way we hold different secrets; some of us keep these
areas locked up and locked tight while others simply open
with the slightest curiosity. We pay separate lease premiums
and we all arrive at different destinations with our dreams
and ambitions. For the two of us riding beside each other
the space is negotiated. Permissions are asked on either side
to change the station, turn down the volume and lower the
heat and we are committed to finding a comfortable middle
ground. Though we have shared some of our most intimate conversations on these journeys, today it is far easier to
describe to each other than it is to explain to one another
how we should go to wherever it is we are going, and so
we unwittingly argue over the minor details.
This collective life,
the physical world we all occupy is an intersection of
various phenomenological narrations that I notice most
when I’m driving on the highway.
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