Driving in the dark
There’s something about driving, alone, in the dark, in weather that’s just cold enough lay a tracery of water crystal before your eyes.
It’s a familiar feeling, a distinctly Fall feeling, oddly comforting. Some sense that despite all the changes in the last year, the world around you is greater than yourself and your small window out into the darkness.
Every season has something unique that brings this sensation crashing in on me. Spring has a certain sense of thunderstorm air, fresh and sharp, cool but comfortable. The feeling was overwhelming. On days like that I would often skip classes, just feeling good to be alive and completely unheeding of things larger than me….or smaller than the simple freedoms of the open road.
Summer’s is usually marked by a dry, breezy, warm day. Trees full to brimming with leaves the color of a singing felt frog, rustling reminiscent of the ocean’s calm. Nothing but the slow-baking heat that makes you want nothing so much as to lay down by a huge pool of clear, cool, chlorinated water* and read a book (which of course you’ll find all but impossible due to the glare. But that’s another reminisce). A perfect day.
There’s a Winter feeling too, don’t you doubt it **. My winter feeling is of snow, clinging to your socks and pants in chunks of white hard chill. Your legs and face are red and raw from the cold and coming inside feels like walking into a blast furnace, but it’s worth it because there’s hot chocolate waiting somewhere, and that’s going to make everything okay.
These are the things that bring me out of myself and my petty concerns.
These are the things that make life worth living.
These are the things that I want to share most with my wife.
These are the things that make me happy.
