by Kit Duncan
13
Music to Drive By
Radios are pretty much standard equipment in most vehicles today, and have been for a long time. Many of our cars have cassette players, CD players, even DVD players. And really loud speakers.
What is it about driving and listening to music?
Your journey will be filled with many kinds of music. Avoid finding a single station and listening only to one style.
Music is the very rhythm, melody, and harmony of civilizations, and always has been, I think.
When you listen to another person's music you are listening to their heart. When you share your music with others you are sharing your heart.
Listening and sharing are two of the most important things you do in life. Listen and share well.
Develop an eclectic taste for music - shop around for broad sounds. Go to your local music store and rummage through all the aisles, and sample many, many different genres. Collect music from the fifties, sixties, even earlier if possible. Listen to jazz and blues and reggae, and classics. Listen to ethnic music - American Indians playing Kiowa love flutes, Japanese masters playing the koto and shakuhatchi, gypsies on their violins, mountain folks with their banjos and dulcimers and fiddles.
Don't get all your music from a can. Go to concerts. Not just rock concerts, but little places off the main road where people play songs passed to them through generations, and men and women clog to their strings. Listen to Celtic women sing on your local Public Broadcasting Stations. Visit your local Pops group in the park. Drive down to the Grand Old Opry and absorb the thunder of some of the greatest County Western music. And yes, if you must, go to some rock concerts.
Play your own music. Experiment with different types of instruments - keyboards, strings, winds, percussion. Buy an ocarina. It's really hard to frown when you're playing an ocarina.
Hum, sing, whistle, play, strum. A music-less day is a joyless day. For joyless days, you may as well just pull over on the side of road and idle the day away.
Make sure your journey has very few days on the side of the road.
Learn how to play the music of others, and find the music that is your own. In your heart are songs living that will never be sung until you bring them out. Give your songs wings. Fill your world with the music of your own soul, and with the music of others. Let your music vibrate your spirit throughout your journey.
14
Laughter: Your Car's Best Air Freshener
Drive with humor. Develop your spirit of playfulness. Smile as often as you can. Laugh heartily and frequently. Giggle, and the world giggles with you. Whine, and you dine alone.
Nothing will so enliven your trip as the sound of laughter, especially when that laughter is coming from deep within you. There is fun and joy everywhere. Do not ignore it. Embrace it and make it part of everything about you.
We are not all of a "cheery disposition," and that is fine. One doesn't need to be exuberantly cheerful to laugh. Some laughter is very calm, some smiles very tiny.
Don't take yourself too seriously. Honor your humanness with lighthearted humility.
Play well, play long, play as if your life depends on it. Sad people know little or nothing of play. Happy people don't know how to not play.
A sense of playfulness will enrich your drive immeasurably. Playfulness is a salve on your bruised heart, a splash of invigoration on lonely side roads, an adhesive to joy. Nothing sticks like play.
Sprinkle specks of stardust throughout every waking moment of your journey. Oh, you say, what's that? Sorry. I thought I had mentioned it earlier. I see I haven't.
Stardust is the many little flecks of joy that happen throughout the day. You get it one of two ways. Either other people give you stardust, or you make your own.
When someone smiles at you, they give you a bit of stardust. When someone gives you something you've been really wanting for a long time, let's say a job or a promotion, maybe a jacket you've had your eye on, you get some stardust. You do a good job at work and your boss gives you a hearty "Thataboy," there's your stardust.
Getting stardust from others is wonderful. Unfortunately, in most cases, you won't get nearly enough stardust from anyone else and if you rely exclusively on stardust generated by others you're probably going to feel pretty empty a lot of the time.
Make your own stardust. Do things that give you joy. Spend your day in self affirming self talk. Remember what you enjoy doing and then do those things.
Give to others. Volunteer. Help your mother bring in the groceries without being asked. Visit a nursing home. Mow a neighbor's yard. Oh, the list is just endless. Opportunities to give to others are everywhere - make it your mission to seek them out. It's impossible to give stardust to others without splashing a mess of it on yourself.
Making stardust may become increasingly difficult for you as you mature. Work and family demands have a way of putting stardust on the shelf if you're not careful. Stardust on the shelf is useless, and after a little while the star vanishes and you're left only with dust.
You commit your drive to stardusting and there will be little time left for sadness.
Let your joy permeate throughout your vehicle every mile of the way. Invite joy to be who you are. Invite it to take you where you are going.
15
Your Driving Log
When people buy a brand new vehicle they often commit themselves to a diligent recording of every act of maintenance. I once bought a twelve year old Volkswagen bus. The man who had purchased it new and kept it until selling it to me had documented each oil change, each tire change, every tune up, and the new muffler. He even made a note each time he washed the bus.
Most of us, despite our best intentions, do not maintain our vehicle's record very long, or very carefully.
There is great merit in writing down what's happening on our journey. When I started college I read that Ralph Waldo Emerson kept a journal, and he encouraged others to do so as well. I was fairly literal-minded in those days, so I obediently began keeping a journal. Thirty years after I started my journal I had accumulated over sixteen hundred typewritten pages documenting my dreams and hopes and aspirations, weeping over my failures, and sometimes just recording the mundane facts of my days. I stored the first thirty years of my journal in the loft of my barn and continued writing on my computer.
Thirty-one years after I started my journal my goat Amelia got into the loft and ate about three hundred pages of my life.
We can laugh about it now. At the time, chasing her all over the muddy hill side, grabbing chunks of onion paper from her wicked mouth, crying as she gulped page after soggy page, chewed quickly, and swallowed - it wasn't nearly so funny then. But we can laugh about it today.
Writing down your thoughts can be some of the best personal healing imaginable. Take a little time every day, just sitting with yourself, to write down a few thoughts. If you're angry at your friend, discouraged with your job, frightened about your future - write about it. You'll be amazed at how writing down your thoughts will help you sort through perilous traffic in the long run.
Write about where you're headed, your dreams and your goals. Mom used to say, "If you don't have a dream, you can't have a dream come true." For many years I thought this was original to her, but I later read it online. It is still one of the most important pearls of wisdom I've come to cherish. Write down your dreams, and drive toward them.
Write about your frustrations and aggravations. Giving your darker feelings words is like a valve; it will ease pressure and keep your drive manageable. A manageable drive is very important.
Write down your happy moments. When you are elated and pleased, when you've accomplished something terribly important, or maybe even just a little important, write about it in your log.
Write about practical matters - budgets, shopping lists, things to remember, and sometimes even things to forget.
Writing is a handy tool for staying alert and keeping your world in perspective. If your wo
rld gets a little out of focus from time to time, writing can clear things up for you.
Writing is the keeper of your most cherished secrets, most passionate affections, and blackest terrors. Don't let many miles pass before you without logging your journey's land marks. Your driving log will give your trip light on dark moonless nights, and joy in the beaming sunlight.
Record where you've been and where you're headed. It will be your memorial and your beacon. It will broaden your sense of who you are and it will help you become who you want to be.
16
Road Rage
You've probably already noticed it. There's a lot of anger racing along the highways and byways.
Turn on the TV for five minutes and you're going to see folks screaming at each other, hollering and carrying on like they have no sense whatsoever. Watch our lawmakers in action for a little time; a room full of preschoolers know more about how to get along than they do. Listen to panels "debate" issues on the news; they will beat each other up verbally, yell over one another's words. Movies, sitcoms, dramas, sports, news, - what our media industry calls entertainment is punctuated with conflict, anger, hostility, aggravation, emotional and physical violence.
The Barbarians aren't at the gate. They are in our living rooms, and they are driving all around us.
At school, at work, in our homes, in our cars. We have turned anger into the American pastime.
This steady, perpetual lash of aggression will grate on your nerves.
If you are not vigilant you may find yourself pulled into the whirlwind of mean-spiritness that seems to be the rhythm of our times.
Anger is not a bad thing. Anger can mobilize us to great action. Righteous indignation can propel us to enormous acts of heroism. Conflict, resolved with compassion, can lead us to heights of mutual understanding and respect.
Unchecked anger, unwise anger, selfish anger can move us into long, lonely ditches and cause our cars much damage and our hearts great suffering.
If you must give a fellow driver a hand gesture, make it a friendly wave. If you must communicate dissatisfaction with anyone else, do so with kindness.
Don't carry a grudge - grudges are heavy and they will not take you where you want to go. Learn the art of redemption. Forgive, even when they do not ask it of you.
If you simply cannot play nice with someone, quit playing with that person.
Diversity is the texture of life. Celebrate differences, tolerate styles that do not run parallel to yours. Learn what you can from the variances.
You will sometimes observe others in nearby lanes engaging in road rage. This is the ignorant folly of very small minds. Never participate in futile anger. If you become aggravated, deal with it calmly, responsibly, and with grace.
Be compassionate with everyone. Practice kindness, and never be mean-spirited. Be honest, nurture integrity, develop a genius of the heart. Most especially, treat yourself lovingly.
Cultivate a great sense of gentleness toward the angry people. I think they must be very, very sad, very lonely, and very frightened. Responding to their anger with more anger will resolve nothing. It will only pull you into their sphere of sadness, loneliness, fear. Give angry people stardust.
When I was in college I heard John Powell tell a story about Victor Frankl. Frankl was a psychiatrist who had been imprisoned during the Holocaust, and he was known as a man of great compassion. After his release he moved to the United States, gave lectures, and wrote several excellent books about helping others and helping ourselves.
One evening after he had given a presentation to a large crowd a woman came to him and said, "You don't remember me, Dr Frankl, but I just wanted to thank you." She went on to explain that two years earlier she had been at the point of suicide and she had called him in the middle of the night. That conversation, she said, had saved her from self destruction.
Touched that his words could have such a positive impact on another person, Dr Frankl asked her what he had said that caused her to change her mind and decide to live.
"Oh, she replied, "I can't remember anything you told me that night. I only remember that you listened."
We do not always have the right words. But we are always able to listen, and investing the time to listen to another person can be the greatest gift we can give.
During some of your drive you may feel that the entire world is filled with great anger. The fact is there are many kind people in the world, gentle souls who want to embrace you warmly. Seek them out. When you cannot see them remember they are there, everywhere.
Gird every interaction you have with others, and with yourself, with compassion.
17
Car Insurance
It is mandatory, it is required. We must carry certain insurance policies on our vehicles.
In principle, this is a good idea.
Insurance is about security and protection. Liability insurance is about protecting others from your mistakes. Comprehensive insurance is about protecting you from your own mistakes.
Security is about knowing that you are protected. We may learn to recognize that much of our security is false, but we take comfort in feeling secure and often ignore the sandy foundation of that security.
Booboos happen. Perfection is not only not possible, it is not even preferable. Faults, blemishes, things that go bump - this is the stuff of an interesting drive. A perfect drive? I'm not sure what it would look like, but I think I do not want it.
When I was much younger than I am today I mostly owned very, very old cars. The kind that stopped without notice, that were not terribly dependable, that were just as ugly as "a lard bucket full of armpits."
These deficient vehicles in no way suppressed my great enthusiasm for making long trips in them. As I began each journey, I prayed for an uneventful drive.
My most interesting drives have always been eventful. They have frequently involved inconvenient breakdowns on the side of the road, an array of fascinating people, spending long lazy afternoons outside mechanic shops. These drives have been imperfect, and they have been terribly interesting.
Don't be shy around imperfection and don't be intimidated at the possibility of making mistakes. And don't kick your tire when it goes flat. The tire won't like it, and you'll hurt your foot.
No matter how well you keep your car tuned something somewhere down one of these roads is going to break. It will likely be in the middle of the hottest Sunday afternoon in a part of the country with which you are totally unfamiliar. Keep some fresh water in your car.
Learn to welcome all possibilities, even the inconvenient ones. There are potential depths of wealth in all circumstances, even the dark ones.
The best insurance you can have is a heart of integrity and compassion. With these two qualities, any event on the road is manageable. Without them, no policy in the world will keep you safe.
18
The World is Bigger than Your Car
One of the hallmarks of a bad driver or an unhappy person is an unawareness and lack of appreciation for the world around them. I want you to be a good driver and a happy person.
Most of us will never have the opportunity to see but a fraction of this world. We will meet only a handful of other people, see only a tiny slice of the sights on the earth. For those people we will meet, and those places we will visit, we must take off blinders and open our eyes and our hearts. We must expose ourselves to the great variety of experience all around us.
When you're driving along, even if you're not driving too fast, the world moves by pretty quickly. Take time to see what you can, and know who you can.
Develop empathy, the ability to appreciate what is so for other people. Too much empathy, as Steinbeck says, can drive you mad. So don't overdo it. My experience, however, is that few people will overdose on empathy.
As you travel down the road, you will naturally be more concerned and interested in what's happening inside your own vehicle than what's going on in other cars. You'll be more committe
d to the stretch of road you're driving on than to other streets and highways. This is natural, and I think healthy.
What is also healthy is to remember that in all those other cars driving on all those other roads are people who are also more invested in their immediate environments. We are all fellow travelers; you are one of many.
Each vehicle you pass is carrying people with great joys, great fears, great triumphs and great defeats. You cannot know which strangers most need your kindness, your smile. Treat them all well, be respectful and gentle.
On your journey there will be a lot of voices telling you which way to go. It's okay to sometimes ignore the voices of others. Traffic jams are excessive numbers of people going the same direction who clog up the roadway when a lane up ahead is closed. You may want to seek alternative routes sometimes, especially when the traffic around you is slowing down.
When you decide to detour away from thick traffic be prepared for unexpected, even unusual things to happen.
These shared highways are opportunities for your goodness. Litter this one small stretch of road you travel with thoughts and acts of great compassion. Do not allow your self interest to impede on the rights of others to also enjoy the road.
The world does not end at the horizon. What you do here in you own car may touch the lives of people over that horizon, around that bend in the road, beyond these trees.
19
Dating in Your Car
Perhaps the last thing you want to hear is your aunt talking with you about dating. I'm willing to risk it if you are.
It is inevitable - you get your license you are going to use it as a means to date.
From the first night your first date steps into your first car until the last night your last date steps out of your last car, you have a myriad of opportunities for great joy.
Choose your dates well. There are many options available, and few of us marry the first person we date. Dating is a way of getting to know one another and enjoying each other without all the rush of life interfering with the moment.