Recent Essay

For my Writing the Personal Essay class, our first assignment was to write a quick essay on a mundane or routine act. Here is the result:

To Drive

I have lived in New York for three years, and never once have I lamented leaving my car behind, that dark-gray Saturn Ion that I shared so aggravatingly with my mother up until I left for school. I don’t miss finding parking, near accidents, or waiting in traffic. I don’t miss those winter days when the car would warm up just as you arrive wherever you were going, or summer days when the humidity outside feels exactly the same as the thickness in the car and you have to submerge in its swampiness until the steering wheel stops burning your hands. I don’t miss having to find someone to stay sober at such-and-such’s party, or being the one to do so, so that everyone else can be reckless and free.

But I do miss the music. Nowadays, I have my industrial looking Bose headphones with their intimate and powerful sound quality, and my IPod that fits almost everything I own in its neat little portable package. Yet with those come the protective bubble of personal experience, whereas nothing beats the slightly scratchy speakers and CD player in the car of my youth. You could blast music to fill not only every inch of air space in your car but out to the streets around you, an accelerating boom box lacking the confrontational vibe of it’s 80s counterpart (it’s much easier after all, to speed away than run from anyone opposed to your taste).

As a teenager, I used music to act out my angst, playing bad hardcore music at 6 am while my mother drove me to school and playing the Beatles by way of apology once I had calmed down. Learning how to drive meant a certain kind of adult freedom, and the music I listened to fed right into that. Listening to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, an art-punk group still around today, made me feel bad and dangerous at the age of sixteen, a force to be reckoned with. My friends and I would blast dance music and try to gain attention for our careless joy at every stoplight, a precursor to the Joy Division induced cigarette-out-every-window nonchalance we affected later on.

When the first rush died down and driving became routine, I began to really take note of what little peace driving could give me. It was how I got to know an album, leaving it in my car for months at a time, on repeat. The summer was for ska music, with its lively and joyous horn section, and winter was for the droning sounds of Nico and the Velvet Underground, keeping me company while I treacherously attempted to drive over snow. Driving allows for a sort of meditative trance, being an automatic and simple task that lets your mind wander. While listening to music in the city I’m always transfixed by those around me, by the distractions of lights, buildings, constant action. What I miss isn’t the music- it’s the perfect way to experience the music, to let it act as therapist, setting, friend, and personality all in one go. It’s the ability to be left with nothing but what you hear.