The other night while driving home from yoga class – in the evening after the rain – I was reminded of how much I love driving. Just driving. It’s how I get inspiration, work out plot issues and clear my head. Now, I realize I may have partially been in zen mode from yoga, but it was also the quiet on the road, that brilliant sheen on the road after the rain and the way the lights reflected off the wet.
It’s one thing I’ve missed so much.
While living in DC, I didn’t have a car. There were other ways to clear my head. I walked. A lot. And walking around DuPont Circle or across the National Mall at sunset were definitely great substitutes. But I thought back to university when I lived in Southern California. Oh how I loved driving through the mountains? After a long day of class and studying, it was nice to get in my car, turn up the music and cruise up and down and through the mountains to Riverside for a coffee.
It might have been a long way to go, considering there was a cafe on campus and another couple in the historic downtown area, but it was worth it. Whatever I studied, or whatever I was writing, could sink in during those precious moments.
Of course, when I did get an idea, I wanted to hurry home and get started on it. I’d thought several times of getting a recorder so that I could talk the idea out (this was in college, pre-iPhones with their recorders). Or I would keep the idea on repeat, expanding and elaborating it until I might have a full scene in my mind ready for me to put pen to paper – or fingers to keys – once I got home.
