just drive.

on my drive to work this morning, i had my ipod on random shuffle. a familiar band filtered through my saab speakers and i was flooded with memories. to those of you who know me well, you know that i can almost always associate a memory, a person, a mood, etc with a song. it's always been this way for me. a passion and tendency that i most certainly inherited from my dad since i have never known another individual who more frequently refers back to melodies for life answers. 

acoustic finger picking always makes me breathe deep. and i am in motion. inside a car. driving down an empty fall road. and it's either early morning, before the world wakes, or my other favorite time of day, dusk. and the sun through the leaves dances on the interior of the car. i breathed just as deeply every time i visited bar harbor, maine. specifically acadia national park. even more specifically--jordan pond, possibly my favorite place on earth. 

for me, there is nothing more rich. and i have no idea if it's just because of who i am, or if this feeling came from practice. growing up in new hampshire granted many a back road drive. i used to joke that i knew every back road from connecticut to maine. and perhaps that was the truth.

back road driving, navigating through trees, makes me think of it all. early morning in the way to school. afternoon driving on the way home from track practice. after dinner driving to UNH to grab my first love and bring him back to my house for a movie, night driving on my way home from a bonfire on the beach. i drove. in nh nothing is close and you just do it. so i learned to love it. 

and then in college. it's one of the reasons i loved harrisonburg, va so much. making long weekend drives to the airport or through the mountains to charlottesville on skyline drive or adventures to go camping or to "blue hole." it's a common theme. i see that now. now, living in the city of chicago, i get lost all the time. city/highway driving scares me. makes me anxious. my best friend zips and dashes and cuts and swerves his way through this fast-paced town. me? i take what i can get on my long-ish commute to work. i hop on the highway and at least it's straight forward from there. long drives again. it feels like home.

these days, the mornings have been nothing short of refreshing. as soon as i step out the door of my cozy home and into the morning, i breathe that same deep inhale. because it's the kind of crisp temperature that always begs me to do so. i breathe deep and force my feet to climb into my car. force them to support the gas and brake pedals on my way to work. they know if i had my way, i'd let them keep driving. past my exit. past my office. straight to wisconsin. or further to colorado. then on to montana. and then up to oregon and over to seattle and ultimately to vancouver. i will go there someday. i will live one of those places.

it's those fall drives that center me the most. for 12 years i retreated back every weekend to bar harbor with my family. the earliest memories are from the back seat. dad would roll the sunroof back. "get up there, jordanbug!" and i'd be through the roof, arms in the air, chin up, wind through my hair, breathing deep. mom and dad tickle my tummy from down below. giggling as i feel their guiding hands. they tickled but i know now they were only making sure i didn't fall. arms propped on the roof and there is warmth. warmth in spurts on my face as the sun scatters through the leaves of red, gold, brown, aubergine. 

back roads. long drives. no direction. just for the drive. thats what life to fullest means to me.