Slam. Shiver shiver, on with the heat, on with the lights. On with NPR, my morning companion. Click the seat belt, shift to Reverse, out the driveway.
Ca chunk, ca chunk, the sound of the road under worn tires, while Carl Castle reports the state of the world in his distinctive, reassuring voice. Marketplace comes on, and I find out stock market performance and the latest merger from Guy Risdahl out in LA. It’s still dark. I sip my coffee slowly, make it last the drive, and mentally broadcast the imminent caffeine to my sleepy limbs: “It’s coming, it’s coming . . . “
Ca chunk ca chunk. Countryside gives way to trailer parks, a school, a gas station – the outskirts of town. The sky has lightened, colored, and the sun creeps over the edge of the world. A vibrant pink and red sky, bright and painfully beautiful to my bleary eyes, appears as I approach my turn off the main throughway. The intro music for Morning Edition accompanies my final few minutes on the morning road. The road is newer, smooth here. It whips me round into the parking lot without mercy.
Later, at night –
In the dark, the lane lines slip past, hypnotic, rhythmic, and I switch from NPR to our local classical music station. The music rolls around the car and I let myself get sleepy, sleepy, and sometimes minutes go by with no stimulation and they become a black hole in time, and I wonder how I can pay so little attention to my driving and still be on the road. The Frost poem murmurs in my memory – “the woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.” Only a few miles, only a few left. The exit before mine comes into view, and I smile to myself. The Professor will be asleep when I unlock the door. I will settle onto the couch with a book, the cat will settle into my lap, and in five minutes all three of us will be snoring gently. And the car, the poor much-maligned car in which I spend so much of my time lately, will be quietly resting in the driveway, waiting for the imminent morning, the NPR, the coffee, the drive.
Poetry!