For many years I lived a life of which long-distance driving was an essential component. I drove my little red 5-speed Toyota between Chicago, Florida, Atlanta, North Carolina, Michigan. Many solitary miles of road and music and cigarettes and highway food eaten from my lap. The varied environmental hygiene and interesting graffiti of interstate rest stops. Soldiering in second gear up the mountain and riding the brakes all the way down on the hairpin curves.
On the road, life is externally simple and internally limitless. There is nothing to do but drive, and as long as one is driving well, there is plenty of headspace to think, to feel, to dream and plan and wonder. I would dream of a big life with big love and big choices and spaces always opening up within me. I would dream of a life stuffed to the brim and beyond with everyday joys. I would relish the long hours of never slowing down that were my only chance to stop rushing through my days.
I have little desire to actually go back out on the road that way now; it’s a different world out there, I think. And I have so many of the things that I dreamed of during all those miles. But sometimes when I’m very busy and the days vanish into weeks, I miss that feeling of the long journey with the certain destination where all I have to do is drive, and the days become time out of time.
Big Log
by Robert Plant, Jezz Woodroffe and Robbie Blunt
My love is in league with the freeway
Its passion will ride as the cities fly by
And the taillights dissolve in the coming of night
And the questions in thousands take flight
My love is the miles and the waiting
The eyes that just stare, and the glance at the clock
And the secret that burns, and the pain that won’t stop
And its fuel is the years
Leading me on
Leading me down the road
Driving me on, driving me down the road
My love is exceeding the limit
Red-eyed and fevered with the hum of the miles
Distance and longing, my thoughts do collide
Should I rest for a while at the side?
Your love is cradled in knowing
Eyes in the mirror still expecting they’ll come
Sensing too well when the journey is done
There is no turning back, no.
There is no turning back on the run.
My love is in league with the freeway
Oh, the freeway, and the coming of nighttime
My love, my love is in league with the freeway.