you got a fast car
Words by Natalie Windle Fell
writers note: my writing style is in all lowercase letters on purpose! kinda like...a little personal f u to normalcy
there's something special about driving in your car. even more special if you're alone. at least that's how i feel about it.
driving has been much more of a transformational experience for me than meditation ever has. worth insanely more than all of the money i've pissed away in the name of spiritual transcendence and becoming an enlightened boss babe. add in the right music, and the epiphanies start rolling in.
the angel numbers on the license plates. the serendipitous billboard messages. the way the sun hits the skyscrapers i zoom past on the highway, watching the angles change out of the corner of my eye as i drive by.
something happens when i get into my car as i'm getting ready to go somewhere. i've noticed that i've been sighing out as i sit down, as if i just stepped into a spacecraft of solace. i wonder how long i've been doing that.
when i'm driving, my thoughts connect deeper into my body. they become alchemized by what's on the radio. sometimes i'll hear a song i've never heard before. sometimes i'll drive a half hour to my destination with the same song on repeat.
sometimes i'll catch a line that really HITS me - makes my hair stand on end. makes me break out in those hot-but-cold goosebump chills, much like the feeling you get when you hop into a car that's way overheated - almost feels like some kind of new age therapeutic experience. when i hear a line like that, i'll hold down the back button and listen to it over and over and over until it's written in my soul, like a cheat code i'll need for later.
i never really thought about how driving could be this kind of experience for other people. honestly up until recently, other people driving always seemed like some kind of disease, whether they were cutting me off, hitting on me from above in their semi truck, or just being an all-around societal nuisance with a douchey vanity plate/stick family that's too long/bumper stickers that make me cringe at what must be on their social media feeds.
i never really cared too much about other people on the road in a sentimental sense. at least not until this past year.
i was driving home from work one afternoon. i got caught in a traffic jam just before a busy underpass in center city. it's a regular, daily occurrence, one that i've come to embrace and even look forward too sometimes - it gives me the opportunity to post the screenshot of the song i'm listening to in my IG stories.
i don't know why, but i got a nag to check my rear view mirror while i was stopped and in a white volkswagon, there was a woman. she couldn't have been older than 40, 45 maybe. had this amazing curly brown hair. from what i could tell, she looked like she was dressed professionally. had a blazer on.
she had her head tilted to the side, had her hand cupped kind of under her chin. she looked concerned, furrowed brow, in deep thought. i thought that maybe she was listening to something profound too! maybe she was having a breakthrough.
but then, she started crying. really crying, sobbing. full scrunched face, wiping away tears. it hit me like a bullet in the chest. it was like there was some kind of cord attached between us, and she somehow funneled her feelings into my little bubble – like we were trying to process them together. why was she crying? did she just receive bad news? lose her job? someone she loved? did the hypothetical person she lost die, or did she lose them in like...a divorce/separation/disappearance/cutting of ties? i didn't know.
was she ill? was someone else ill? or maybe she was crying because the weight of this crazy world finally caught up to her. right there, on i676 before the underpass by the philadelphia art museum.
maybe she was releasing what i was still kind of holding in. maybe she was crying tears of surrender, of handing it all over to a higher power.
or maybe she was crying because she hated her job. i assumed she was on her way home, like i was. but maybe she was crying because she hated the place she was going to. or the person. or the energy.
traffic picked up again, and she quickly switched over two lanes to my right, sped by and got off an exit. i still had about ten minutes of my commute left and i thought about her the whole rest of the way.
and it made me think about everyone else driving, too. everyone in their own little bubble of life, made visible and tangible by the physical encasing of their vehicles.
that moment softened me, especially in a year where people have certainly tested my patience, quite possibly more than any other year of my life. but it gave me compassion for other drivers, going through what they go through. maybe cutting people off is misplaced revenge for someone in their life they can't dish it to. maybe they're driving too slow because they don't know where they are...mentally. i know i certainly don't all of the time (most of the time).
driving is medicine and magic to me. and now, the experience is extended outside of my own car and into every other. and while i know that every ride isn't necessarily magic, i do hope that everyone uses what happens in their cars alone as an alchemical process to turn mind trash into treasure. turn shallow thoughts deep. turn inner chaos to inner peace. to relive and release.
and to know that even though we're all driving around this planet in our own little bubbles, we all share space on this great singular bubble planet we call home. together.
natalie windle fell is the author of rude awakening: a mixtape - a book filled with stories about natalie's awakening backed to a playlist of her favorite songs. natalie quit her corporate job in 2018 without a backup plan and has been full time owning her awakening journey ever since. she loves all things memes, shadow work, poetry, and off color humor.
