The Road Trip by Josie B Mac

Driving home from the beach as the sun goes down and dusk is moving into night, I am alone and struck by the oddness of that.  These days I usually have one, two or three little passengers who make a drive like this an experience on its own.   The constant chatter, the discussions over the music we play, the constant need for fodder and drinks and toys.  One barely has time to think.  In fact, one has no time to think.  Of course, it’s lovely having these little companions, and their observations and conversations and games and giggles are enough to entertain me for the whole trip.  I smile as they play and talk and I answer their questions and adjust the radio or cd.  I also have to have my series of responses at the ready such as “Not even close”, “Not really”, “About half way”, “Closer than we were before”,  “Nearly”, “Oh  my goodness didn’t I just answer that?” and finally “Yes!” to the inevitable question “Are we there yet?”

Today though, thanks to a series of events (we took two cars because we had to take the dog and the kids don’t like to go with the dog because once a long time ago she barked and it upset them and anyway Daddy has a DVD player in his car and whilst I hate the idea of the kids watching DVD’s in the car and letting life pass them by, it is night time now and they are tired after a day at the beach so, OK, they can go with you and watch a movie and I’ll take the dog!), I find myself all alone (except for the dog who incidentally hasn’t barked in the car once since the first time). 

As the night now falls, the tail lights of the cars ahead move farther and nearer and side to side, weaving in and out of each other, each going to somewhere, or from somewhere, or nowhere, each on their own journey.   I start to think about my journeys, and I am reminded of The Road Trip.  Oh how I loved The Road Trip.  My mind starts remembering and reminiscing….but wait…I need music ….

My fingers feel around desperately in the console for a CD or something that isn’t kids music.  Down deeper I go, past ABC for Kids, pushing The Wiggles aside, feeling …feeling…Jackpot!  I have found Led Zepplin!  Excitedly I eject Bob the Builder from the CD player and it seems to gobble up Led Zepplin with as much desperation as I feel putting it in. 

The electric guitar of Jimmy Page strikes a chord and suddenly I am transported.  Back to a time when I was younger and carefree.  The Road Trip was not always about the destination, but often about the journey.  It didn’t matter if it was a trip with friends to a distant country town for a golf weekend, or a trip across town in the middle of the night to pick up a friend, get a drive through snack and sing Guns and Roses or Air Supply (yes, I understand the incongruity of that, it just depended on the mood!) at the tops of our voices.  Maybe it was an early morning start to miss the traffic and get to the first destination of a four day country sales rep trip.  No matter what it was, I simply loved The Road Trip. 

So what is to love?  Well, it’s the adventure coupled with the isolation and a little bit of invincibility, and sometimes (or a lot of times) a touch of silliness.  We don’t hunt and gather any more, and thanks to Hume and Hovell and Burke and Wills and all of the other explorers I remember from Australian History at school, the whole of the country is already discovered.  Thanks to the internet, the power of discovery had been reduced to click and read.  As a result we all crave adventure and discovery even if we don’t realise it.  The Road Trip can provide all of that in a compact little journey in the compact little cabin of the vehicle of your choice or circumstance.  It might be in the route you take, it might be in the people you see at the road house on the way.  It might be in the conversations you have.  A lot can be discovered about someone when the face to face aspect is removed by the need to look at the road ahead.  Maybe even the conversations you have in your own head when you are flying solo, or the places you can lose yourself while driving are a kind of discovery.  Whatever it is, the power of adventure and discovery was never lost on me on The Road Trip.  I would always find out something new, on some level, about something.

When you are in your cockpit, whether accompanied or alone, there is a little part of you that feels like you are isolated.  It’s like no-one else exists and only what happens in this space is actually happening.  Despite the fact that cars are around you or passing you, it’s like time is only passing in your world.  There is something empowering in that, which creates feelings of invincibility.  For me this was always a good thing, for some it can go too far.  It is an aspect of The Road Trip that can take you to places you’ll one day wish you hadn’t gone.  Luckily, it only took me to a deeper level of self-discovery.

So on this Road Trip, without children, with a silent dog, and Led Zepplin, what did I discover?  I discovered that it is possible to think about something other than my children (even briefly).  I discovered that somewhere, behind the exterior of a mum, there is still a person with wants and needs and hopes and dreams.  I discovered that I am not that different to the person I was back then, in The Road Trip days of my youth.  I discovered that age and life changes have not taken away my spirit of adventure and that my zest for life is still there.  I think maybe I miss The Road Trip more than I realised, and I might take a few more in the future, so that I can stay on the road to discovery of life and self.  Yes, we are home, no, we are not there yet.