Like pretty much everyone I know, I’ve been staying at home during these pandemic times, week after week after week.
I guess when you stay at home for so long, you develop habits. One of the habits I’ve picked up is to take short walks throughout the day to clear my head. By now, I know every crack on the sidewalks, and I’ve gained a renewed appreciation for the splendor of trees.
In between the walks, it’s been work, work, work. Being in journalism right now is a non-stop affair. We just launched a new website. I have my morning podcast. The stories come in hard and fast. This is the biggest story on the planet, and it occupies much of my time.
When I take breaks at home, it’s usually for phone calls. With the social distancing of the lockdown, I find that I crave the sound of human voices. I’ll call friends for no reason other than to chat and commiserate.
Yesterday, while chatting on the phone with a friend, I heard about an activity that had totally escaped me. Her family went for a long drive.
A what?
Oh yes, that is what I used to do with my car. I had forgotten about that part of my life.
Day after day, I’ve been walking past my car parked in the driveway as if it were another crack in the sidewalk that I never noticed. Maybe I got so used to the “stay at home” mantra it never occurred to me I can actually go for… a drive!
So, on a whim, I got the keys, brought my sanitizer and disinfectant, got in the car and relearned how to drive.
What I learned from my drive up the beautiful Pacific coast is that it feels really, really good to have nowhere to go.
Within minutes, I was flying down the Santa Monica Freeway listening to the Beatles. It was late afternoon. Very few cars were around me. If this is normally Sunday beach “rush hour,” it was giving me a nice rush.
Because I had no real destination or schedule, I began to relax and pay special attention to the music.
First song: “Instant Karma.”
Second song: “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”
Third song: “Yesterday.”
And so on. I started connecting every Beatles song to the times we are in. I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad about that. After all, I was trying to get away from my pandemic worries, right?
Music and pandemic thoughts aside, what I learned from my drive up the beautiful Pacific coast is that it feels really, really good to have nowhere to go.
None of these questions entered my mind: Am I on time? Am I appropriately dressed? Should I have brought a gift? Will I know anyone? How can I avoid this traffic? Should I even be going to this?
My destination, my purpose, was the drive itself. Time became a source of joy rather than a source of stress. I wasn’t striving for anything. I was just driving up the coast. And to clear my mind even further, I switched from the Beatles to disco.
Looks like I may have picked up another habit.
