Free Ways

Driving in Los Angeles on a recent visit to California, I was struck by how much life there is on the freeway. When I lived there, I took it for granted--along with everybody else--that the freeways were actually free, meaning you don't have to pay a toll to get on or off them.

On these roads was where Alice felt the most free.  In whatever cute car she drove, she would freely crank up the volume on her stereo, force her foot onto the accelerator and speed through the state's arteries to her destination.

And while most people drive in solitude like Alice often did, I saw an inter-connectedness among drivers on the highway that I never felt before this visit. Every person at the wheel is aware of her place in the lane, and must pay close attention to the location of other vehicles around her, to the extent that everybody is doing this dance of merging into different lanes, changing speed, accommodating others while moving closer to where they're headed. Driving can actually feel social in this way. 

So I'm struck, so to speak, that Alice died on the freeway, amidst so much life on the roads. She was a social California girl, so it's poignant that way.

This post is feeling kind of heady to me, a little less heartrending, going on 5 years of her physical absence in my life. So moves my grief, upward through my body.

I was talking with my father at one point during this visit, and he said, "She crashed two cars." I was reminded that Alice did crash my father's beloved 1974 beige Dodge Colt, right outside of our high school circa 1988. Plus the totaling of her damn Jeep makes two wrecks. We then talked about what a terrible driver she was.

"I miss her," he concluded.

Image of the Los Angeles freeway via