There is something about road trips that just kind of ignites some inspiration up in me. I can only assimilate it to a grill with coals that have been sitting stagnant for weeks, waiting to be lit up with some fire and fuel to cook up a feast! My road trip philosophy has changed of course, since my children came into the world. Instead of packing my car with friends, coolers, and a jukebox of music...it is replaced with car seats, hand held video games and burned CD's filled with pre-school favorites. As I drove across the state of Florida yesterday, with two kids in back, busily trying to outscore each other on gameboys while munching on the variety of snacks I hurriedly packed, thoughts of my past lives (isn't that what they are...lives?) sporadically ran through my head.
As I peeked in my rear view mirror at my overly distracted children, THE family road trip from Providence, RI to Disneyworld immediately came to mind. With a stearn finger and a deep voice, my father stood over me and my two brothers, and one by one reminded us of the car "rules". I am not sure the exact verbatim but the ideas that spring to mind are #1 no fighting....#2 no fun....#3 no noise and my favorite #4 if you have to go to the bathroom, wait until we stop...never ask. Furthermore, I recall my clothes smelling worse than a smoky bar. Back in the 80's, science hadn't discovered that cigarette smoke and lung issues were correlated. The smoke from my dad's salem light 100's would trickle into the back seat and surround us like a cloud...we were all "crammed" into the back seat of the latest and greatest cadillac (no bucket seats or dvd players for us!) and we had word search books (gasp), walkmans with cassette tapes (huh?) and maybe a soda as NO FOOD was allowed in the car ever....maybe that was rule #5?
I always sat behind my mom on the window...my little brother got the middle seat and my other brother would be off in his own world behind my dad. I remember looking out the window and noticing the change in landscape from state to state, and listening to the same songs over and over again on my walkman, imagining and dreaming of adulthood...and freedom. Isn't that what we all want?
Freedom. Freedom from our schedules, our burdens, our obligations, our past mistakes. How free is our life now? I relish the free time I now have on an airplane ride. No phone, no wireless service...I have to get 35,000 feet above this place in order to have freedom to process all that is truly happening in my life. The blackberry dinging, the emails pouring in...the unrelenting computer screens. And don't forget to mention, the obligations that comes along with parenthood and relationships.
Now, when I look back at that time, me sitting behind my always obedient mother while peering out the smoky windows of a cadillac, silently crossing state borders on our way to the land where dreams come true (promises, promises Mickey!), I am realizing freedom lies within ourselves and within our ability to self discipline. Freedom means to me the ability to do what I want when I want without having to explain myself away to anyone. Freedom is putting what is important FIRST and all of the other distractions fall to the waist side. What is freedom to you?
No comments:
Post a Comment