Night driving

You take ginger steps across the kitchen, knowing exactly how to avoid the creak in the middle of the floor. A flick of your keys, actuation of tumblers. The jingly strand of keys is dampened by the quick application of pressure with your fingertips. You pay unnecessary attention to discreetness, feeling that it is somehow respectful to the sanctity of the night. 

But it is not some kind of sneaking mission. This is not a midnight romance, or a payoff to your bookie, or a premeditated desertion of your family, or a food run to satisfy your munchies. If you were caught by someone, it would not elicit a divorce, nor would it even cause you to be screamed at. The most likely outcome would be a sheepish admission that you were going outside to be alone and think, with no good explanation for why driving helps that process. You might feel ridiculed, but only minutely so. Life would go on.

When the front door is closed, you release the pressure in your hand, and the keys to fall limply on the keyring you are holding. It's exactly eleven steps to get to your car in the driveway. The right key falls to hand, and you slot it into the door. The windows are misted over. It's a chilly night. You have "driving gloves" that you might don, or you might chide yourself for such a silly and pretentious purchase.

Your car could be anything. When in the "pure thought" mindset, the driving experience is subsidiary, and just as effective to your goals with a $900 Metro as it is for a $90,000 Porsche.

You slide the car into gear, and get going. No goal or destination is in mind. 

Night driving is not a habit for you, but today the circumstances were right. You had enough energy after work. Your wife or girlfriend or kids or dogs fell asleep already. You have gas in the tank and you know that near your house at 3 am on a Tuesday, the roads will not be clogged with commuters or tourists.

And yet the roads are the same in the nighttime as they were in the day. All of the lanes are there. They now seem entirely deserted, and made just for you. You can drive idly along with no enthusiasm in your driving, in order to clear your thoughts. Or you can drive vigorously in the comfort of knowing that you will almost surely not endanger the lives of other motorists. All of a sudden, you can think freely and totally by yourself, or you can engage in enjoyable driving without the negative consequences of it. If one gives pause to think about what is happening, each instance of night driving feels special and somehow surreal. The world is totally different when you no longer need to account for the presence of other human beings, but you can enjoy the product of other humans' labor in the form of paved roads and gas stations.

Driving at night is still a unique experience for most areas of the United States. Unfortunately, heavily urbanized areas will have so much activity in them that the roads may never become deserted, even at the dead of night. I plan to take advantage of it while I still can. I have an occasional obsession with night driving.