Listening to the burned CD’s that had been exchanged with a friend, the space of a Ford Mondeo became one for the pristine pleasure of discovering new music. At least for one person in the car, the rest obliged as they knew it gave the father great joy, dedicating those hours-in-passing to the passion he has lived for all his life. The mother, prone to car-sickness, was given the task of navigation. Attentively she sat, a map, bound by a thick green spine rested on her knees, being consulted on the road. The two of them in front of that metal box with an engine, three children occupied the back. Always a full car.
But that was then, now this immense fog has asked me to peruse its origin, to join it, to step out of the car into this majestic landscape. But I can’t, I need to get somewhere. Can’t step out, I have to be there, I have things waiting to be done. I’ll take a picture though, maybe that will allow me to experience it later. Maybe it will bring me back, or someday remind me to bring myself back. The driver notices, says that here, a place I’ve never been, it takes some time for the sun to heat up the hills, the mornings have always coexisted with this dense fog. He adds that there is more mystery present in this landscape, that the road that moves under us has been named the “Magic Road”. Magic? Yes, he replies, gravity ceases to function in these hills, on a bicycle one need not peddle to go upward, much as a coin will roll uphill. Magic? A word that had left my vocabulary, bereft of it I somehow stumbled into my daily life, into this car, on my way to do the things waiting to be done.
What does magic entail? I no longer think of it. I can tell you, however, of that which wasn’t magical. On the back seat of that Ford Mondeo, the middle one to be precise, gravity was very much felt. A game would be played, where the inertia of a turn would be met with a triumphant joining in the momentum by siblings on either side. I, always in the middle, would be crushed. Always. So much for magic.
Also, who decided who sat in the middle? It seemed to be an unquestionable truth. When fights would arise, if one would scream too loud, annoy the other, if the unfastened seatbelts would allow for too much comfort in this restricted box, we would at first be met with shouting. If the restlessness would not end, the pages of the map would elegantly fold around that green spine and become Lady Justice incarnated. Due to her car sickness, she would not even turn around to see who she was hitting with this double edged sword. A shared punishment, taken out on the middle seat, easiest to reach, at an arm’s (plus map) length. Not so magical, yet quite clear. The rules were clear. Those street signs, posts and fields meant returning home.
And so the hours passed. And so the hours pass. A magic road? I need to see it to believe it. Do I need to see everything to believe it? I could have sworn that the road goes up. I could have sworn I would return here, the past years were to be an interlude. Yet here I am, looking at the street posts and houses. The very ones that once told me I would soon return, they now seem to have faded in the mist. Street posts and houses, are you still guiding me home? That mist.
It is during these lay hours, the ones where our bodies are moving at speeds we cannot fully fathom, that our minds are forced to stand still. Stand still, contemplate, ruminate, reminisce. Whatever it is we do, the body is confined to that box, metal and engine. Amidst the rush of living, we are confronted with ourselves on that reliable surface. Magical, no?
