The Yoga of Driving

by Jonathan Ambar

I’d had a license for less than three months and owned my brand-new used 2002 Volkswagen Jetta for less than two when I decided to treat myself to a well-earned break and let the Peter Pan Bus take me to Boston for the weekend. I was looking forward to sitting back, engrossing myself in a novel, and letting someone else worry about putting pedal to the metal.

I had made it 34 years without needing a driver’s license. Until moving to the Berkshires, I lived my entire adult life in metropolitan areas brimming with public transportation—Boston, then New York City—and was proud to consider myself a pedestrian. Sure, sometimes the hindrances of taking the subway—constant delays, dubious sanitary conditions—outweighed the pleasures but, all in all, I was quite content to let my commuting fate rest in the hands of others. Plus, subway time was always reading time.

But now I was discovering a whole new language, one of red and yellow and orange signs; white city names flanked by green boxes; black arrows and octagons; dashboard doodles that could’ve been Klingon for all the sense they made to me. But I was also proud of my small accomplishments: I had managed to navigate through picturesque, if treacherous, country roads without running over a single squirrel, and felt as if my seven-minute drive to work was something out of The Amazing Race.

Though I was getting more and more comfortable behind the wheel, driving on a highway, on my own, for more than two hours, seemed rather…terrifying, to put it mildly. I got to the bus stop with my ticket, weekend bag, and book in hand. I was ready to go.

Both the bus to New York City and the one to Providence were running 10 minutes behind schedule, but that’s to be expected on a Friday afternoon, no? When more than half an hour passed and no Boston-bound bus, however, I started to get antsy. I called the bus company. “Oh, yes,” said the disinterested voice of a customer-service rep, “the bus to Boston was sold out in Albany, so it bypassed Lenox. But you can catch another bus in Springfield at 6:00.”

Considering it was past 5:30 and Springfield was almost an hour away, there was no chance whatsoever that that was going to happen.

I hung up, too shocked to even argue, and called my friend in Boston, feeling tension mounting in my left shoulder. Earlier in the day, when things were much simpler, she’d told me she’d made dinner reservations for 8:30. Now I was stuck. Perhaps I could take the first bus out in the morning? I was clinging to my sense of security, desperate for a form of public transportation to materialize and whisk me away.

“Why don’t you just jump in your car and get here?!” my friend blurted when I told her about my dilemma.

Oh, dear. Could I really do that? I knew it was something that I wanted to do eventually, but I didn’t feel quite ready. The open highway, with its string of vehicles and multiple lanes, seemed like vast, uncharted territory—the moon circa 1968.

But I knew there was no turning back. I went back to my office, downloaded and printed out driving directions, and shooed away the pestering thoughts of all that could go wrong. The dull throb I’d been carrying in my shoulder had turned into a full knot of tension. I breathed into the discomfort, settled into my seat, and off I went.

I was determined and aware of everything around me and within me, especially since dusk was about to settle and nighttime driving was its own unique beast. But within 45 minutes, I was driving with certainty, even confidence. The tension in my shoulders dissipated as I settled in my seat. I was surprised at how easily I was able to navigate the road-changing lanes, smoothly finding my exits, even stopping to get gas. I thought back to the driving manual I had devoured over the summer in preparation for my permit and road tests. How foreign and theoretical all those rules of the road had seemed to me back then, and yet how…obvious they seemed as I was living them. I was propelling myself forward. I was finding my way, and actually enjoying it.

The restaurant reservations had to be pushed back, but I made it there, and that’s what mattered. I was hungry by the time I arrived, but happy to see my friend and feeling satiated in other ways.

Jonathan Ambar, Kripalu’s Marketing Copywriter, is also a yoga teacher and a burlesque performer.

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