I know very little about cars. Like, impressively little. Which feels like a sacrilegious confession as a newcomer to a road trip tradition in which cars—and their inner workings—are so central.
To be honest, I’ve long had a general disinterest in motorized vehicles, which made me a bit of an outlier as a kid, especially in a culture where there’s an expectation that boys will love all things that go vroom. I remember being a child and having the opportunity to pick out a Hot Wheels toy; I bypassed all the cars and sprung for a Hot Wheels-branded medieval chariot. And when it came to my Star Wars LEGO preferences—give me a Mos Eisley cantina or Yoda’s hut over an X-wing or AT-AT any day. (Dioramas? *Swoon*)
At the same time, though, I’ve always had a fixation with the *idea* of driving. It grew, in part, through music—Springsteen anthems, where cars were symbols of freedom and agency; Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” where the car was the ticket out of a dead-end town… and later the ticket out of a dead-end relationship. When I think about cars, I think about stories: Getaway cars. People running away from things, or running toward things. Races against time. I also think about how my own cars have often been sacred spaces. Spaces to think and feel and process. Transitional spaces, between work and home, between errands and hangouts—spaces where all the versions of me stitch back together, at least for a few minutes.
So while I don’t know what’s under the hood (…an engine, maybe?), I think I get some of the emotional workings of cars. What they represent to folks. What they offer. And joining a caravan of quirky cars across a changing and dramatic landscape is already sparking new story ideas.
And who knows? Maybe I’ll pick up some technical know-how along the way. My little blue Prius waiting for me back home would probably appreciate it.
