Kimberlee K.

There is a street in the city where I work that I’ve driven more times than I can count. More times than I’ve done most things, I think.

It’s a straight shot from our company to a customer, and I’ve driven back and forth, back and forth, picking up and dropping off, for fifteen years.

Sometimes I wonder if I could make the drive blindfolded.

If someone sat in the passenger’s seat and told me when the signals were red, could I tell where I was by memory? By the deep bump in the road where a pothole always forms after it rains; by the smoky smell of the sausages always being grilled next to the grocery store; by the hill that races down past the golf course and then curves hard to the right past the bus depot; by the approaching smell of the dump.

4.8 miles.  Just under ten roundtrip.

The street runs parallel to the freeway and sometimes backs up with commuters trying to avoid roadwork or an accident. On a good day it takes me 10 minutes, but there’s been times it’s taken an hour.

I’ve driven that road in every month, every season, every mood, good and bad. Is anyone else keeping track? If the trees watch me go by, have they seen me singing at the top of my lungs? Have they heard me ranting to the steering wheel? Have the golfers lining up their shot ever caught me shrieking over a text message from a boy, or slouching after a friend didn’t show up when I needed her? What songs have the high schoolers heard me playing at full volume? What assumptions are they making as they walk their daily mile in PE?

Are there scars in the sky from the way I’ve seen it sliced by rainclouds so dark it looked like night, and by wildfire smoke that collided in violent oranges, blacks, and greys? Do the buskers plucking the strings of their tired guitars or the insurance sign spinners dressed as Lady Liberty ever recognize my car?

If not, then surely Google Maps has photos of me with every length of hair, every experimental shade of blush, always wearing sunglasses so I can pretend I don’t see when rude men are being inappropriate. Surely the man at the drive-up window has seen me stop at this signal in every posture, and in every single one of my crewneck sweatshirts.

Could we call ourselves a community? Are we looking out for each other, even if we’re always on the move? Or are we all just driving back and forth, back and forth, our bodies healthy and then sick and then healthy, our hopes high and then low and then middling, our gas tanks full and then empty, our minds racing and then quiet and then something close to numb. Our lives moving and repeating, for better or for worse, as we all wonder how many times we’ll drive this road again.