I have always enjoyed long drives. The meandering escape of driving on a road I do not know through a landscape I have not explored allows me access to my mind in a manner similar to hiking, though generally does not require as much exertion. Since moving to New Jersey I have found myself spending several hours a week in my car, just driving for the change it offers. I do not know any of the roads here, where I will be led is a mystery. This helps me to focus on something outside of my thoughts, which can be far less focused.

The mind of a depressed person can often feel clouded and thoughts come through in fragments, if at all. I find myself locked in emotional loops, playing over the same sadnesses and losses, disconnected from active thinking, because these loops are more visceral and act upon me in anguishing ways, not at all constructive or useful. Driving with a mind full of cotton balls helps sometimes to uncover thoughts that are helpful, and it does wonders to slow down the tears.

I took my Forrester into a state forest preserve and drove for a few miles on rain-drenched, sandy roads, heavily scarred by ATV and tire tracks larger than mine. Keeping one’s car in the tracks is slippery business and requires a good deal of letting go. One must ignore the thoughts that want to be considered and just hold the wheel steady heading through particularly deep puddles or over suspicious looking lumps in the center of the road. One cannot allow song lyrics or cell phone alerts to divert attention away from the always looming possibility of driving off the track and into a felled tree, or into the path of a fleeing deer, tail up in full alert. There is a freedom which comes from this sort of reckless focus, which I am thankful to find, when I cannot breathe and breakthrough my sorrow to discover some useful idea that may lead me away from making more reckless  decisions.