Commuting, part 2: The drive back
In thinking about my own commute, I also started thinking about the commutes my mom used to make.
She has since passed away, but she was an admirable example of a pretty hard-core commuter. She was not quite the extreme commuter that I occasionally encounter. I had an instructor in library school who literally commuted - drove - from Ventura County to San Jose every week to teach a couple days of classes. But my mom definitely had commuting down to her own science.
She started her commuting career driving from Carpinteria ('World's Safest Beach!') to Santa Barbara - not too bad. Then, as her career opportunities changed and grew, she started commuting into the Los Angeles area, which is getting to the scale of a Highway 17 commute - not necessarily as treacherous, but definitely some passes and long hours involved. We moved within the year to Ventura, which was about 30 miles closer to LA, but she was still getting up early and coming home late, doing two and two and a half hour commutes each way. This was partially due to legendary LA traffic, of course, but it didn't seem to phase her too much. She loved her car - a convertable VW Rabbit from the late 70s, almost when they first came out - and she had her traffic reports, her coffee and her cigarettes, the latter two which got her through many things much tougher than just a commute.
She did the LA commute for almost ten years. Then she moved to the Bay Area, where she commuted from Walnut Creek into the Berkeley area. Shorter, but also subject to traffic snarls sometimes as bad as LA.
As I grew older and got a car myself, I too would drive into LA, but I would drive on the weekends to visit my good friend there. Doing that, I started to see the appeal of long, well-known drives. Yeah, you're on the road, and usually there's not much to look at, but you can have any number of distractions - music was (and is) my big distraction. After a while, it really does become meditative - it's a time and space in which I can discuss anything with myself - but it's also a bit scary that first time you realize you've gotten where you're going, but you remember almost nothing of the trip there.
I guess I'm a second-generation commuter - I learned from one of the best. And while I do understand part of the appeal (who would have thought commuting could be appealing?), part of me also wonders, why did she make that awful commute for so many years? There are times I knew she hated it, but she did it anyway.
And it reminds me of how driven she was (excuse the pun) - how much she loved what she did but, more importantly, loved and provided for me. And that's part of why I don't mind my commutes so much. I know I'm not doing it just for myself, it's for my family, too. I understand a little better now.
Mom, wherever you are - this commute's for you.
