the utter exhaustion of this semester — i desperately want to get away, to do what i want to, and to see people i enjoy seeing, to be alone too. ​thank goodness d. came and took me out for a drive — long, smooth late-night drives along winding and quiet roads are the one thing that make me feel soothed when i’m tired and panicky. i don’t much like driving myself (except in as much as it gives you a sense of independence), i hate being at the back of a cab (the poor view, silent confinement (or polite small talk) with a stranger, the uncomfortable throb of engine, having to have a destination at all. (if one had a destination at all the train is normally my preference: point to point predictable timings, communitarian, people-friendly.) but it is a guarantee that if i’m very unhappy and you put me in the front passenger seat of a car and start driving i will soon enough calm down.

people say that it’s because the gentle rocking motion of a car simulates the rocking of a cradle, but there is also something about being in the front passenger seat of a car that makes me feel extra happy and extra secure. a small car is a compact pocket of safe space, which partitions you from the noise and dust and darkness and the rest of the world without, leaves it all behind, and within it there is coolness (or warmth in winter) and quiet and a friend next to you and the intimacy of soft conversation or companionable silence as you glide down long winding empty roads. the very small scale of the car — the low roof, you’re closed in on three sides and above, was what made one feel a little cocooned against the grating of the world.

and of course, night drives differ from day drives — there’s nothing more tedious than being in daytime traffic, but at night the city is altered in feel (south buona vista is the classic road for an evening drive: a natural tree-tunnel, swerving bend after bend (8, i counted, the “99 turns” of its name would be too much to hope for), also the wide lanes in the various business parks near the portsdown area, silent futurist mini-cities devoid of people yet not eerie), old thomson rd, even sentosa itself with its one road in and out, not a place i used to think of as pleasant (sham touristy or else ridiculously yuppie, i once thought) but surprisingly good for a drive.

the first year that i lived in charlottesville i was often homesick and christine j. who lived next door to me, would take me driving down barracks road late at night. it was one of those two lane roads that went on forever, you went miles meeting no other car, soon (because ch’ville was that kind of small city) it became farms and vineyards on either side. and in singapore hy once took me driving down every expressway at 3am in the morning. there’s no traffic and no hurry to be anywhere, being on the move was the point. i think if there was anywhere and anyone to drive with in cambridge, i wouldn’t have felt half as bad half the time.)

i hope that eternity will be an endless night drive in a tree tunnel, soft music, very light rain, intimate and restful silence, and the warmth of hand on hand.