Someone mentioned recently that they didn't like cars.  I didn't think much about it at the time, but later as I was driving home,   I couldn't help thinking that she doesn't know what she's missing.  Cars are my refuge.    

Not that I'm any sort of car fanatic.  I buy a car and drive it until it stops and can't be started again.  I'm always relieved to get that first scratch so I can quit concerning myself with little bumps and dings.  And I've never named a car in my life. 

These days I drive a 2001 Honda CRV with 173,000 miles.  It's a little bigger than I need, but it came in handy when I was driving daughters across country to colleges.  I probably wouldn't feel comfortable taking it on another cross country trip, but it gets me around town just fine.

When someone rear ended me last year and totalled the car,  I took the insurance check straight to a mechanic. "This is what you've got to work with. Fix it the best you can."  It's  running great.  One of these days I'll get around to fixing the spider crack that meanders across  the front windshield. 

My fondness for cars isn't based on speed or style, but dates back to the days when I had a full schedule and never enough time.  When I spent my days in a courtroom worrying about objections and motions to dismiss and surprise witness and then went home to two girls who hadn't had dinner, but did have homework.  There was  trash to take out, t-ball games to attend,  and, oh, I almost forgot, we have parent conferences tonight.  I look back at those days and wonder how I did it.  Which is not to say that I always did it well, because I didn't.  But I did survive it.

Part of the reason was my hour commute to and from work in my car.  That  was the time I had for me.  It was the time to collect my thoughts, regroup, and change gears.  It was also the time that I did my very best thinking.  Whether strategizing a trial, or determining how best to handle an ADD diagnosis, answers almost always came somewhere along Interstate 70.  At work, I was too busy and, at home, I was too tired.  Things were clearer in the car. 

Life is not so busy now and I don't need the carcass of a car in order to find "me" time.  There's plenty of that at my bookstore or at home.  But even with the luxury of time, I find that my best ideas, or answers, still come when I'm driving my car.  I might have prefered a window seat or a shady nook, but it seems I'm stuck with a beat up Honda. 

The proof is in the car itself, where deposit slips and envelopes and receipts litter the floor, each with scribbled notes of ideas that I'm afraid I'll forget if I don't jot them down at the next stop light.  And so I do. 

When I go inside and start typing--this post, for example--and can't remember that turn of phrase that fit presicely, I go to the car and there it is. 

And when one of the girls calls with a problem or a question, I'm never at a loss to know exactly what to say.

"Let me drive on that."