How about that drive in?
On the road to Gualala, liminal spaces, and daydreaming
“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
A few weeks ago, I had to be in San Francisco for work. It was an all consuming, stay late, crash at a hotel, wake up early, and do it all over again kind of week.
By Friday, my brain was toast. I left the city around 2pm, in the middle of a circular client conversation I could no longer follow. I wanted to leave before the weekend traffic picked up and I needed to get something from IKEA.
There’s no IKEA in Gualala.
I was cranky, over caffeinated, and eager to get home. I couldn’t get my phone to connect to the car and made three wrong turns on the way to the store, ruining any benefit of leaving early.
An hour later, I sat in the IKEA parking lot, even crankier than before, a new full-length mirror in the backseat. I texted my partner to let him know I was finally heading home and warn him about my impending mood upon arrival. I still had a 3 hour drive ahead.
“I love it up there, but I could never get used to that drive,” our friends from the Bay Area always say.
The road into Gualala is the kind of road that car commercials are filmed on—hairpin turns on a hundred foot cliff, overlooking the ocean.
Recently, a newcomer asked a seemingly innocent question on the local Facebook group— “is there a less curvy way in?” She was met with a flurry of good natured 😂 emojis and recommendations like “Take a boat!” or simply, “No.”
When we first started coming up here to visit, I was like any other out-of-towner. I gripped the steering wheel and hugged the curves at a careful 20 miles per hour. If I saw another car in my rearview mirror, I immediately let them pass. I was nervous, and rightfully so. It’s a scary drive.
After a few more reps, the drive got easier. Two years later, I’m not nervous anymore. In fact, I look forward to it. Sometimes, I even crave it.
In high school, our gym class did a yoga unit.
We would do something called progressive relaxation. Everyone would lie down on yoga mats while a guided meditation would play, prompting you to scan your body and “progressively relax” from your head to your toes.
Eventually the gym teacher had to end this particular activity. School started at 7:25am and given a spare moment to lie down, we would all just fall asleep, the occasional snore escaping.
But there was one part of the meditation that stuck with me.
The voice recording would say something like, “Imagine your thoughts as bubbles floating by. As they pass in front of you, imagine taking your finger and softly popping each bubble, letting the thoughts disappear into thin air, one after another.”
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
I crave the drive because I need to be forced to pause.
I’m a very curious person. I get distracted easily. I multitask a lot and I’m good at hiding it. I’ve been called “a little all over the place.”
I’ve tried many times to create reflection rituals and hold myself to them. I’ve done morning pages, daily gratitudes, the Five Minute Journal, the Five Year Journal. I have a lot of half-filled notebooks.
I’ll stick with it for a few weeks, maybe even a few months. But something always comes up. I get bored of being grateful for my bed every single morning. I don’t have the right playlist teed up. I’ve been traveling. I don’t have time.
On the drive to and from Gualala, I’ve got nothing but time.
My most common route is between San Francisco and Gualala. More than half of the drive is on California’s famous Highway 1, also known as the Pacific Coast Highway, PCH, or “the 1”.
There are no faster, more efficient ways to get in (by land, anyway).
The time is fixed.
On the 1, I cannot do any tasks. I have to pay attention so I don’t drive off a cliff. I can’t reach for my phone. There isn’t even cell service for a good chunk of the trip.
But I also don’t have to pay attention that much. There are no stop signs, no street lights. No directions, no turns, no traffic. Just one long, windy road.
I am alone with myself and my thoughts and previously downloaded music.
It is just long enough to think about all of the things I had on my list, remember the things I forgot to put on my list, and be left with myself.
It is just long enough to accept the things I cannot change and find the courage to change the things I can. It is the headspace to know the difference.
The time is sacred.
When I was younger, I went to church almost every week. It was a low-key Presbyterian church with lots of families and relatable, not-too-long sermons. At youth group, you could ask the pastor questions like, do you really believe in all this?
I always tried to sit in the part of the pew right behind the tiny pencils so I could doodle on the offering envelopes, zone out, and let my mind wander.
As I got older, I stopped going, choosing to sleep in instead.
I have fond memories of going to church. It wasn’t for the lessons. Most of the time, I wasn’t even listening.
What I really liked was having time to sit with myself.
Many of these posts have been “written” in my head on that drive. So has my annual review, my wedding vows.
On the drive, I have permission to let my mind wander. It’s a stream of consciousness, a playful, swirly, grappling. I hold no idea too tightly, knowing if it’s important it will make it’s way back in the next few hours.
It’s not quite presence, more like the freedom to fall into nostalgia and daydreaming, somewhere between then and now and maybe someday. It is a protected space for imagination.
My brain is the primary input and output, a closed loop of meandering thoughts as I drive through a screensaver come to life—rolling hills, coastal cliffs—the visual equivalent of your favorite lo-fi background music playlist.
It’s amazing how much of your life you can figure out in a liminal space like that.
Even more than a third place, the drive is like a portal between worlds—the city and the country, work and life, density and spaciousness.
The sharpness of work drama softens. The weight of uncertainty about the rest of my life dissipates. Anxious thoughts float by and pop like bubbles, one by one.
I never thought I’d miss my commute.
When I realized we weren’t going back to the office anytime soon, I imagined all of the ways I’d spend those extra hours in my day. I could journal, exercise, maybe learn a new language, start a side hustle!
I know how easy we had it—no kids, unessential work. But for some reason, I rolled out of bed and right onto my computer.
There was no distance between my job and life, the liminal space formerly created by physical distance rubbed so thin that it no longer existed.
Work was always right there, filling up all of the space left empty by my social life evaporating overnight. As the space became emptier and emptier, work grew and grew until I couldn’t see myself in my days anymore.
After 2 years of that, having a three hour “commute” from San Francisco almost felt luxurious.
I finally leave IKEA.
Forty-five minutes later, I turn off of the big four lane highway and look out at the happiest cows in the world.
Google Maps says, Turn right in 61 miles. “Rolling in the Deep” comes on. My shoulders relax. I feel the tension of the day melt away.
The portal has opened.
In about 20 minutes, I hit the coast. I drive north in awe as the sun sets over the Pacific, the horizon wide as the sky.
I imagine the sun rising on the other side of the ocean, over the waterfront in Shanghai, where my grandmother was born almost 100 years ago.
It’s already tomorrow over there.
How big is the ocean, really? What is time anyway?
Can you believe this happens every single day?
How lucky am I?
How lucky are we?
I love this and I love connecting with you on the Internet. I feel like we are truly cut from the same cloth and look forward to reading more of your work and getting to know you!!
Becky this is such a wonderful piece. I always look forward to reading your newsletters. It resonated so quickly and profoundly - parts read like a recording of my inner thoughts. Thank you for this new phrasing and framing to help articulate what is essential for balance in life.
Liminality has long been a concept that I’ve been enthralled by - the edges the inbetweens (of space time and awareness) is where the growth happens. It would be so interesting to keep reflecting on what comes of this sacred drive.