Insanity 95 Suck Bound
Twenty bucks says there's typos. Oh well.
While I most likely had every intention of brain dumping about my recent trek down Insanity 95, reading a piece on rituals made me think about things. Particularly, my mind has been swirling around what rituals actually are and what they mean. Rituals, in and of themselves, are strange beasts of memory, burden, and daily life I presume. Yet, do all rituals look alike and do they all provide a sense of spiritual release, connection, and solace? Doubtful, as I would say the face of the ritual changes with time and place.
My drives from NY to DC, always along I-95, change for meaning and purpose. Yet, the trip never alters. My parents live three plus hours south of DC, along the dreaded I-95, college friends live in Richmond and DC. The bulk of my trips have landed me in DC, and they have not always been filled with the laughter and cheap beer that old college buddies bring. Hours in archives, academic conferences, a couple of boyfriends I dated down there, and an ill-advised trip to Manassas Battlefield to show a Yankee around . . . okay, not entirely ill-fated, but Dixie folks do not appreciate a southern-hybrid accent rooting for a Yankee win. None-the-less, in eleven years I have come to know the I-95 route well. So well I sometimes run from it in my sleep. Trips for Christmas, my brother's funeral, seeing parents in hospital beds, and other meanders of life still leave the I-95 route without a lot of deviation.
As a friend told me this weekend, the NY to DC trip is by far one of the worst drives around. Back-ups at the New Jersey toll booths, detours through Philly to avoid delays and construction, in 2002 I was headed to DC for a research trip to get there and see 13 messages and missed calls on my phone . . . that was the year of the DC sniper. I had the joy of sitting in traffic on a weekend that fool took target practice to a whole new level. In 2008 someone went psycho in the line for the NJ toll, and he got out of his car to go after someone with a crow bar. Yea, anyway you shake it that drive is just such a joy. Total joy.
Yet, the drive is a ritual in and of itself. Before leaving NY I never sleep well the night before, as I hate packing and I put it off. Then, gassing up before leaving and making sure I have no less than two beverages in the car with me and a fully charged iPod. Let's face it, leaving the City will never be a straight shot. This time I sat on the BQE for an hour and a half. Of course, since AC uses extra gas, I ride with the windows down. When I hit the BQE this time it started with free sailing. I stupidly got excited thinking I would blow through . . . instead, I had a lovely cabbie yelling sweet nothings my way about the time someone honked and waved at me. In a moment of traffic release, I sped away flipping the bird. Then, then, the back-up hit. While sitting in park, I answered some emails from my boss and thought "Why is it that men think they can pick someone up in traffic? Why is it this always happens on this trip?" Of course, I also posted a message to someone else because I thought that it might have been him waving at me. It was not, as I would have felt slightly assy for being the Bitch NYer flipping the bird. Yet, not even two hours in and my rituals had begun. Back-ups, traffic pick-ups, and of course totally getting what I deserve for riding with the windows down.
A friend calls the BQE "absurdly and quintessentially" New York. That is is. Why? The traffic, the crazies, the lines of yellow cabs, the billboards.
Granted, this gem was from The Rapture than never happened, but I read it to say that leaving NY would leave me unprotected from the boroughs I call home. I continue to be discombobulated when outside my home terrain of dirty streets and characters of every dimension.
As a teenager, my sister and I would load ourselves up with soda and sugar laden sweets in the back seat on Indiana's Route 30. Long before the days of iPods we were stuck with each other and the radio station my father choose. We usually found a book or two to comfort us also. That was our ritual to bring us comfort along the Midwest roads. At some point one of us, or both, had bruises on our thighs from playing punch bug and charlie horse.
In general rituals seem to bring a sense of release and solace . . . the ritual of communion of passing the plate and saying "and God be with you" in a Disciples of Christ Church still lurks in my memory. Going to confession with my Catholic grandmother looks of a ritual now, then it seemed contrived and commonplace at the same time. Saying the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of the school day, and singing the National Anthem before a ball game speak of ritual and totem oaths to nation and community. Yet, those moments are more than just reminders of communal collaborations and collective affirmations of an idealized whole.
The military teaches the young recruit to think of his rifle as an extension of himself. It becomes more than just his arm, hand, or tool. It becomes part of him. How is this done? Through the ritualized act of cleaning said weapon, keeping it dry, and even maintaining its colorization and shine. Of course, the movie Full Metal Jacket made the military's personal relationship with the rifle one of popular jokes, culture, and even allure.
In the end, the common conception of the ritual remains an act that connects us to a larger whole or to our inner selves. It brings acceptance, solace, and a sense of communal blessing. DrivingInsanity 95 Suck Bound I-95 South Bound does little more than connect me to the east coast, a densely populated area, and the most congested stretch of road this side of the Mississippi. Yet, in my mind it serves as a sense of ritual. Stopping at the James Fenimore Cooper rest area on the Dirty Jersey Turnpike, always because my eyes are floating and my bladder is near rupture, and rotating which friend's house I will be crashing for cheap beer or martinis . . . Heading down in the throws of Dixie, to the one-horse town devoid of a stop-light my parents still call home, I make sure I take I-95 through Richmond and not the by-pass. I still find solace in seeing the Richmond skyline, to let me know I have crossed the figurative line of North v. South, the life I live and that of my parents, and a sense of coming home. On rare occasions I have avoided the Richmond traffic to only drive the hour north the next day to see the skyline on the return drive to my parents house, as if to quell the uneasy I feel being outside the metropolis I call home.
When I started the trek, before Facebook and Smart Phones, I would call my sister and a couple of friends. A friend of my sister's once told me that being bored on the NJ Turnpike was an entirely too large attention span. When text messaging became the norm of communication I sent messages of "Nothing stinks like Jersey" and "Dixie has kidnapped me, again."* Now . . . Facebook status updates and text messages let me channel my distaste for traffic in quick, efficient manners. My ritual remains to fill others in on my demented escapades of driving I-95.
Perhaps that is the ritual of reality then. Rituals are not necessarily the constructed act of a collective whole. Instead, they become the actions of commonplace travel. Getting road burn on a summer's day as I-95 is the perpetual parking lot, driving slower than molasses behind a winter's plow (not recommended for the sanity), rolling the windows up past the car fire as flames literally danced in the air, and stopping at a WaWa on the north side of Balitmore for a Diet Sundrop as the store carries them. A taste of Dixie, as a fraction of my ritual of hell down 95, very literally as I cross the Mason-Dixon. Of course, coming home and sitting on the BQE always lets you marvel in the wonder of what you call home.
* There is one stink worse then Jersey . . . the re-digging of the landfills outside Gary, IN in 1987/88, and of the old Lever Brothers plant in Whiting, IN when Wisk laundry soap was being made. Ugh.
While I most likely had every intention of brain dumping about my recent trek down Insanity 95, reading a piece on rituals made me think about things. Particularly, my mind has been swirling around what rituals actually are and what they mean. Rituals, in and of themselves, are strange beasts of memory, burden, and daily life I presume. Yet, do all rituals look alike and do they all provide a sense of spiritual release, connection, and solace? Doubtful, as I would say the face of the ritual changes with time and place.
My drives from NY to DC, always along I-95, change for meaning and purpose. Yet, the trip never alters. My parents live three plus hours south of DC, along the dreaded I-95, college friends live in Richmond and DC. The bulk of my trips have landed me in DC, and they have not always been filled with the laughter and cheap beer that old college buddies bring. Hours in archives, academic conferences, a couple of boyfriends I dated down there, and an ill-advised trip to Manassas Battlefield to show a Yankee around . . . okay, not entirely ill-fated, but Dixie folks do not appreciate a southern-hybrid accent rooting for a Yankee win. None-the-less, in eleven years I have come to know the I-95 route well. So well I sometimes run from it in my sleep. Trips for Christmas, my brother's funeral, seeing parents in hospital beds, and other meanders of life still leave the I-95 route without a lot of deviation.
As a friend told me this weekend, the NY to DC trip is by far one of the worst drives around. Back-ups at the New Jersey toll booths, detours through Philly to avoid delays and construction, in 2002 I was headed to DC for a research trip to get there and see 13 messages and missed calls on my phone . . . that was the year of the DC sniper. I had the joy of sitting in traffic on a weekend that fool took target practice to a whole new level. In 2008 someone went psycho in the line for the NJ toll, and he got out of his car to go after someone with a crow bar. Yea, anyway you shake it that drive is just such a joy. Total joy.
Yet, the drive is a ritual in and of itself. Before leaving NY I never sleep well the night before, as I hate packing and I put it off. Then, gassing up before leaving and making sure I have no less than two beverages in the car with me and a fully charged iPod. Let's face it, leaving the City will never be a straight shot. This time I sat on the BQE for an hour and a half. Of course, since AC uses extra gas, I ride with the windows down. When I hit the BQE this time it started with free sailing. I stupidly got excited thinking I would blow through . . . instead, I had a lovely cabbie yelling sweet nothings my way about the time someone honked and waved at me. In a moment of traffic release, I sped away flipping the bird. Then, then, the back-up hit. While sitting in park, I answered some emails from my boss and thought "Why is it that men think they can pick someone up in traffic? Why is it this always happens on this trip?" Of course, I also posted a message to someone else because I thought that it might have been him waving at me. It was not, as I would have felt slightly assy for being the Bitch NYer flipping the bird. Yet, not even two hours in and my rituals had begun. Back-ups, traffic pick-ups, and of course totally getting what I deserve for riding with the windows down.
A friend calls the BQE "absurdly and quintessentially" New York. That is is. Why? The traffic, the crazies, the lines of yellow cabs, the billboards.
As a teenager, my sister and I would load ourselves up with soda and sugar laden sweets in the back seat on Indiana's Route 30. Long before the days of iPods we were stuck with each other and the radio station my father choose. We usually found a book or two to comfort us also. That was our ritual to bring us comfort along the Midwest roads. At some point one of us, or both, had bruises on our thighs from playing punch bug and charlie horse.
In general rituals seem to bring a sense of release and solace . . . the ritual of communion of passing the plate and saying "and God be with you" in a Disciples of Christ Church still lurks in my memory. Going to confession with my Catholic grandmother looks of a ritual now, then it seemed contrived and commonplace at the same time. Saying the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of the school day, and singing the National Anthem before a ball game speak of ritual and totem oaths to nation and community. Yet, those moments are more than just reminders of communal collaborations and collective affirmations of an idealized whole.
The military teaches the young recruit to think of his rifle as an extension of himself. It becomes more than just his arm, hand, or tool. It becomes part of him. How is this done? Through the ritualized act of cleaning said weapon, keeping it dry, and even maintaining its colorization and shine. Of course, the movie Full Metal Jacket made the military's personal relationship with the rifle one of popular jokes, culture, and even allure.
In the end, the common conception of the ritual remains an act that connects us to a larger whole or to our inner selves. It brings acceptance, solace, and a sense of communal blessing. Driving
When I started the trek, before Facebook and Smart Phones, I would call my sister and a couple of friends. A friend of my sister's once told me that being bored on the NJ Turnpike was an entirely too large attention span. When text messaging became the norm of communication I sent messages of "Nothing stinks like Jersey" and "Dixie has kidnapped me, again."* Now . . . Facebook status updates and text messages let me channel my distaste for traffic in quick, efficient manners. My ritual remains to fill others in on my demented escapades of driving I-95.
Perhaps that is the ritual of reality then. Rituals are not necessarily the constructed act of a collective whole. Instead, they become the actions of commonplace travel. Getting road burn on a summer's day as I-95 is the perpetual parking lot, driving slower than molasses behind a winter's plow (not recommended for the sanity), rolling the windows up past the car fire as flames literally danced in the air, and stopping at a WaWa on the north side of Balitmore for a Diet Sundrop as the store carries them. A taste of Dixie, as a fraction of my ritual of hell down 95, very literally as I cross the Mason-Dixon. Of course, coming home and sitting on the BQE always lets you marvel in the wonder of what you call home.
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