And suddenly I was driving
This week my parents and sister are traveling up from Florida to Virginia to visit assorted distant relatives. Dreamed about this last night. Funny how telling - or even remembering? - a dream can reshape it… I changed bits around very slightly to make it slightly more linear, and now I actually remember it that way, even though I know I changed it.
In the dream, I was sort of riding along, inside the car but invisible, and not even really listening to what was being said. (This is a useful skill at times.) Dad was driving - he always drives. My sister was riding shotgun, navigating towards - I think it was towards - Roanoke. It was rather late at night, and raining, and they’d driven most of the way from Jacksonville that day already - which Mapquest now tells me is a bit under 600 miles, so it’s no wonder he was quite tired.
We stopped for gas, and he got out to pump it. He leaned against the side of the car and I think he was dozing off, ’cause my mom had to roll down the window and tap him on the shoulder a couple times after the pump clicked off before he responded. My sister noticed that they were actually rather close to West Virginia at this point, and that there was a school in WV she’d been thinking about applying to grad school at, and would it be possible to go visit it at some point, after we’d visited the whole family?
So I turned visible and showed up behind the wheel, while everyone looked surprised. “I heard what you were saying about me,” I told them. “And now it’s my turn to drive.” Dad smiled tiredly at me and climbed into the back seat. “Go wherever you like,” he said to my sister and me, “as long as I don’t have to drive another mile of it.” And so we did - the school actually turned out to be in the upper northern bits of WV, and I’m leaving out the bits about getting back on the road and having to cut in front of three police cruisers. My parents dozed off against each other in the back, while my sister and I drove around quietly. There was no kicking of the back seat - I think they were both too tired.
I do hope they’re all alright.