The Good Travelers

The world that takes place in a car attracts me in a voyeuristic way. I am drawn to watch but guiltily. These windows are an invitation. I am frustrated beyond normal to see cars with their tinted windows or Semis too high to see in. I struggle, bobbing my head, squinting my eyes, speeding up to catch a glimpse through the windshield to see what is hidden from me.

Other things that happen on the road that drives me to distraction is traveling at the same speed of a person passing on the sidewalk while their face remains blocked by a telephone pole or a parked car. I've nearly rear ended cars trying to change the sync we are in.

The recent inspirations that have brought this obsession into awareness have been the movie by Abbas Kiarostami about a woman's life in her cab, called Ten. The other was the photography-transvoid. In Abbas Kiarostami movie I have been made a passenger. And Roderik Henderson has given me the liberty to look into the car without shying away. I do not have that uncomfortable feeling as if I have been caught in the midst of spying. In transvoid, the subjects have engaged me. It is like they are waiting for an answer from me. In Ten, I am in the front seat right along with the driver waiting for the answers, asking the questions, driving in anxious silence.

As an adult traveling with my companions I have spent productive hours deep in meaningful and honest conversations, worked out difficult issues, read inspirational books aloud, listened to educational radio shows and explored areas of the country lost to most in the world. As a child I was trapped. Car sickness, boredom. My imagination was honed in a car. And I became the good little traveler.