My favorite aspect of driving is a satisfying chunk of alone time. An empty car creates a perfect concert hall to which I can dedicate my most revered music. During my solitude I revel in the uninterrupted beauty of elaborate drum solos, catchy guitar riffs, colorful bass lines, and a soulful, melodious piano. I can max out the volume, I can repeat, and three-peat, and I can bust out the drum beat.
And I can sing along.
And I do. I follow in the highest highs and the lowest lows. I am as faithful to a gyrating vibrato as I can be. I scat, hum, whistle, rap, shout, serenade, and harmonize. My musical warship blooms the ripest fruits of happiness and fulfillment; I sit in a garden of awe.
To me, music is as close to perfection as beauty can be. With every opportunity I strive to envelop myself in the warm cloak of symphony.
I thought everyone felt the same as me--until I was twelve. As sat in my mother's Chevy passenger seat peering at the drivers by; there seemed to be a distinct, yet vague something missing. When I finally figured out what the something was, I sat appalled: I couldn't hear even the slightest evidence of an enchanting melody amongst the cavalry of vehicles. Drivers sat alone, staring at the road. Their open windows shared nothing but air.
And it wasn't only on this one occasion; I began to witness an ever-repeating pattern of music-less, joyless drivers on virtually every excursion I made into the public driving arena. Even my mother's answers to my ceaseless whys did nothing to satiate my curiosity. I had yet to share the same fanatical obsession with music with another person (other than my family, my most beloved congregation of fellow freaks).
I have, since my moment of clarity as a child, observed strangers with a distracted interest in music--as something to live around, not in. But what I find truly perplexing is that I have never seen someone sing along--not even silently. I was convinced that the technological advancements that brought new frontiers to the portability of music might coerce the slightest peep out of even the most conservative individual; yet, nothing. The same dreary monotony.
It's time to stop speculating, I've decided after too many unanswered wonderments. Though I feel a tinge of regret for the unfortunate souls who cannot embrace the aweinspiring beauty of music, I suppose there is little I can do for these people but hope that they have the opportunity to witness the freak show that is me, alone, in my car, fully in bloom.
