On the road

I’m not a great driver, don’t know the machine intimately and have grave doubts about my ability to change a flat. But I do like being behind the wheel of a fast or maybe I should say, fast-ish car. I like the promise of freedom, the way the car cocoons you in a world of your own, the air-conditioning, the music. And on the days when our usually very dusty on the outside and very messy on the inside car is clean and bright, I feel clean and bright.

 

When we’re on the road as a family, though, it’s a different story. Sometimes it’s great and sometimes not-so-great. And then, there are the times when I would be anywhere but inside the car.

Like when my younger one is in my lap and feeling puky.

She’s two and so she’s not tuned in enough to warn you just before. We’ve tried stopping and waiting but the wait goes on and on and after you’ve finally decided she’s over it and get back on the road, she pukes all over you – I mean me. It’s always me. When she sits on my husband’s lap, she never inconveniences him. The puke is always reserved for mama. I distinctly remember the time when my husband drove into hospital - we live at hospital quarters - shirtless cos I was wearing his shirt that I changed into in a fast-moving car. Where I live, a woman just can’t stand on the side of the road and change her top.

Like when both of us are bone-tired and the children are boisterously happy. That’s full-throttle renditions of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Old Mac Donald and Puff, the Magic Dragon with accompanying jumps, hoots, falls, complaints, hysterical laughter and non-stop conversing with parents during the in-between times. 

Like when both my husband and I are talking on the phone and the kids, the last time I glanced backward, were either at each other’s throats or hugging each other.

Couldn’t really make out; doesn’t matter.

My husband accuses me of being brain-dead – alive only to the person on the other side of the call – while I’m on the phone. Well, if the tele was on, you could hit him over the head with an iron rod and he wouldn’t blink even if he was watching a Barbie flick.

Like when the older one is nauseous but won’t puke.

But like I said before, it’s not all bad. Many times, it’s simply great. Kids, you know, they can make you all smiley and mellow - they can take you to seventh heaven, for that matter - just as often as they make you want to pull your hair out.  

Like when we’re all rocking together, singing along to the CD with the volume up.

  

Like when they’re screaming in pleasure when the road’s all bendy and their father makes the bends bendier by taking them fast. Just to hear them go nuts like that is a big kick.

Like when their cousins land up and all the kids are fooling around together in the backseat. We adults have had some great entertainment listening to their take on things. The discussion I remember best was the one on various kinds of kisses. The oldest discussant was six, youngest two; it was hilarious.

But the best part is the part that makes me wonder if the car isn’t the secret of our marital success, so to say. When the kids have finally crashed out - one in the back and one on my lap - that’s when my husband and I talk. The entire week’s worth of talking sometimes has to wait for this time. That’s when the jokes are shared, the little resentments sorted out, the dreams chased and the love rekindled.

( 3.2.’10)