(p. D6) Public spaces are hard to safely navigate, or totally off-limits and, as a result, I haven’t felt this strongly about my car since I was 16 — not just grateful, but deeply attached. Not just attached, but somehow amalgamated.
Every car is a getaway, even when it’s parked.
In my neighborhood, where so many people live in multigenerational homes, parked cars now double as quiet meeting spaces, meditation rooms, listening stations, nap pods, whatever extra spaces we need.
We sip coffee, fight loudly and make out in our cars. We eat snacks and take important phone calls and watch TikTok videos and put the seats way back and just breathe.
I haven’t seen my brother, who lives 15 minutes away from me, in weeks. He uses his tiny car as an office. Never mind that the floor is covered in Cheerios, and the windows are dotted with peeling stickers.
Week Three of lockdown, and it’s a privilege if you can work safely, in isolation, if you can escape momentarily into your car. Even if — especially if — you have nowhere else to go but home.
For the full commentary, see:
Tejal Rao. “Car Culture Has a New Meaning.” The New York Times (Wednesday, April 1, 2020): D6.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date March 31, 2020, and has the title “Dining and Driving on the Empty Freeways of Los Angeles.”)
Count on the California government to cut off this opportunity for respite, on the implicit grounds that political virtue-signaling is far more important than preserving people’s sanity during this episode. And on the grounds that many politicians, especially but not only New York and California politicians, will seize any opportunity they can to boss people around, especially if said bossing looks good to the vicious Twitter mob-rulers. (For example, the Wisconsin governor just issued a “clarification” that *drive-in* Easter services are forbidden. Yes, *drive -in* services!)