Winter Driving

Right now I’m caught in a rut. Since I live in Minnesota, I’ll use the icy road metaphor. For those reading in states with no snow, (read: Florida), you’ll have to just use your imagination.

Now my Nissan Cube has this anti-tip over feature that is somehow mysteriously represented by a light on the dash. When the car is sliding, the light goes off. I’m assuming the point of the light is to confirm that there is a reason my adrenals have just let off a double dose of cortisol.  It isn’t random, unexplained stress in other words. We are far enough into winter that I’ve gotten used to that light going off at regular intervals. For example, when the car is gaining traction on the icy driveway, the light goes off. When I turn from the icy township road onto the icy county road, there is a manageable amount of slide involved and I’m used to it now, anti-tip over light flashing away and all.

I’ve adjusted to the winter driving conditions, but as the temps rise and the snow begins to melt, ruts are forming. Driving now involves steering away from the ruts, but that isn’t always easy because of the ice. Sometimes the car just slides into them. After all, they had to become ruts somehow and it is because the ice has been so effective at pulling not just my car, but a bunch of other cars, in.

So that is where I feel I am. For a time, I was cruising along pretty well, managing the roads, adjusting to conditions and learning, with the help of dummy lights I’m sure, how to handle slides and picking up speed. Now, I’m in a rut and the steering is resisting popping back up out of it. Usually, the only way out of that rut is to keep moving forward until the road smooths out. I’ve no idea how much further I have to go before this rut ends, but the hope, of course, is that it will be sometime before this blog is finished being written.

My rut? Self doubt, attachment to outcome, impatience, the need to control the uncontrollable, and the overwhelming feeling that this rut might lead into the deep, snowy ditch. Fear of ditches can lead to an overcorrection trying to get myself up onto the middle of the road, which might even mean ending up doing a 180 when I hit that black ice.

Any winter driver worth their salt and over the age of 17 will tell you from experience that when you hit the rut or the slide, remain calm, hold on and take your foot off the gas. In the dead of winter we sort of worry that driving is always going to be this way. Eventually I will again find myself on a good dry road. Until then, here I am in this rut. If I go into the ditch, I’ll either be able to get myself out, or I’ll call for help. I’ve got my extra mittens, a blanket and a winter survival kit (a bunch of stuff I really don’t have an idea of how I’d use but have carried for decades all stored in a cookie tin–handy metaphor, huh?).

I am still fighting the rut but for now at least I’m moving ahead on the road, staying calm, holding steady and taking my foot off the gas. Hope nothing hits me from behind or going the other direction…