Zen and the Art of Speeding

by lizard at 03:02 PM on October 19, 2001

First of all, I'm trying to like Enya. I have a friend who likes Enya, so I've chucked my attitude of ‘Enya must be stopped’, in an attempt to have an open mind. So, today I discovered that Enya is actually quite good if played very, very loud in a car that is going 90ish miles per hour.

This is a regular drive, an every other week meeting at a client's office, which is 26 miles away. It starts at 9:30, so I try to get on the road by 9:10, 9:12 at the latest. Today was more of a 9:16 day, so it was necessary to make up the time by driving very, very fast. After I get through the bottleneck and construction areas, the freeway opens up to four lanes, and people speed up, I'd say the average speed is 75mph. However, 75 will not get me there on time, so it's necessary to do what some people might call, ‘drive like a maniac’, although there is nothing maniacal about my driving. It's very calm, very focused, very Zen.

Around the time I hit the Zen zone, Enya came on, and I deviated from policy by reaching down and turning the volume knob up to the highest level for clear sound. Ordinarily, there is no messing with the stereo in this zone, just as there are no cell phones, no eating, drinking, smoking, or grooming. There is only driving, and very loud music.

Enya was quite good at around 95, which I maintained for most of that song and the next, which was Pink Floyd's Run Like Hell. At this speed, sitting with shoulders squared and hands at 10 and 2, breathing deeply, life is thrilling, and I am very much alive. I track the movements of the cars around me not only visually but viscerally, to feel where they are and will be as i move through them. My eyes are fixed straight forward, perceiving in my periphery the mirrors, only glancing directly in the rear view every 10 seconds or so for a fraction of a second, because, well, cops are a problem at this speed. So are idiots - so it is necessary to constantly mentally update a minimum of two escape routes, because when (not if) one of the other drivers pulls one of those bonehead maneuvers, there's no time to check or think, just react. I maintain a state of preparedness, because after all, this IS life and death we're talking about.

Heading up the Conejo Grade, I encounter a challenging array of people who neglected to purchase a vehicle with a power-to-weight ratio that would allow it to be driven up hills at any respectable speed, and also forgot that slower vehicles are supposed to keep to the right. They get slow in whatever lane they were in, and if they do change lanes at this point, it slows them down even further. Driving up the hill and into the first wisps of low clouds, I think to myself, this cannot be good. Sure enough, at the top of the hill traffic comes to a rather sudden halt, as we pass the scene of an accident - four cars, a Corvette, a Mustang, an SUV of some sort and a pickup truck, all shiny new except for extensive crumple zone damage. I think ‘stupid yuppies’ and then am startled by that thought (quickly checking myself) nope, I'm not one. Whew! That was scary.

At this point it's 9:30, and I have at least five minutes to go, the traffic is a little tighter up here, which takes the fun out of this - now it's more dog-eat-dog, but the closer you get to the LA county line, that's just the way it goes. I get to the exit, having to remind myself several times via the use of a mnemonic (it's Hampshire road so I think, hamster road, because hamsters are funny). And yes, I make this drive regularly, but one of the problems with the zone is its tendency to make you miss exits - things just zoom past, physically and mentally. I do manage get off at Hampshire/hamster road, but exiting the zone takes a little longer, and for a moment I'm disoriented. It's like you look at a word you use all the time thinking, this can't be right, but by the time I hit the bottom of the offramp, I'm back, and in the right place. Total time, door to door, 26 miles with fog and an accident: 20 minutes.