I Went for a Drive

I never made it to the end, despite not having an end in mind. I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe the road would just turn from asphalt to gravel, gravel to dirt, and then the road would be no more. Maybe the road would just end abruptly. Maybe, at that abrupt end, there would be a sign saying “Here Be Dragons, Turn Back”. Whatever the end was, I never found it.

The plan was simply to drive. I would leave my home with a few cameras, some cash, some emergency rations, a cellphone, an audio recorder, and, most importantly, an iPod. I had only the most general destination in mind. North. How far North could I get from where I left? “Not very” was the answer. My first end came only 3 hours in, when I found myself driving through beach towns, glimpses of water to my left. I picked a street at random, parked my car, and went for a walk. This road ended at a beach. A cursory glance at my phone­—a practice I was trying hard to avoid—tells me I’m staring into Georgian Bay. Maybe I should have planned this out a little.

As I drive, I listen, look, and talk. Talk to myself, using the recorder. I talk about how I don’t really have much to talk about. The point of this was to follow a hunch. The hunch was that I find inspiration in driving—that there’s something fundamental about driving that appeals to me. The movement. The passage of time. The landscape. That’s what I look at. I don’t just see landscape. I see landscape in motion. And with motion, I see rhythm. I listen to this rhythm, and pick music according to this rhythm¹.

Right now, the rhythm is fucked. I’m not driving the way I normally drive. There are specific drives I take, where the route is now second nature, where I can almost go blindfolded. These roads are familiar to me, comforting. They disappear, meld into my subconscious, and suddenly I can think clearly. This is not one of those drives. This is scary, intimidating. I keep looking at my phone, distracted, worried I’ll end up somewhere other than North. I gave myself 12 hours on the road, least I exhaust myself and fall asleep at the wheel. This drive is turning dangerous. Threatening. The opposite of the meditative drive I thought I needed.

It gets worse on Day 2. I stay overnight in Cochrane, Ontario. This is pretty close to as far North of Cambridge as you’d want to go, but the road still goes. The end hasn’t been reached. I wake up, shower, eat, and leave. I don’t check the weather forecast.


Marco Chimienti
14.12.16

1. I thought about maybe giving this idea its own space, but here will do just fine. That fundamental appeal in driving is very much present in music as well, and more specifically, in repetition. I will listen to songs and albums on repeat for hours, days even. Eventually, I’m not hearing the music anymore, but something deeper. Repetition is a keyword that I’ve entirely left out but will be critical in the end. Ties in directly with infinity, I think. Anyways, here are the albums I listened to during this trip (or at least, the ones that have been documented in some form or another): McClusky - Do Dallas; Hamilton + Rostam - I Had A Dream You Were Mine, Bon Iver - 22, A Million; Dirty Beaches - Drifters; Portishead - Portishead; Handsome Furs - Face Control; Timber Timbre - S/T; The Microphones - It Was Hot, We Stayed In the Water; The Field - The Follower; Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool; The Field - Cupid’s Head; Fleetwood Mac - Rumors; Flying Lotus - Cosmograma; Frank Ocean - Blond; Tim Hecker - Virgins.