Freedom for me is the fourteen-year-old Chrysler parked in our garage. I’ve loved to drive ever since I passed the test to receive my license when I was sixteen. When I climb behind the steering wheel, I’m free to go where I want and be who I want.
An hour or two of travel takes me to Madison or Chicago. For a day or a week, I’m a writer among writers sharing experiences and learning new things at a workshop or a conference. My urban friends see the world in a much different way than I do. I don’t agree with them, but I listen to their points of view.
The sedan has taken me to Elmhurst, Illinois, and Dubuque, Iowa. Those two days I was a proud grandmother watching our granddaughter and grandson receive their college diplomas.
From time to time, the automobile takes me to the Laona Township Cemetery. For a few solemn moments, I’m a daughter or a mother visiting the graves of my Dad and Mom and our oldest child, Linda, who’s buried alongside her grandparents in the country graveyard.
On April 17, the chariot took me to the dinner theater Circa 21 at Rock Island. That night I was a happy wife toasting sixty years of marriage with my husband. We piled our plates at a buffet of delicious food followed by a musical performance of Grumpy Old Men. When I’m pissed at that man, the car is my escape hatch. Driving off for a shopping trip in Rockford keeps me from yelling things I’d regret later.
After each respite of freedom, the blue, magic carpet brings me home–the center of my universe. I have a new appreciation for my routine life of wife, mother, grandmother and writer.
How do you define freedom?