Driving Slow on Country Roads
Eager companion.
Pax is the most graceless border collie I’ve ever known. She stumbles, she falls. I’ve seen her slip through cattle guards and staircases. When I first got her three years ago, she couldn’t stay upright in a car and would resort to standing in the cubby at the feet of the front-seat passenger side. She wouldn’t cross narrow creeks, couldn’t keep her balance in even the smallest currents.
In later years, she’s adapted. She happily lurches out into swift rivers, chest-deep in water. She can transition from the front seat to the back seat in a moving car. I call that progress.
But I’ve changed, too. I don’t drive so crazily as I used to (I had a roommate in college who frequently liked to tell people that he trusted my piloting skills more than my driving abilities), and living in rural Missouri, everyone seems to drive slow. I think it’s only about ten miles from our house to the farm, but it takes me nearly thirty minutes every day to get there. With Pax in the car, I average 20-25 miles an hour, braking around corners that are mere curves, creeping over gentle hills.
Sometimes, out of nowhere, Gretchen Rubin’s words come to mind: “The days are long but the years are short.”
Why not savor every moment?
Drive slow. There’s miracle there.
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