Goin' on a Joy Ride
When the road is unavailable, what makes you feel free?
In high school, my greatest joy was going for a ride. Freedom exploded on to the scene the year we all turned sixteen. While there were brand new Jeeps and Lexus’ in the parking lot of my high school, my friends were the crowd that parked damn near a mile away and were sporting whatever banged up beater our parents found on a flyer at the mechanic’s. There was Buick the boat that six of us piled in to so we could all go to lunch in one car. And the affectionately, appropriately named “Murr-mobile”, a grey 1984 Dodge Rampage that had its own personality and in today’s world, would have had its own Instagram handle.
Then there was that one friend, a Senior who for some reason liked me, or more likely, wanted my gas money. She drove a Mustang. I could feel myself touching tips with the Cool Kids club as I slid in to her passenger seat. We would rev that engine up and down Falls of the Neuse Road, windows open in the dead of winter, heat blazing to keep us warm. Fun at that age is feeling your face freeze and your feet overheat while you fly down the street going too fast with a friend that’s basically fabricated fantasy.
The joy ride was our liberation, our defiance.
We wasted our hard earned gas money idling in the parking lot of Goodberry’s, cruising the same half mile loop around the neighborhood just waiting to be seen. Speed wasn’t the only thrill, sometimes it was just about who was watching. Right car, right guy, right parking lot.
Joy ride.
Age upped the anty. The cars got precipitously nicer and the speed proportionately more dangerous. I never liked racing. Adrenaline is not my favorite drug, and I frankly like living. So, my definition of joy riding evolved. When you’re single in your 30’s in a city who’s dying to be recognized for its high end game, there are a lot of men willing to let you drive their ridiculously overpriced toys. It’s a much better prize than a dick pic, so I often took advantage. To this day, I know the purr of a Maserati without looking. That’s a 6-figure joy ride, and it’s worth every zero.
But my favorite joy ride, the one I actually miss, is Otis. Otis is my dear friend’s 57-year old Chevy truck. He let me drive him once. You have to pump the gas and cuss like a sailor to get him to start, but that rumble once he comes to life? Oooooooh baby! I’m pretty sure things would start to fall out of his belly if you went more than 40mph, but there’s no need. Otis gives you everything you’ve ever asked for at a smooth 25. The rumble reverberates in your chest and you feel your heart beat in a different way, tuning in to Otis’ rhythm. And you remember that there were things that came before that were better and shouldn’t be forgotten.
That’s a long way of saying, I understand a joy ride. So, when my husband told me he wanted to learn to build motorcycles, I got that. Adrenaline is his elixir, so not surprising, but also not particularly concerning. My husband is meticulous. He learned to build the machine so he understood it, every part carefully selected, every step requiring hours of research. And what he was scared to do or just couldn’t, he took to Booger (no shit, that’s his name). Booger owned an absolutely no frills motorcycle repair shop. They mainly worked on Harleys, but took in my husband’s custom crotch rocket as a personal project. Booger and his mechanics made sure the bike was legit.
Speaking of rumbling, that bike was L-O-U-D! So loud he wasn’t allowed to start her up while our daughter was sleeping. So loud the first time he started it in front of my daughter, we put head phones on her. So loud its no wonder the fool needs hearing aids now. But damn, I won’t deny the power in that joy ride. Or the relief when I could hear her coming home from almost a mile away. When he pulled off his full face helmet, it would get stuck on his smile. He loved that bike.
It was supposed to be a joy ride. A perfect midday relaxing putter down the winding roads that hug the state park. The kids were in school, the old people don’t go out that far, and once you get there, there are miles of two lane road with minimal cut ins and almost no traffic. But, first you have to get there. Which he didn’t. The botched joy ride ended before it got started when road construction blocked his path, so he turned around. He was coming home. So close I could almost hear the throaty growl of the V-twin. And then silence. The joy ride was over.
After the accident, my husband gave up motorcycles. And cars, although not by choice. The severity of his facial injuries resulted in severe double vision, and neither of us were willing to chance going another round with the pavement. But losing the joy ride of your choice AND the choice to ride at all is beyond what most people can stomach. My husband is a rational, reasonable man, but the tiger in him started to feel caged. We needed another option.
One July day, I could feel his trapped energy. Despite our lazy morning in bed, sipping coffee and half-heartedly watching Bluey with our daughter, he was vibrating.
“Let’s go look at the Boat Club!” I said, desperate to redirect some of that energy.
“Really?” He looked at me quizzically, not quite believing I was serious.
“Yeah! We’ve been talking about doing it, let’s just go check it out.”
And there it was. The spark. The vibration made it to his eyes and then shot to his brain. A combat diver, water is his second skin. And boats, well boats have engines, and steering wheels, and there aren’t any lanes because there aren’t any roads. 🤔
90 minutes later, we were the newest members of the Freedom Boat Club! We paid our money, got the password for our online training, and most importantly, the date for our first on-the-water expedition. The vibrating stopped or, more aptly, eased. There was a joy ride a’comin.
My husband brought himself back to life. Laying on that concrete, semi-conscious, blood running down his chin, he mumbled my phone number. Over and over and over. The mantra his only form of communication, tethering him to this world long enough for help to bring him crashing back in to it.
But there is so much more that brought him back to himself. Turns out, you don’t need binocular vision to drive a boat. The waterways are wide, the turning radius big, and the boats sturdy. And you can feel it coming when you press that hotfoot all the way forward and the bow rises out of the water. The boat crests and settles and you are on your way. On a joy ride, that is, waves spittin’ in your face while the wind whips away your hat.
We learned something from the water, a statement that belies most of my wisdom. Joy rides don’t require cars. Or roads.
Just Freedom. Liberation. Defiance.
A joy ride is a feeling. A little bit scary. A little bit wild. A little bit beyond the here and a little bit past the now. It’s a release and a reward. A chance to explore the vibration, not knowing where it will take you, or who you’ll be when you return. It’s living. The best kind.
So fuck death. Let’s go for a joy ride.
I want to know what YOUR joy ride is. Even better, what’s the ride that keeps you off the road and still makes you feel free? Tell us! Hop over to Instagram (@jessgwrites) and answer the question in my Story.
What a moving story, and I love how you came up with a creative solution!