Driving While Black and Disabled

Before you get concerned, no cause for panic.  I haven't been stopped recently.  This post is more about my fear of being stopped, my visibility in general, and, in my case, the literal dance of the drive home.

Though I live only 30 or so miles away from where I work and though I drive a freeway, my commute regularly takes anywhere between 50 and 70 minutes -- the difference being traffic, accidents, rush hour and general dingbattage.  It's not as exhausting as you might think.  Yes, it's the worst thing for my body: I warm up in the therapy pool or at home or in the gym and then have to stuff my body into the awkward angles of my car and sit still.  Same deal for the way home.  After hours of rehearsal, I need a hot bath and stretching; being jammed up in a vehicle is not what you think you would need.

Some drivers I know play games with themselves -- how few times do you have to brake?  Can you keep your chosen constant speed?  Any constant speed?  That's not me.

I like it because I am invisible on the freeway (or like to think that I am).  I have a chosen and preferred speed, yes, but as much as I like to drive it, I mostly prefer to make my car as much like the others on the road as possible.  I try never to drive with open space ahead of me.  I prefer to be a corps de ballet dancer on the road.  I slip into the traffic, choose my following distance, and settle into being just one of a constant stream of commuters.  I seek; I desire not to stand out.

My invisibility is a fiction, of course, my "crime" driving while black is somewhat mitigated by my gender.  But I am nonetheless visible through the windows of my car.  My disability may also be visible: I have a disability related plate and my car usually sports wheels and wheelchairs that poke up at odd angles.  Nonetheless, I take pride in my skills of being able to "sense" a slowdown, a lane intrusion, a hiccup, a ....  It's the closest I get to being in a crowd without the horror of actually being in a crowd and being subject to/surrounded by crowd mentality.

I need to be invisible after a day of dancing.  Even in rehearsal, I feel exposed and vulnerable.  The movement works its magic on us; the choreographers take, take, take, shape, push, occasionally nurture, but mainly take and push.  And the cycle continues.  Six hours later, I float onto the Interstate; the rhythm and music are set by the traffic; I don't drive to the beat of my own drum.  I do what I am told; I vanish in the crowd.  There's a kind of mental recuperation that I need and seek as an invisible commute dancer.  Only then, do I feel whole enough to arrive at home and begin to settle in as human.

There's a slight irony to this post. It's taken a couple of days to finish, but as I was driving to work just after having started it, I realized there was with not enough traffic on the road.  There was a speed trap; the cop didn't pick me up, but he did point his big old radar gun right at me as I drove on past.  He had an odd expression on his face.  But then, so did I: I was doing face warm up and vocal warm up exercises.  I can't imagine what he thought, as I sped (not too literally, I hope, past).  For a second, the myth of invisibility, the very illusion I was writing about here, popped.

I was driving to my own music; a soloist, not a corps dancer.  And boy, was I exposed.