Don't Sleep In The Subway

I drove Bryan, our daughter's boyfriend, to SEA-TAC yesterday. He was on the way to WI to visit his mom. We were about five minutes outside of Bellingham when I realized he was asleep. Immediately I was transported back in time to family vacations, driving across the western US to various destinations, and eyeball TV.

That's right. Western America was speeding by and I was sleeping.

Much like a baby, I was lulled to sleep by the car's movement. The roadway motions, inactivity and what I'm sure to me was an unchanging landscape would lull me a trance-like state and eventually sleep. When Laura was a baby and was especially hard to get to sleep, we would bundle her up, put her in the car seat and take a ride. A short ride around the neighborhood and she was out like a light.

It's not like I grew out if it, either. When I was commuting back and forth between Medford, OR and Santa Rosa, CA with a group, my turn as a passenger meant never seeing Mount Shasta, as even with a full night's sleep I was nodding off like a baby before long.

In one of my favorite Peanuts cartoons, Linus asked Charlie Brown what security was. Charlie Brown said it was falling asleep in the backseat of the car, being carried inside by your parents and waking up the next morning in your bed without remembering how you got there.

For some it is the rhythms of the sea, the subtle movement of the ship as it rides the waves that will hasten a trip to the Land of Nod. Others like the rocking movement of the train and the constant clacking of the rails. For me, tires rumbling over empty lanes and the slight sway of a car on the highway invokes the memories of years past and countless trips to dreamland.