At the Wheel
Sitting in the driver's seat, everything is more manageable. The things to keep track of narrow down to a handful: a couple of gauges, the feel through the seat and wheel, the visibility, the drivers, if any, immediately nearby. There are also a few secondary concerns, speed traps, eye fatigue, temperature (though controlling temperature might be sacrificed in order to feel the air rushing through open windows), dry mouth, hunger, back or neck ache and stiffness, the right music.
It occurs to me that if this car has as many miles left in it as my mechanic predicted, I could go back and forth across the country almost 12 times. Probably less than that, since I doubt I'd go the same way more than twice. Still, something about a dozen.
I might not be able to go everywhere, but there are enough possibilities to be effectively infinite. Stopping may only be a temporary option from behind the wheel, but it never ceases to be an option. I can stop wherever the spirit stops me, try to do whatever you thought I might do there, so long as I remember that before long I have to get moving again. Change comes in shades. The engine sounds a little more or less deep, the wind blows in as a whisper or can build to a whistle, the wheels on the pavement hum according to the grooves. The trees become more sparse, then more dense, more evergreen, more deciduous. Wide open spaces start to roll, then start to climb, then become jagged. Sometimes they are green, or brown, or slate grey, but never just one, and the ratios are always shifting. The rent never comes due while I'm on the road. They don't deliver the bills there. It's time for breakfast whenever I wake up, time for lunch whenever my stomach growls louder than the engine, time for dinner whenever I see someplace to stop that calls to me. At other times I have to stop just to fill up the tank, and if I keep alert I just might happen upon something. Whoever might be looking for me will find me only if I let them. I found out soon enough, in these places I stop, that it's not unusual for a stranger to be there. Just, this time, it's me. I might remember that when I get back to my usual places and find a stranger there.