I can’t really explain why, at least in any sort of concise way, but I often find myself feeling nostalgic specifically for times I’ve spent riding in cars. If I’m driving and a certain song, or even a certain genre of music comes on. If the sun hits the windshield a certain way. If the wind blows a particular coolness through the window. The way my fingers feel frozen around the steering wheel on a cold morning.

I think about driving around in high school a lot. Driving at night, with my friends. One of those bands from that time playing. For such an intense feeling of nostalgia, the memory is strangely not specific. Driving around, not going anywhere in particular. We did that a lot. Or maybe to a party. One across town, which felt like another world to me back then. The world was so small. Or rather, my world was small and outside of it was bigger than I could imagine at the time. One time we were driving around on the other side of town after leaving a party—we stopped, for no reason whatsoever, and my friend and I drunkenly kicked down some poor person’s wooden fence. Then we got in the car and went home and slept in our parents’ houses and no repercussions even remotely entered into our sheltered lives. He lives in Portland now with his girlfriend of ten years.

The world gets bigger the older you get. At least in my experience. I often feel nostalgic for a more recent time. Driving cross country with friends. Going the southern route, it felt like a different country. Every city completely unexplored. Anything could happen. And the stars at night between the cities were something else. We drove off the highway in Arkansas late one night. Just to look up. Our car went into a ditch and we had a time of it pushing it out. I’m sure some local would have had a laugh over that. Three boys got stuck out in the mud late at night just to see the stars? The ones we get to see every night?! We laughed about it later. Also, we saw a lot of cows.

I’ll be driving out here in L.A, and suddenly I’m in the back seat of my parents’ car. On our way home from my grandma and grampa’s in Stamford on Christmas Eve, Christmas songs on the radio, my little sister asleep next to me. Both of us small enough to curl up completely on the seat. Looking through the window and through the trees on the Merritt Parkway to watch the moon following us. I’m tired and I want to go to sleep. And it’s okay because if I do fall asleep, I know my dad’ll carry me in, and the next time I wake up, Santa will have come. That’s a good feeling, a secure feeling. I’m not sure I’ve felt it on that level since. Maybe it’s just a childhood feeling. Maybe adults aren’t meant to feel that. Perhaps we’re all just trying to get that feeling back. Maybe that’s why I’ve been thinking about riding in cars.

College was pretty cold up in Storrs, and I didn’t even have a car on campus until Senior year. But the girl I was seeing did, an old BMW that was really a piece of junk. Sometimes it would be so cold the key wouldn’t turn the lock on the doors and we’d be stranded in the student parking lot, freezing our asses off. But if we could get in, the seats had those electric warmers in them. And then we’d be driving down the winding Route 32, no lights but the two on the front of her car, looking for some restaurant. We were always going to eat at some restaurant. I don’t know how we found these places. They were pretty good, too, but then again we were college students. Sometimes as she drove, I’d feel her hand in one of her mittens reach over and intertwine her fingers with mine in the dark, and just squeeze. It was a good feeling. It was warm. I never wore any gloves. I guess I’m looking to find that feeling again, too. Just somebody to grasp my freezing hand in a cold car. It was 88 degrees here in L.A the other day. I had to look at Google Maps just now to remember it was Route 32.

Cars can take you pretty far. That’s a good thing. Just always try and know what you’re driving away from. I wish that was more insightful than it is, but that’s all I really have right now.