Photo by Tim Trad on Unsplash

Wanna go driving?

I get a text like this most days from my son. Reese is 16, and he was right in the middle of taking his drivers ed course when school closed because of the pandemic. Now, in what is turning out to be the slowest summer of our lives, he has ample time to practice his driving. 

The funny thing is, Reese likes to text me, even if he’s just sitting across the room: “Wanna go driving?” This has become our secret signal, the unspoken get-out-of-jail-free card we have during these lazy summer days when COVID-19 makes it difficult to go anywhere. I toss him my keys, grab my shoes, and we’re off. 

If he’s in a good mood, his sister gets invited, too. 

“But don’t talk,” he tells her. “I need to concentrate.”

With laser-like determination, Reese has identified a laundry list of driving bugaboos he must conquer: the underpass, the on-ramp to the highway, a curvy road that unexpectedly slaps you with a blinding view of the setting sun if you’re heading west at just the wrong time. There’s that left turn at that one tricky intersection. Today, he decides to try driving with the radio on. An old Whitney Houston hit comes on, but since he keeps the volume low, I take my cue and refrain from singing out in full voice—we’ll work up to that some day.

I know what I want to carry in my heart from this summer. It's definitely not the nagging frustration and anxiety of living in the midst of a pandemic. Everything seems so unsure right now! But I'm holding out hope that in a few years, none of that will matter. All I'll remember are these daily drives with Reese. 

Last night, he filled the gas tank and he drove for nearly an hour. We turned off the air conditioner and rolled down the windows. The sticky, hot day was cooling off, and the breeze smelled unmistakably like summer. The sky put on its dazzling display of pinks and oranges and lavenders. Clouds took the form of giant puffballs with glinting golden thread stitched around their edges.

How many miles have I driven Reese? Mothers in my generation are the Minivan Moms. We’ve driven countless miles back and forth to school, music lessons, soccer games. We grip the wheel at 10 and 2 to safely deliver our kids to enriching activities, then we retrieve them and toss goldfish crackers and string cheese at them in the back seat, anticipating their hunger before they even realize it themselves.

Now, I look over and my little boy is taller than I am. This man-child is driving me. I lean my head back and lazily drape my arm out the window. He is a good driver, and I feel relaxed. 

“Mom, is it okay if I drive a little further this way?” he asks me.

You’re in the driver’s seat, I tell him. You get to decide where we go.

It feels nice not to be in charge.