"I do my best thinking on the bus. That's how come I don't drive, see... The more you drive, the less intelligent you are." -Miller in
Repo Man
I haven't owned a car in ten years. Around 2000, I was working in Niles, Illinois— a town that was 45 minutes from Elgin, where I lived. I felt bad for giving lip service to an anti-pollution stance and still driving everywhere. I actually enjoyed the commute because it was a time to zone-out and listen to music, daydream. But soon my car started showing the strain, breaking down more often and getting closer to the time when it would stop altogether. I decided I had to work closer to home and looked for a library job nearby (I've always worked in libraries, though I am not a librarian, which requires a masters degree in library science). I found a job, but that's another story involving an evil little person and and being in an underground cavern during daylight hours. In 2005, I decided it was finally time for me to try to be an artist full time, so I quit a good job (by that time I had a 30-hour-a-week job at a
different library, benefits and all) and began being an artist. About a year later, I was sitting up reading around 3AM and heard a crash out on the street. I looked outside and saw a car had been knocked into the middle of the road by another car, which was limping around the corner out of sight. Then I noticed it was
my car in the middle of the road. It turned out my car was unusable, and not worth repairing.
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| Random stuff found on walks |
I decided not to get another car and to see if I could manage without one. I was nervous about this: I had to go into the city twice or more a month with large amounts of paintings. In the past I would load up my car to the gills with art and drive to the shows. I started making smaller work, which I would tie into bundles to carry on each side. I'd put smaller pieces in bags to carry on my shoulders. Elgin has a commuter train that regularly goes into the city, and the train station was a five minute walk from my house. I began using the train regularly, getting off at Western Avenue in Chicago and either walking to where I needed to go (many of the cafés I showed work at where near there), or catching the Western bus. I would study the map (pre mapquest days) and see what route would work best. I had no difficulties, well not usually. There were times when something would go wrong, a café owner wasn't there when they said they would be. But I have very few memories of anything going really wrong. I enjoyed taking that train and got to know many of the friendlier conductors well. I also saw interesting and diverse people while riding the Metra Milwaukee District Westline! There was the woman with a suitcase full of underwear who poured medicine, or some liquid, onto her crotch (if you sit in the upper seats you can see what's going on down below) and the Asian man who kept throwing his cell phone at the floor. Another time I heard a white supremacist dirtbag talking to his friend about how he wanted to get a tattoo of Martin Luther King being shot. I had no liberal bubble to curl up in while riding the train! You see a much wider variety of your fellow humans (and sub-humans) while on public transportation.
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| Marbles found on walks |
I began walking everywhere—The library, the grocery store, all over town in fact. I discovered the incredible Fox River Bike Trail that hugs the river for forty miles South and North of Elgin and began taking epic bike rides in both directions. On my rides I saw snakes, all kinds of birds, turtles, beaver, deer. I once came across a couple having sex and they were so startled, I felt bad! I found money on the trail, and lost parakeets. Near a landfill there was a patch of thistle that goldfinches swarmed in the summer. The blue-burning fires for the gas vents made me think of the blue fire in
Dracula, which marked the places treasure was buried. I found an old abandoned house full of broken pottery, marbles, toys and other cool debris.
Walking (and biking) began to be a real joy to me. I realized that when I had a car, I would often go far out of my way to some store or other because I
could, even if in reality I didn't need to. Not having a car makes you cut out unnecessary excursions. I was walking to the store for food, the library to do computer stuff and get books, and to other places I enjoyed visiting around town. I got to know many people on my walks; an older man who worked in his garden, the owners of the junk stores I enjoyed browsing. Often I would just take walks for enjoyment—meanders through town to the creepy old Elgin State Hospital (now Elgin Mental Health Center) or through the more sketchy parts of town. On my walks I'd find lots of things, and began collecting them. Mostly I found marbles and playing cards, but other stuff too. Once I saw a crow tossing something yellow around and when I approached, I saw it was a little Evanston Lumber carpenter's pencil. Later, when my boyfriend Tim and I moved in together in Evanston, I went to Evanston Lumber often.
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| Cards found while walking |
Walking allows you to really see and experience the world. I like walking better than biking for that reason. I bike in the summer simply to save time, or if I have to go somewhere too far to walk. These days Tim and I live in Geneva, Illinois and I have another library job the next town over, in Batavia. I have walked or biked the four miles back and forth for three years. I've seen bald eagles, pelicans, bluebirds and periodically see a guy who looks like a TV version of a serial killer. Walking gives me time to think about my life, art, and writing. Now I find being in a car strange. In cars I feel disconnected from the world, like I'm moving too fast and unable to calculate the distances of things. I still drive when I visit my 86-year-old mother—we go do errands, shopping and whatnot. I feel alienated from car culture. People seem intensely impatient in a way I don't understand anymore. It takes me over an hour to walk to work, whereas in a car it's a ten minute trip. Being in a car feels like watching TV to me. When I drive I am aware of how detached I feel from people walking and biking. It's easy to see why so many cars hit pedestrians and bikers. Driving increases a sense of urgency, making drivers more impatient. Our entire culture and lifestyle is based on cars. People can't even take the time to walk into a fast food restaurant or a bank, even libraries have drive up windows now.
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| Walking up Montjuïc with Tim |
I feel like the whole world has gone astray. Once you step outside of "normal culture," you can really see how strange and wrong a lot of things are. Yesterday I was taking the bus home from Elgin and the driver told me a man in a Lexus had rolled his car over and smashed into a telephone pole so hard the crews were still there 5 hours later trying to fix the pole. I saw the photos of the smashed car, which was eviscerated and read that the man was in critical condition. I was surprised he had survived. What was he speeding to—the next red light? What was so urgent?
Humans and other animals are delicate, fragile things (which is made abundantly clear from all the horrible carcasses one sees on roads, the remains of our impatience and callousness). Our sense of urgency is an invented one. I invite you to walk one day, even if it's to work or an appointment. See how long it takes to get there when you use your own power. Observe how you are treated by people in cars, and whether or not there is an adequate walkway for where you need to go. I've structured my life so that I can walk, bike, take buses and trains. Most people's lives, jobs and everything else is dictated by cars. You work far away from where you live, you shop at some other distant place. Cars have created pollution, sprawl, an obesity epidemic and are helping destroy the climate. I found that when I lost my car, I found a better life: I wasn't a slave of something I had blindly accepted.
