Reading without a Map

I could say that I’m travelling without a map but that would be a cliché…except it’s true on my new Saturday morning drives to Waterloo. And I am actively resisting reading a map.

What does familiarity with a particular route bring to the traveller?

Efficiency:

I remember driving to Hamilton from evening shifts in midtown Toronto. It was always around 1:30 am. Route One was the Southern Route. I’d drop my co-worker at King & Jameson and then land on the Gardiner. (We usually worked 8 consecutive evenings and this took some stamina). Route Two was the Northern Route – up to the 401 West, to the 403 and then south to meet the QE in Oakville.

The routes offered variety. If I was working with the King & Jameson co-worker, the southern route was inevitable.

The route to work was fixed. I don’t know why. There was never any northern route to work. It was always QE, Gardiner, Jarvis, Mt. Pleasant, Eglinton. I remember my little Honda Civic labouring at the corner of Front and Jarvis, catching its breath before we got into the city driving.

I’m trying to remember more of what I experienced in the driving then. I always turned the music up loud. What did I listen to? I knew the road well enough that I knew exactly where and when to change lanes on the QE. I often drove at the speed limit and kept to the right. I was coming home from work but there were a lot of people driving drunk and driving out of some just-prior exuberance. There were angry drivers too and I tried to lie low, stay under their radar.

Is this too much preamble? I haven’t got to the place where I wanted to start writing. I am wandering again. There’s been another death and lots to think about…

What else does familiarity with a particular route bring to the traveller?

Haecceity:

I used to drive to Guelph every Sunday. I had developed my route without a map. It came out of my childhood and out of knowing people along the route – in Morriston and Carlisle and Flamborough. I’d change sometimes out of whim, necessity, weather. I’d range like a dog and sniff out a new section of the place that was me and the route moving together. In the last days of my driving to Guelph, I was the route.

I’m lost now. I drive to North Waterloo without a map. I know how to get there efficiently but I don’t want to take that route. I’m ranging now trying to find my place in this route. I’ve found some bridges (one one-laner!), a butterfly conservatory and an airport. I’ve figured out some of it but every once in a while, I hit a T-junction or a one-way system and I’m lost. And I range and weave and turn the music up loud (mostly jazz radio or Handel or Bach) and follow the river. I always hope that I don’t end up in a subdivision too soon though this is inevitable as I get closer to North Waterloo…it’s just the nature of the place.