Sweet surrender in Soledad

The other day about 2 p.m. while driving and drowsy northbound on Highway 101, I pulled off at Soledad, parked facing another car at a modest-sized shopping center, turned the engine off, put the key in my pocket, cracked the windows, cranked the seat back and went to sleep. One minute I was hurtling along at 60 or 70 mph, struggling to stay awake and in grave danger of killing myself and taking a bunch of other people with me, and the next I was carefree and happy and stock still. We think of going  to sleep as falling or sinking, but in the brief bit of consciousness I retained while undergoing that transition, it felt more like taking flight, as though my thoughts were a flock of birds, each free to wheel and soar wherever it pleased at absolutely no risk to me or anyone else. It was the opposite of risk. Having first taken the sensible precaution of stopping, I knew that by surrendering to my fatigue and letting go entirely, I was protecting myself. The contrast between the misery of driving and the relief of suddenly not driving was so sharp, it gave me a conscious sense of buoyancy even as I lost consciousness. We identify mobility with freedom, and being stationary with confinement, but on that freeway I was in a sort of prison, and in that parking lot, in park with the hand brake on and the motor off and my eyes closed, I was free. 

Image courtesy Google & WallpaperUP