Ode to the Road

I may have been a travel blogger in a past life

I’m on a road trip, although, given my déraciné lifestyle, that goes without saying. I’ve now written not one but two books about cars, which is frankly bizarre, since I hate driving. I even wrote my fear of driving into a short story about a woman who couldn’t make unprotected left turns after her divorce.

But it’s undeniable that cars (or private vehicles generally) have been one of the greatest levers of women’s empowerment globally. Last night, at a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, a woman drove by on a scooter and another woman filled her tank. Both of these things were completely normal, unremarkable—and both were completely unthinkable when I was a girl.

Driving by Starlight is about a girl’s desire for freedom, symbolized by her driving a car in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, when women were not allowed to. Like the protagonist, Leena, I too passed as a boy in order to experience certain freedoms, and there was an additional forbidden pleasure in doing these things in disguise.

Her Golden Coast is about two women’s desire to balance freedom and safety. To both of them, their relationship to the car and the open road stands also for their relationship with desire and their physical bodies in the world. One wants to be “moving, always moving, driving miles in an almost ravenous conquest of expanse, discovering indescribable ecstasies that exhaust every sense and thought,” while the other had “never been more aroused than on that drive, with the hum of the car engine on an empty road in the rapacious darkness, and that reckless, ruinous smile Mal gave her sometimes, matched only by the sunset, and the open sea.”

Maybe by writing without fear of the things we fear, we can conquer those fears. I still hate driving, but looking through my photos I realize that cars have actually led me to some pretty interesting places. You’ve all come along on my writing journey, so why not bring you along on my other journeys as well?

Here are some photos I’ve taken from within a car or just beside it, on various road trips:

1. Sri Lanka Peacock Warning

Buddha protects you from aggressive peacocks, which are more dangerous than traffic.

2. Sunrise at a gas station in Iran

I landed in Tehran at 4 AM, and the prayer sounded out at dawn. This was my first view of Iran.

3. Volcano dead ahead, Vanuatu

You can drive right up to the volcano at Tanna in Vanuatu. For my birthday, we carried champagne to the crater in an ice box. This volcano even has a postbox.

4. Even the bridge hugs you, Berkeley, USA

I love how perfectly the arms of the bridge hit the boundaries of the photo.

5 & 6. You an ant bro, Kashmir, India

The photo simply doesn’t do justice to the scale, but those are cows in the foreground.

With bonus road signs like: Bro, you booze, you cruise, you lose.

7 &8. Rainbow sunsets, California, USA

One of my favorite restaurants in the Bay Area, La Costanera, also happens to be located right by the water.

Bonus: I have several shots of California roadside sunsets, but this one is currently my favorite:

9. You look tasty, Myanmar

I like that the lion looks as if it wants to eat the passing cars and use the signal light as a toothpick. I’ve been told I like “slightly derpy animals” and this definitely qualifies.

10. Surfing a flooded jungle, Costa Rica

This was actually a very advanced maneuver of balancing the weight of the person, the surfboards and the truck. The woman driving, Andrea Diaz, is as skilled a driver as she is a surfer.

11. Why is this so complicated? In Jordan

Horses stare in bafflement as the truck transporting them executes an eleventy-point turn. They were definitely giving “You stupid human, turning isn’t that hard” energy.

12 & 13. A 2500-year-old parking lot, Iran

This Jewish quarter in Isfahan goes back to the Sassanid dynasty. But sure, let’s just park right up next to it.

Bonus: Isfahan bridges on a full-moon night:

14. Syncretism in a single frame, Kerala, India

One of the things I’m working through in my fantasy novel is the notion of syncretism, and how critical it is for survival. When a new god or religion can’t completely convert or eliminate the masses, they must learn to coexist. Here is a Syrian Christian church in the middle of a forest in Kerala. There’s already too many influences to name in the church itself (the linked Wikipedia article goes right back to 52 AD when an Aramaic-speaking Jew landed on the Malabar shores, through Portuguese subjugation, British oppression and communist government) but also part of the church is a gold pillar, which is a Hindu dwajasthambam because why not.

15. Road to Rome, Italy

All roads lead there, but what a view you’re leaving behind. I love how perfectly the red car frames and reflects the sunset.

16. Her Golden Coast, Hawaii, USA

I’m usually the one who rents the car and drives, but do they give me a cute convertible? No.

Well, I’m not going to complain when I got a muse out of the deal. And she looks better behind the wheel.

Hope you all are enjoying the last of this year, wherever you are. Drive safe, and see you in 2025!