Inner Drive

After a year of commuting from Venice through Mar Vista, Santa Monica and Brentwood, dealing with stop signs and red lights and people who clearly don't understand the urgency of a morning commute, to get to Pacific Palisades for work -- a mere seven-mile drive that would take a half-hour to navigate -- I made a bold move and decided to take Pacific Coast Highway instead.

Pacific Coast Highway is not only the less reliable route, it is the least reliable. Known for its closures and gridlock, and lack of side streets to serve as escape routes, PCH also offers a beautiful view.

Image via TravelPod

And that view is worth the unreliability and utter unpredictability of PCH.  Each morning, I am captivated by the whitecaps racing to shore.  In the evening, I watch the Sun take its slow dive into the water, casting sherbet hues in its descent.  My commute in can be anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes (but, usually, it only takes twenty), and anywhere from fifteen to forty-five minutes to get home (but, usually, only about twenty).  What took me so long to make this decision to change course?

I like predictability. I also like to be able to re-route myself if traffic gets snarled. PCH takes both of those factors out of play.  It removes some of my control. But, as I try to master being in the moment and learning to go with the flow, PCH is the perfect instructor.

There is no rhyme or reason to the traffic on PCH.  Some mornings, it's a clear and all the lights are green. Others are congested with cars and I hit every red light. The rest are somewhere in between. I tried to find a pattern in it. Was it like this every Wednesday? No. Was it because of the weather? No. It just was. And that unpredictability taught me to simply take a breath, whether it's a quick drive in or slow, look at the ocean and say, "Thank you." I'm grateful for either the easy commute or more time to watch the waves and the birds and the clouds in the sky. Either way, I win.

I also stopping listening to the radio while I drive. As much as I love music, Los Angeles radio is a wasteland. (There's only so much Green Day and Thirty Seconds to Mars a girl can take.) My CD player broke ages ago and taking my iPod on such short journeys makes little sense. (Also, I have Angry Birds on it. Exactly. It's best to leave that at home if productivity is at all important.) I now have silence serving as my soundtrack. And that only adds to the beauty of a peaceful commute. Phone calls? We'll that's another beautiful thing about PCH: spotty cell coverage. On PCH, I can only be and drive, take in the view and smile.